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((Booting the illegal steezers would go about a fourth of the way
towards fixing California's budget problem in and of itself. The side
effects would take care of roughly ten per cent more. Yet it won't
happen. What does that really say? Bret.))

California Budget Meltdown Staggers Along


[Brenda Walker] @ 11:14 am [Email author] [Email this article] [Print
this article] [Print this article]

"How buried in debt is California? One article tries to help us imagine what $40 billion means: [How big is California's budget hole? Try these numbers on for size, San Jose Mercury News, Jan 15, 2009].

If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were to fire every employee in state
government tomorrow, it would easily patch California’s enormous
deficit, right? Not even close.

But surely shutting down all state prisons would do the trick?
That, too, would only get him about a quarter of the way there.

Now what if he were to close every prison and cut off funding for
health care and other services for the poor? Now we’re in the
ballpark.

Schwarzenegger on Thursday to delivered his annual state of the
state address, and there was only one topic on his mind: A budget
deficit that’s ballooned to $40 billion through mid-2010.

In 2004, FAIR published a study estimating California’s annual cost
for illegal immigration at $9 billion, an amount which surely has not
decreased in the intervening time. But the goodies for illegal aliens
are not being cut, even as basic services are being axed for citizens.
The presence of millions of illegal aliens — many of whom are
uneducated, unskilled and non-English speaking — is not the only cause
of California’s budget crisis, but it is a significant part.

Below, the increasingly ridiculous Governor recently pulled out an old
movie prop from his Conan days to make a point. He was hired in a
historic recall in 2003 to fix the budget, but has made the problem
worse by excessive borrowing and refusal to deal with the illegal
alien crisis.

Last March, the Governator declared that illegal foreigners were not
the problem: Governor refuses to blame illegal immigrants for budget
problems.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called it a “big mistake” Wednesday to
blame illegal immigrants for the state’s looming $8 billion budget
gap, just as Republican lawmakers have proposed a rollback of benefits
for illegal immigrants to save money. [...]

“There is, you know, always a time like this where you start
pointing the finger at various different elements of what creates the
budget mess, and, you know, some may point the finger at illegal
immigrants,” Schwarzenegger said. “I can guarantee you, I have been
now four years in office in Sacramento, I don’t think that illegal
immigration has created the mess that we are in.”

Assembly Republicans this week promoted nearly two dozen bills
they said would reduce the “negative impact” that illegal immigrants
have on the state budget and border security. The proposals range from
requiring individuals to show proof of citizenship when receiving
state-funded benefits to repealing a law enabling undocumented
students to pay in-state college tuition.

“There’s a cost associated with illegal immigration whether we’re
in a deficit mode or not,” said Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Roseville.
“I think it just becomes more (significant) when we’re in a deficit
mode and we’re having to make tough cuts across the board in education
and health and human services. Those should be provided to the
citizens of this country and people who came to this country legally.”

It makes me nostalgic to recall the good old days of last spring when
California was only $8 billion in the hole (or even $16 billion,
according to Assembly Republicans at that time)."


http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/01/18/california-budget-meltdown-staggers-along/