Is the California Dream as dated as the go-go boots in this black and white Hullaballoo video?
California's unemployment rate is at 11.5%, construction has ground to a halt, and hundreds of thousands of further job cuts will ripple through the economy as over $20 billion is cut from state spending. The cumulative effects of the drop in government spending will push official unemployment numbers up to 13.5%, and that's not counting the effects of further downward cuts in almost every other sector.
The Golden State has become ungovernable, with a government paralyzed by decades of structural problems, starting with Howard Jarvis' Proposition 13 in 1978.
The California Dream was a middle class dream, with a great public education system, a vibrant, diverse economy, and endless opportunity. Now our dysfunctional state, the only state that requires a 2/3 vote to pass either a tax increase and a budget, faces the worst economic downturn since the 1930's with finances that had already been savaged by Schwarzenegger's reckless tax cuts and borrowing.
We're talking Depression here in California,
The state’s budget meltdown weighs heavily on California’s economy, according to the respected UCSB Economic Forecast, fueled by the political ineptitude of the Capitol’s leaders, who show that "even when faced with extraordinary crises, California is unable to make hard decisions."
"California’s economy continues its descent into the depth of its most serious recession since World War II," economist Bill Watkins writes in the forecast."...It is possible that when this is over this recession will meet the technical definition of a depression in California."...
By any measure – employment, housing, retail, tourism, industrial, banking – the UCSB study found little evidence for optimism and plenty for California’s economy continuing "to perform far worse than will the U.S. economy."
A Conference Committee has worked for weeks on draconian cuts to the budget, including massive cuts to social services, but they've drawn the line at completeley eliminating vital life and death services for the most vulnerable people in California.
In addition to massive cuts to education, at every level, the Governator's now proposing to make California the only state without any Welfare to Work program, and the only state without an SCHIP program.
CALWORKS Funding Republicans Want to Eliminate Completely
If CalWORKs were eliminated, more than 1.1 million children and approximately 310,000 parents would lose monthly cash grants, along with employment services and child care assistance, effective October
1, 2009. Eliminating CalWORKs would reduce General Fund spending by $2.4 billion in 2010-11 – the first full year that CalWORKs would be eliminated – but California also would lose $3.9 billion in federal funds, for a combined loss of state and federal funding of $6.3 billion in 2010-11.
SCHIP Program Republicans Want to Eliminate Completely
If Healthy Families were eliminated, 942,000 California children
who would would not be covered. Eliminating the program as of August 1,
2009 would reduce General Fund spending by $369 million in 2009-10, but California also would lose approximately $685 million in federal matching funds.
Faced with horrible choices, Democrats in the legislature have tried desperately to find some compromise, with a few revenue increases on big oil companies, tobacco and alcohol but over 11 billion in cuts.
Schwarzenegger and the minority Republicans vote for even more massive cuts.
Here's Darryl Steinberg, Senate leader talking about where Democrats have drawn lines,
In what other state, in what other circumstances is it considered acceptable to kick 900,000 kids off of health insurance, but not even discuss an increase in cigarette taxes.
It's a long video, but it gives you an idea of the intransigence of Republicans, and the desperate attempts being made by Democrats to compromise with massive budget cuts without eliminating the social safety net when it is most needed, and when cuts will be magnified by the loss of federal funds.
Frankly, it's tragic to see Michelle Obama and Organizing For America launching service projects while the state is spiralling downwards.
Obama and the administration in Washington seem as clueless as the Governator about the real problems in California.