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Copyright by John T. Reed

California has a 24-billion dollar budget deficit. They tried to lower it a bit with some cockamamie referenda that were supposed to trick voters into agreeing to higher taxes on 5/19/09. We did not agree to that. Indeed, we voted it down by about two to one.

Now Governator Schwarzenegger is asking the federal government to bail California out.

Don’t do it.

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You may wonder why our legislature does not just make the cuts necessary to balance the budget. After all, they were elected by the same voters who gave a resounding “no” to the tax increases.

First, CA has been taken over by illegal aliens who somehow become citizens. They also give birth to legal citizens who grow up to voting age. (You are automatically citizen of the country in which you are born. Illegal aliens who are nine months pregnant move here to have the baby so he or she will be a citizen.) Part of the budget deficit also comes from paying for all the services the illegal aliens use.

California Proposition 187 (a.k.a. Save Our State initiative) was a 1994 referendum designed to prohibit illegal aliens from using social services, health care, and public education in California. It was passed by the voters but later ruled unconstitutional by a federal court. Before Prop 187, Latinos were both Democrat and Republican. After Prop 187, which had many prominent Republican supporters, California Latinos have generally been Democrats.

That gave Democrats control of the state legislature. They used that control to gerrymander the state. Our gerrymandered state now has few contested general elections. By making almost every district either majority Democrats (most) or Republicans (few), they have made the party primary elections the only ones that count. Thus are our legislators almost all extremely partisan. (Gerrymandering is supposed to end after the 2010 census because we approved a referendum that has a non-partisan committee do it henceforth.) Partisan legislators are like Jack Spratt and his wife. The Republicans refuse to vote for tax increases—which is reasonable given that we already have the highest income and sales tax in the U.S.—and the Democrats refuse to cut any give-away programs or union pay or benefits—which is an outrage.

In the past, we approved various referenda, most notably Prop 13, that require 2/3 votes for tax increases. The CA Democrats have a majority in the legislature, but not 2/3. So they keep raising spending, but they cannot raise taxes. Thus the $42 billion deficit.

We passed another referendum limiting spending, but we later approved two exceptions for education and transportation. (I did not vote for the exceptions) That was a big mistake. We need to remove those exceptions.

There is talk that Obama will offer a bailout, but require removing Prop 13 and the other 2/3 vote requirements for raising taxes. If he does that, he should probably never set foot in CA again. CA is too liberal, but even the liberals love Prop 13—or enough of them that it is sacrosanct. Warren Buffett was one of Schwarzenegger’s most prominent economic advisors, until he publicly said Prop 13 needed to be changed. If you dis Prop 13, you’d better be running for office in San Francisco or Santa Monica—two Communist cities. Elsewhere in CA, dissing Prop 13 brings out citizens with torches, nooses, and pitchforks.

If you taxpayers of other states plan to give us the bail out and demand getting rid of Prop 13 and the other limits on taxes, I believe I speak for the majority of Californians when I invite you to shove your bailout.

Furthermore, California does not need a bailout. California’s public employee unions and pensioners need a bailout. The Democrat party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the California public employee unions. What California needs are substantial budget cuts so that our per capita state spending is average or lower, rather than above almost all other states. Eventually, I expect we will pass a referendum to do that. In the meantime, put the state into receivership or bankruptcy and have the people in charge lower payments to union employees and retirees down to the level that is normal in other states.

Thanks for listening, dudes.

John T. Reed

I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions. If there are any errors or omissions in my facts or logic, please tell me about them. If you are correct, I will fix the item in question. If you wish, I will give you credit. Where appropriate, I will apologize for the error. To date, I have been surprised at how few such corrections I have had to make.