Word: californiaisms
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...cuts have the advantage, though, that they can be put in place quickly. There's also the more ideological, if still possibly valid, argument that they don't encourage the growth of bureaucracy. And recent empirical research - some of it by Christina Romer, the University of California, Berkeley, economist who will be chairwoman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers - indicates that tax cuts have been quite effective as stimulus in the past. All of which helps explain why 40% of the Obama stimulus consists of tax reductions...
...longer they go, it gets even more and more serious for all of us," says David Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Association (CTA). He is expecting schools to potentially take a $10 billion hit this year. Last month the CTA filed its own initiative for a 1? sales-tax increase earmarked solely for public schools and colleges. But Sanchez - like others in the state - says he will not know precisely how to budget for this upcoming year until a legislative solution is passed. "The unknown," he says, "is very scary...
...difficult here in "fiscal Armageddon," as Governor Schwarzenegger has referred to the budget crisis; one of his solutions is a sizable tax on booze. "At a time we should be investing for our unmet needs and stimulating the economy, we're going in the other direction," says California state treasurer Bill Lockyer, a Democrat. "Every day, we go deeper in the hole...
...California has found itself in this financial quagmire as a result of a collision of events. "It really has been a combination of things that have created the monstrosity that we are now in," says Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at Sacramento State University. She cites inflation, population growth and mandates (like Proposition 13, which placed a limit on state property-rate taxes that resulted in restrictions on tax increases) as having a snowball effect over the course of 30 years. Add these to California's extremely high home-foreclosure rate...
...course, the deficit is growing larger each day that legislators struggle to come up with a solution. California is one of only a handful of states to require a two-thirds-majority vote in the legislature to pass a state budget. The Democrats dominate both the senate, 24 to 15, and the assembly, 51 to 29. (There is one vacancy in the senate.) With such deep cuts on the line, Republicans and Democrats have squared off, arguing whether raising taxes or reducing welfare programs is the best way to go. In December the Democrats engineered a plan that could bypass...