Poor management – entirely predictable – heinous outcome. This is ticking me off, does it show?

More at CalculatedRisk

Digg is open

Thanks for keeping this from slipping off the radar, it’s egregious.

That is truly appalling.

But hey, businesses will get a tax break:

One break would allow businesses to take larger deductions on capital investments they make this year and next, instead of spreading them over several years. That is intended to encourage companies to speed up capital spending. The break—called “bonus depreciation”—has been tried before, in 2002 and 2008. But a lengthy Federal Reserve study on the 2002 break found that it had “only a very limited impact…on investment spending, if any.”

So it’s all good.

(I feel compelled to add /s)

Thanks for this, egregious.
But…OMFG, WTF California?
IMO, the Governor and Legislators should be going without their pay and perks before cutting into the bones of the state’s most vulnerable.
This is just disgusting.
FunnyDiva
Former Californian

Jane,

Is that a California tax break for businesses?

And students – let them eat Ramen.

Hey, they can take hot water, mix out with ketchup and call it “tomato soup” just like we did.

Oh, of course, if they spend on Capital (= STUFF&THINGS!), they should get a break. Seems to me a refund proportional to the amount of payroll taxes they pay (relative to T=0 of the downturn) would be a more effective and direct way to keep people working and consuming at least the basics.
FunnyD

And if the electricity is turned off and the water’s not hot, it’ll be gazpacho! Totally gourmet, what’s not to love?!
FunnyD

Holy shit.

And corporations pay taxes. these other people— just leeches, ya know.

I wonder if the people of California will totally recall Arnold now. I thought he was going to kick some ass down in Sacramento, just like he does in the movies!

No more moronic celebrities for political office.

And get rid of the f***ing 2/3rd’s rule in the legislature.

not the disabled. that should be the very last thing to go – after turning off the lights in gov. buildings.

jfc.

Or they can take hot mustard packets and make hot and sour soup.

Arnold will just call all of the people affected “girlie men”, and tell them to get a job.

The GOP will praise him, and start talking 2012 president run, despite the fact that Arnold can’t run for President (even though he still holds the delusion that Congress will amend the Constitution for him and him alone).

So, is BO gonna give money to states that need it? waitin’ to see how tyhat works. Take my state (please). Broke. Services cut to the bone. More to come in the next budget. Some $$$ from the feds would be welcome. But this place has no income tax and relies almsot entirely for revenue on the sales tax. Much as we can use the $$$$, it isn’t at all fair to ask people in say, Ohio, to pay for a budget shortfall here because our legislators don’t have the balls to pass an income tax. And our people are too stupid to vote for ones who do.

these people are completely blind to what is going on. are they trying to incite a revolution????

so if i’m in ca they are keeping my tax refund (which is NOT theirs to keep) AND AND AND cutting off the most vulnerable people from their lifeline? wtf?

if i’m in ca i am clearly asking myself WHAT ARE THEY USING MY MONEY FOR? could they be using the tax refund money to continue the cushiony existence of some elites somewhere? yup. who else is left?

they are nuts. they have one choice: raise taxes on the wealthy (and I do mean wealthy … not the struggling middle class) OR face the people’s wrath.

the optics are dreadful.

Ain’t gonna happen. I’m old enough to remember when there were id10ts who wanted to amend things so that Kissinger could run for president.

And he actually had a functioning brain.

You can make a pretty good meal from sugar and cream packets and hot water at McDonalds.

this no taxes shit has to stop. it’s one good thing about this financial crisis. it looks to me like it’s going to go far enough that the only answer will be to ask those who CAN pay TO pay. if the politicians get voted out for doing that … then new ones get voted in … and they are forced to ask those who CAN pay TO pay. more voting new people. more taxes. rinse. lather. repeat.

unintended consequences. soon there will be no other choice. the ideology is trumped by the red ink and the suffering in the streets.

I don’t think we in Ca are going to sit still for this. I don’t have a tax refund due me but if I did I certainly wouldn’t be quiet. I do think you are about to hear a mighty roar from the left coast.

I did that in grad school, and generic mac-and-cheese. It sucks.

Fortunately, my parents figured out that the best b-day gift was grocery money. My birthday arrived right around the hungry time between my last summer check and first stipend check.

i am already planning on arranging my life so i am no longer willfully funding people who are already too rich. i’m done with that shit.

i want my tax money and any penalties i must endure for this crisis to go to those WHO NEED IT. they cannot cut needy people off without this being the first reaction!!!!

And if this is some kind of ploy to get higher on the list for federal bailout, I hope they can look their citizens in the face and explain why they’re scaring old and disabled people in the process.

And, the state of California’s credit ratings, right now, this moment, when I checked them are
Fitch Ratings: A+
Moody’s Investors Service: A1
Standard & Poor’s: A+

I had an old popcorn popper/hot plate. One of those little weird things we discovered was that mixing Van Camp’s Beanie Weenie and Dinty Moore Beef Stew somehow managed to cancel out the negatives of the two and actually mixed pretty good.

Separately it all sucked but was tolerable when mixed together for some reason.

California ratings sliding into the ocean.

And get rid of the f***ing 2/3rd’s rule in the legislature.

amen. and the rest of prop 13.

This is beyond disgraceful,it is borderline criminal, IMO.

This is food we are talking about.

Basic, life sustaining food.

I learned to make generic-mac-and-cheese palatable with a dose of parmesan (not the green can) and italian sausage. A pound of sausage was enough for five or six packages of mac-and-cheese. The price difference between the house brand and Kraft was enough to offset the cost of the parmesan and sausage.

Let’s get real. This announcement is part of a campaign to increase sympathy for the poor people of California. Get the message, Barrack? Bad things are going to happen unless you bail out the state. BTW, California has one of the most progressive income taxes in the country. Problem is, the truly wealthy avoid taxes by holding equities, so their wealth increases without being taxed. The poor folks who actually have taxable incomes tend to lose income during a recession. So–no more income taxes are collected and there is another crisis. Don’t believe everything the politicians tell you. They lie.

To my California friends:

It’s time to hold another constitutional convention. Your state constitution is a complete wreck, 100 years of citizen initiatives and especially the last 35 years of them have screwed it up to the point that it is no longer workable.

You have to write a new one.

So get with it, and get it done.

adding an egg to ramen while it’s boiling makes egg flower soup (and marginally increases the nutritional value)

Is this process completely out of our control?

It seems like the sense of urgency is not high enough here (just speaking for myself)

If the state owes you money, TAKE IT FROM THEM.

TAKE a state-owned vehicle over the border and sell it in Mexico.

Repeat until your IOU is fulfilled.

CALTRANS has PLENTY. GO TAKE WHAT IS YOURS.

And if you can’t get a vehicle or what you’re owed is just a small amount, leave that much cost of damage to some state-owned property.

You know you want to. You know it’s right.

[Mod Note: it’s best not to advocate illegal activities in the comments.]

Seems to me it would be a good idea to shut the Ca lege completely down. They don’t do anything anyway so why not. When the angry citizens start to call about this fiasco, the lege members will all be “in meetings.”

Your state constitution is a complete wreck, 100 years of citizen initiatives and especially the last 35 years of them have screwed it up to the point that it is no longer workable.

the initiative process has long since been taken over by special interests, and should probably be terminated

Dugg

That’s an excellent way to end up in County.

’snot. Apparently, that’s just they way things have always been here. I’ve only been here a few years. They have never had an income tax. one of the largest staes in the country. Still expanding. Anybody candidate who says he/she supports establishment (not raising, simply estabnlishing) an income tax will not get elected. We used to have a surplus. the whole financial health iof the state depends on tourists spending tons of money = sales tax revenues. Econiomy goes in the shitter = no tourists = no revenue. Totally stupid.

I guess holding your constituents’ hostage is the new model for leadership. I didn’t realize that Arnold’s last name translated into English as Hoover. There’s nothing like contracting government spending into a recession to deepen it. Arnold should be standing in the cold hat in hand wherever Obama happens to be begging for a bailout.

And there is nothing bad about this. The discretionary side of government minus defense is actually pretty small. For Obama to spend even his deeply flawed stimulus package, he needs to funnel a lot of it through the states. If Arnold had met up with Obama, he could have avoided these damaging and inflammatory atmospherics and reassured Californians and Americans rather than doing everything he could to scare the sh*t out of them.

anbody ever thrown van camp’s pork and beans in with campbells tomato noodle soup and -voila- pasta fagioli ?

Arnold’s been a fiscal disaster, eh? So much for “terminating” the deficit (which I think he said during the recall campaign).

Hey, Californians, aren’t you glad you banned gay marriage, because fiscal train wrecks aren’t important. It’s the damn gay marriage!!!!

I guess not all bigots and fools are from the South.

Just another law’n order Republican, I guess.

Termination isn’t necessary, but the barriers need to be raised. More signatures to get on the ballot, and a supermajority (60% + 1, maybe) to pass.

Referenda can stay at a simple majority. The difference is that referenda have been through the legislative hearing process and to the extent that things can be foreseen, they’ve been taken care of.

The initiative is different. I would be willing to bet that a group could get a law passed in California by the initiative route to make pi = 3. Some people would vote for it because it would make their arithmetic simpler, others because the Bible says pi is three. None of which changes the fact that pi is a transcendental number regardless of any laws that might pass. So not a simple majority to pass, 3/5 plus 1. If you can convince 60% of the voters that it’s a good idea, then you can have the law.

As far as raising the number of signatures go, it should be high enough that the only way to collect the signatures is with a grass roots drive. Of course, banning paid signatures gatherers should be part of it too.

Oops, EPU’ed

Oh lord, Brooks is on NPR. Obama is intensely empiricist. And oh yes, joy he is going after entitlements. What is so obscene about our media scene is how they keep validating these fools.

My thoughts about what this portends are too gloomy to infect others with.

Hasn’t it been said that the homeless will do a crime to get a meal, a bed, and some heat during the winter? Not recommending it of course.

Me?

Perish the thought. I’m a yellow-dog Democrat, George Walker Bush convinced me that the Rethuglican Party is completely morally bankrupt. I’ll undervote rather than vote for a Republican.

On the other hand, if you’re going to engage in civil disobedience, that’s fine, it’s your call. Just don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. For me, at this point, this fiscal mess in California doesn’t rise to a level requiring civil disobedience. That’s ignoring the fact that theft of public property is theft from us all.

New post

I hope that everyone who signed the Gray Davis recall and everyone who voted for it is real proud of themselves.

Sorry BCT, not you.

Exactly.
Ahhhhhnald is an irresponsible asshat for canceling the “car tax” on his first day in office.
That promise got him elected but it also got us into a very bad situation.

WOW! Just……….WOW!

New post

simple solution. Fiscal independence for CA. We can stand alone. Interpert that as you will ;-P

McD’s doesn’t have the creamer packets out anymore…you have to ask for them…after you buy your $2 small coffee from the “McCafe”.

Maybe “Food Not Bombs” can open a Campus Soup Kitchen…seems that the college kids are gonna be the ones starving.

You have no idea.

One corporate tax loophole

With California facing a $40 billion plus budget shortfall, one might reasonably ask why neither the Governor’s proposed budget nor the Democratic leadership of the legislature’s alternatives for balancing the budget take on a program that cost the state $361 million in 2007 (the most recent year for which data are available) and that is not only ineffective, but appears to have the unintended consequence of reducing the number of businesses actually located within zones.

Costs the state 361 million dollars

My latest take on Derr Governator and the Yacht Party

Thanks to the GOP successfully selling their “no taxes for nothing no how” fantasy, California is well on its way to becoming our country’s first failed state. It would be satisfying if the collapse would only affect those who voted for the blizzard of government killing measures in the recent past. But it will probably fall most heavily on those who had no say in the situation. But for anyone out there who voted for the blizzards of crazy propositions designed to destroy government, and who will suffer, I say they got it coming to ‘em.

Rule 1 for California voters: If it’s a citizen initiative, vote no.

Rule 2 for California voters: If it makes the budgeting process more difficult, vote no.

Rule 3 for California voters: If it has an “R” anywhere near its name, vote someplace else.

Rule 4 for California voters: Do not forget rules 1, 2, and 3.

But some of the faeces are going to fall on the idiots who bought into the nobody has to pay taxes fantasy. I just hope enough of the fecal material hits them when it leaves the impeller.

If this were a private business, its creditors could force it into bankruptcy. As it is, I wish they’d start by stopping the governor’s salary, and follow up with the legislature.

California is one of the richest states in the USA, maybe the richest. Misers, for shame! Krawk!

This means I won’t get paid for taking care of my Alzheimer’s mother who can’t be left alone while I find a job at Wal-Mart with my Masters degree.

Neither the Gov, what passes for our legislature and anyone who works directly for them should not get paid first. Old, weak and disabled? Why not just herd them into camps and give them special showers? Oh yeah, that’s been done already and there used to be a time when this was frowned upon but either it or Soylent Green is about to make an appearance.

Raven,

The problem is that the Yacht Party has convinced a majority of California voters that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are all real. My hope when Ahnold became Der Governator was that he’d be able to speak truth to the voters of California. He could have done this because his political career began and will end in Sacramento.

The truth he should have told California voters is this one: We can classify states as High Tax and Low Tax. Similarly, we can classify states as High Service and Low Service. In the experimental laboratory that is the United States, we can find examples of High Tax, High Service states. States like Massachussetts, Minnesota, Wisconsin. There are lots of examples of Low Tax, Low Service states like Texas, Mississippi, etc.

There are two remaining possibilities, one of these being High Tax, Low Service states. I know of none. The other possibility is Low Tax, High Service state. I know of only one attempt at one: California. And it doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked, and economic theory says it can’t work.

California once had a comprehensive education system that was the envy of the world. It’s gone now. California once had a transportation network that was world class, it now teeters on the brink because of overuse and underfunding. The time has come to make a choice: we can be a low tax-low service state like Mississippi, or we can be a high tax-high service state like Wisconsin. Because of the wealth of natural resources in California, we do not need high tax rates, but we must collect taxes to pay for the things we need: teachers, police, fire fighters, engineers, schools, hospitals, fire stations and roads and highways.

The voters of California must choose: we can be like Mississippi or we can be like California. The choice belongs to you.

Arnold never had the stones to make that speech or anything like it. Instead, he’s told Californians that the Yacht Party is right: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny all exist in our reality.

More is the pity.

LMAO.

Dugg.

Thanks very much egregious.