More on the State
The legislature is beginning to pour over the numbers I mentioned yesterday. An article in today's Sacramento Bee mentions the many options that State is considering to close the ever-expanding budget gap. Besides picking the pocket of local government, another frequently mentioned solution to the budget gap is to take $5 billion from our schools--thus potentially putting federal dollars at risk and certainly exacerbating the unemployment problem since most school funding is for jobs.
Other than schools, the big money at the State level is in prisons. Their latest proposal as noted in the Bee article:
Schwarzenegger aides have warned public safety groups he may propose an early release of up to 38,000 prisoners, split between 19,000 undocumented immigrants and 19,000 low-level offenders. The governor may also seek to house those who commit "wobbler" crimes in county jails rather than in state prisons.
The plan would save an estimated $335 million in 2009-10 and $849 million in 2010-11.
This plan would also put those criminals back in our communities. The additional local policing costs would likely be in the hundreds of millions and the property crimes would likely cost us billions!
So it looks like the State's solution to its problems is to make things worse for all of us. As I noted yesterday, we've got a broken system. As one national columnist recently noted:
If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.
He also noted that it will likely be very difficult for the nation to get out of this recession if a State with 12 percent of the nation's population continues to struggle. I realize we can't do anything overnight. But I believe it is time for us to seriously consider completely revising our State government. Things are only going to get worse in the meantime!
Other than schools, the big money at the State level is in prisons. Their latest proposal as noted in the Bee article:
Schwarzenegger aides have warned public safety groups he may propose an early release of up to 38,000 prisoners, split between 19,000 undocumented immigrants and 19,000 low-level offenders. The governor may also seek to house those who commit "wobbler" crimes in county jails rather than in state prisons.
The plan would save an estimated $335 million in 2009-10 and $849 million in 2010-11.
This plan would also put those criminals back in our communities. The additional local policing costs would likely be in the hundreds of millions and the property crimes would likely cost us billions!
So it looks like the State's solution to its problems is to make things worse for all of us. As I noted yesterday, we've got a broken system. As one national columnist recently noted:
If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.
He also noted that it will likely be very difficult for the nation to get out of this recession if a State with 12 percent of the nation's population continues to struggle. I realize we can't do anything overnight. But I believe it is time for us to seriously consider completely revising our State government. Things are only going to get worse in the meantime!
Labels: State
posted by City Manager @ 10:25 PM
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