What do the California Legislators and Nathaniel Ford Have In Common?

They're both receiving more money than they should for failing. At least Nathaniel Ford will soon be gone, happily depositing his $384,000 severance package (equal to approximately a year plus benefits). I guess its better than paying him nearly $700,000 to wait until his contract expires. Heaven only what kind of a mess he could have turned the system into with what he claims are his "leadership" and a "management" abilities.

On the other hand, we're stuck with the legislators in Sacramento for few more years. And unfortunately, we the voters are too stupid to choose people, from either party, with actual ability and a desire to serve rather than ones who just want a cush job where they can enjoy the graft from the special interests groups.

Whats brought about this? Have you seen the budget they produced in order to meet the June 15 deadline? The Democratic leadership, in fear of the impending June 15 deadline, forced through a budget that Governor Brown characterized as full of spending gimmicks, accounting skulduggery, and cuts to programs. No reform of the budget. No hard choices made. Just whatever was easiest got cut so they could produce a budget.

So Governor Brown vetoed it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one who wants to see taxes raised, which is where I differ with the governor. But I do want to see a real budget put together. Not one that is easy to pass but does not fix the problems which we here in California are facing.

Both parties share in the blame for this mess that is occurring. The Dems for being irresponsible about the budget they rammed through, as well as their failure to seriously discuss reforming the spending that goes on here in the state (pensions anyone?) and the Republicans for not compromising on certain (but not all) issues.

Apparently when we passed that referendum last year, requiring them to pass a budget, we all missed that part in the fine print. The budget only has to pass the Legislature. There is no requirement that it be signed into law by the governor. That was a mistake. Maybe we ought to correct that at the next possible time. It might be too late for November, but how about we make it clear: no one in the legislature or the Governor's office gets paid if the work they're required to do isn't finished.

So enjoy your ill gotten gains. One of these karma will catch up with you. One can only hope its at Mr. Ford's next job interviews and the legislators next election.

Thanks For Nothing Sacramento

I guess it would be too hard to ask our elected officials in Sacramento, and I'm including the Governor, Assemblymen, and State Senators in this, to have done their jobs properly. The budget was due 85 days ago. As of today, there is no budget. That may changelater today in an act of arrogance by the lot of them.

Let me explain.

As anyone with a brain might know, this state has a significant budget crisis. Add to that the continued moribund state of the economy, and you have a real problem. We got to this place by not managing our money properly. Toput it bluntly, this state has been spending money like a drunk sailor on liberty.

Things needed to change. The spending by our state, in good years, is reckless and premised on the idea that what goes up will continue to go up. In bad years, like we've been having the last few years, it is clearly unsustainable.

And yet neither our Governor nor our Legislature have taken meaningful steps to reform our spending. According to the Legislative Affairs Office, the current amount is over $20 billion. When you cant just print money, like the Federal government chooses to, that's a lot of money to be out.

That should leave a responsible government three choices: 1) raise taxes, 2) cut spending, or 3) cut some spending and raise some taxes. Because the economic situation is so bad, raisaing taxes would just compound the problem and probably depress any gains that may actually be occurring in the economy.

To his scant credit, the Governor proposed a budget that drastically slashed programs across the budget. Especially hard hit were social programs. Was this a perfect plan? No, but what it should have done was forced us to look at how we are spending our money and reform te system so that it is sustainable. If we as a state our going to be committed to the welfare system, then it is incumbent upon n to do it in a way tat it does not unfairly penalize those of us who are taxed to pay for it.

So what did the Legislature? What they are famous for. They failed to tae action. They complained. They screamed like spoiled children on behalf of tier various benefactors (unions if they were democrats, corporations if they were republicans, you know, the usual).

And all the while, the statement without a budget. And real budgetary reform went undone.

So today, we wake up to fid out that the Legislature is ready to pass a budget. But what's in it? That's a very good question. No one seems to know. And they are voting on it today. All we have is an outline of what they say is in the budget. Somehow, without making any significant cuts, and without raising any taxes or fees, the alleged budget will close approximately $19 billion of the deficit. Well, it looks like they are resorting to more accounting tricks.

Because if there is one thing that we have earned through this present economic hardship, accounting tricks are a good idea for establishing a long term solution.

We Need People To Make Hard Choices, Not Throw Bread To The Circuses

Well, I suppose it had to happen at some point. After the ridiculous spending sprees of the of the Carter administration and the previous administration, that would be both Presidents Bush and Obama, our economic house seems to be in complete disarray. Thank you a much President Bush and Pres. Obama.

So what are we going to do about this? Are we just going to keep spending incredible sums of money and hope that people are going to keep buying our bonds, even though it appears that our rating is going to go down? Perhaps we'll just end up taxing everybody at higher rates?

Well it looks like the government just wants to increase taxes on everybody.

It seems to be a truism, that once you start spending money in Washington, you can't stop it for some reason. Every time we spend money in Washington DC, it creates an interest group and that interest group wants its money to continue. And whatever program, and I will bet to lunch at in and out that there is a group out there that has lobbyists ready and willing to make sure that that money stream never gets turned off.

I suppose that's part of the problem, but we just don't like to stop spending money. We start a program, thinking it's going to help people and pay off in the end. But then it really doesn't do what we hoped it would. And we start throwing money at it to fix it. But somewhere along the way, we forgot how to say you know what it does not work change our minds. Because somehow in our political landscape changing your mind has become equated with failure and defeat.

Then again, we start some programs purpose of helping people and we don't really take into account how the hell were going to pay for it. Case in point: the new healthcare law. the Democratic Party, in its infinite wisdom, pushed through a healthcare law for which this country cannot afford to pay. They did this because we were so tired of the Republicans running this country that we kicked too many of them out of Congress. So in a sense, we did this to ourselves. We as voters did not really think hard enough about what our votes really are going to result in.

This is really just a long-winded way of getting to what's bothering me today. And that is, the fact that we are faced with a president who's going to want to propose sometime soon, namely a proposal for the enactment of a value-added tax. Now value-added taxes, or VATs, have been around for a while. They're commonly used in a lot of other countries. A VAT as one reporter noted, is a sales tax on steroid. Now, liberals like to tax the rich, right? Well, how not so much the case when it comes to a VAT. A VAT is probably the most regressive tax upon conceive of because it affects everyone and is added on to everything that gets purchased. So that means pretty much everything, from food to clothes to widgets, are going to get hit with an added sales tax.

Think you like paying the 10% sales tax in San Francisco right now? Just wait and see if the added size 10 or 15% sales tax that the federal government is going to add onto the end of that. It's going to be fun.

You can only have guns and butter if you got the money to pay for both guns and butter. Ask the British Empire they manage to do it for about 10 years and then the wheels fell off. There were other solutions available for healthcare. The Democrats chose not. They chose to ignore the evidence. And as a result of this, or we are going to get hit with some taxes. Well, that's not true. A lot of taxes.

And if you think that the VAT is going to be a temporary thing but I suggest you look at your telephone bill sometime. there is an excise tax in in your phone bill that dates back to the Spanish-American war, which ended in a 1898. tax was supposed to be a temporary measure to help fund the war. However, Congress found it to be a nice full cash cow, reauthorizing in reviving the tax until 1947 when they just went ahead and made permanent.

But then again, when you run your administration solely on the basis of doctrine rather than pragmatism in reality, does it really matter that other people suffer so you can have your place in history book? Apparently to Pres. Obama, it doesn't.

We need to overhaul the system. We need to make cuts, because endless taxing and borrowing on credit from other nations is unsustainable at the levels at which we are doing. The systems that we put in place to combat poverty are not having the effect that it was hoped for. However, we cling to the systems as though they are holy cows was from G-d.

If recent history is anything to judge by, taxing and spending our way out of our problems are not working. The stimulus package has failed. The mortgage bailout program has failed. A healthcare plan is going to fail, not because its goals are bad or even unachievable said the money for it is simply not there.

We need to make hard choices. We need people in power or willing to do the right thing, not the doctrinaire thing. Otherwise, we will simply become tax slaves for the government instead of free citizens who are represented by government.

Did We Suddenly Go Back To 1969?

Is Nixon in the White House again? Then again, I guess it was only a matter of time before the UC Berkely students decided to take over something. This time its Wheeler Hall. How many times does this make it that Wheeler Hall has been taken over by students and is this now a record for a school building most often lost to protestors?

So what are they protesting? Darfur? Nope. Arab terrorism? Nope. American Imperialism? Nope.

They're protesting having to pay for their education.

Horror beyond belief I know.

Reminds me though of a funny story. Back in the 1960s, I forget which year, the students at the University of Cambridge decided that the Americans and French were having too much fun with their sit-ins and takeovers of school buildings to protest Vietnam and the rest of the social ills. So the student revolutionaries decided that they would take over Senate House. They figured by grabbing Senate House, which is where the University is headquartered, that they would bring the University to a halt.

Only one problem with that theory. The University of Cambridge works on a federal type system that has been analogized as being very similar to Switzerland's. Yes, its one university. No, its actually many different entities. Yes, the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor are in charge of the university. No, the member colleges don't have to actually adhere to anything. Its weird, wacky, and fun.

What it all meant was that a bunch of student revolutionaries grabbed the Senate House, and inconvenienced almost no one. According to a professor who was a student at the time, you had to really be aware that it even happened at all.

Pimps The Next Al Capone?

How did I miss the pimp tax announcement the other day? After watching the Daily Show early this morning, I went to check out the story to see what it really said.

Apparently Senator Charles Grassly wants to increase IRS funding by about $2 million for the agency to start an office dedicated to prosecuting pimps and prostitutes for failing to report and pay taxes on their illegal activities. As part of the bill, he wants to increase penalties against pimps and prostitutes. The one that draws the most attention is the provision where a pimp is liable for 10 years for each prostitute he/she fails to provide with a W-2 form.

And to add in the local angle, Carole Leigh, of BAYSWAN, has spoken out against. Ms. Leigh is an advocate for sex workers trying to make sure that the legal sex workers (or ones who she wants to help legalize) receive protections for their work as in any other job. In the CNN article, she was saying that although the idea was good, it threatened to spill over to legal sex workers instead of targeting underage girls and women who are forced into prostitution.

However, as someone (be warned, this would get a TV-MA rating) pointed out, prostitutes really seem to be independent contractors. And therefore, they should receive a 1099 and not a W-2 form. However, based on this definition, it would seem that if a traditional pimp (a la Huggy Bear) were involved, it looks like there is too much supervision involved. Although, after the EDD appeal I went to this week, I think it would make for an interesting hearing.

However,...