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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (135016)	3/27/2001 6:29:37 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571600

How fast does spending have to grow? Pretty fast when the people emigrating to the state tend to be poor and/or illegal. Since 1978 (when prop 13 suposedly crippled CAs ability to get needed revenue). California has gone from a budget of about $15bil the nearly $100bil. That should take care of an aweful lot of poor illegal immigrants. While that number sounds big,it's for a period spanning 22 years. Besides, all they really are are interesting numbers; they don't mean a whole lot when it comes to what we are discussing. That's because, in the last 13 years, most aspects of the public infrastructure in CA have deteriorated significantly. Clearly, enough money has not been spend to prevent deferred maintenance from increasing. Now whether that's due from insufficient funds or from mismanagement of the monies is unclear. However, we do know that if it were the latter, it would mean that CA's management of its money had worsened significantly during the 22 years in question. Why that would be I don't know. It would certainly signify a major drop in the quality of the state gov't over that 22 year period. I think you misunderstood my question. What makes you think or what evidence do you have that a shortage of funds in one sector was caused by over spending in another? I had not heard that before. I did understand your question to be pretty much what you asked again and I quoted. I answered the question. If spending has jumped enromously but supposedly there is not enough spending in particular important sectors (education and infrastructure where given as sectors where CA is not spending enough by you or Scumbria) then the money must have been spent elsewhere because it isn't a shortage of money. It isn't a shortage of money that causes the problem because the money available to the government of CA has grown enormously. What you attribute to Scumbria and me was not said by me. I think there is a general shortage of state revenues in CA period. CA didn't intentionally run short of energy. It didn't intentionally short its highway dept so that there would be horrendous traffic jams. Simply put, there just isn't enough $$$ to go around. Since my post where I first stated this I have found a breakdown of the current proposed 2001 budget. The web page is from September so proposals could have changed since then but it calls for total spending of $99.4bil. The state spending on education is $43.3 bil which is more then the total state spending was before prop13. (its more the CAs total budget pre-prop13 even after adjustment for inflation, inflation adjustments where calculated at minneapolisfed.org. In that estimated budget state spending since last year, with prop13 of course still in effect, will increase over 14% after increaseing about 13% the previous year. I wish I could count on my investments returning 13 or 14% a year. Tim, its like global warming you can throw all these numbers around, call them facts but then there is the reality. There are parts of CA, mainly in the cities, where things are breaking down. When you go visit your sister, you probably will see evidence of that. If the country knew how bad it is, it would be scared. Because what's happening is that the next generation coming up knows on some level that its being shortchanged....that conditions are worsening and unfortunately, too many people, adults, stopped caring a long time ago. One result of this phenomena was reflected in the way the kids responded to the shooting in El Cajon. One kid ran home to get his camcorder. Another was grateful that she had brought her digital camera to school that day, and wondered out loud if she could sell her pics to the media. In the meantime, the media was shocked at how little emotional reaction to the shootings were expressed by the kids....very different from other schools in other parts of the country. And they were surprised at how together those same kids were in talking to the media and dispassionately relating the facts surrounding the event. Another example of the moral decay in CA is the incredible strength, power and wealth of their gangs. These gangs not only control their respective territories in CA but in the past ten years, they have established branches throughtout the western states much like a major corporation and have set up bases of operation for drug dealing and gun selling in the major cities of those states. These gangs have grown in power and stature because the police forces in CA are not equipped to deal with them effectively, because the schools are in such disrepair that they [the gang members] see no reason to finish, because there are inadequate facilities to train them for good jobs in lieu of going to college, because life in the barrio or ghetto is so oppressive and getting worse; little is being done to improve the environment. Our gun laws are lax and our inability to keep major drugs out of this country is embarrassing. Many do not understand the dynamic that's in play in CA, particularly S. CA but the truth is its like a cancer and its spreading and there is a price to be paid. Its not all due to a shortfall of state revenue but its played an important role. So you can throw me all the numbers you find but they are meaningless compared to what I have seen, just as a water mark from the 19th century means little to me when we talk about global warming. ted