California Begging
OPS_admin | Dec 26, 2009 | Comments 0
The once-great state of California has been reduced to begging from the federal government. But no matter how much help the feds give, the state’s fiscal ills won’t end until its lawmakers stop spending money.
To say California is a mess is an understatement. In the current fiscal year, the state is expected to post a deficit of $21 billion as the budget continues to spiral out of control. Even after last year’s epic budget battle, when Californians were hit with $12.5 billion in new taxes and $6 billion more in borrowing, the state still isn’t close to bringing revenues and expenditures into balance.
So Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has an idea: He wants President Obama to give him $8 billion — or else, he says, he’ll kill or slash most of the state’s welfare programs, cut pay for 200,000 state workers and end two tax breaks for big corporations.
How far the Golden State has fallen. Once the nation’s unquestioned economic and innovation leader, it’s now a laggard. With 13% of the country’s population, it has nearly a third of its welfare recipients. Though it’s still the world’s seventh-largest economy, it’s in danger of sliding backward as its fiscal and economic crises drive jobs and workers away.
Full Story Investors.com – California Begging.
Filed Under: Economy - Labor
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If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
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