“Socialism works until you run out of other people’s money.”
California is running out of other people’s money.
California’s budget deficit has swelled to a record $68 billion after months of unexpectedly low tax revenues, a shortfall that could prompt the state’s deepest spending cuts since the Great Recession.
The latest deficit figure — calculated by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office and released Thursday — far exceeds the $14.3 billion estimate from June.
$14 billion or $68 billion. Who can tell the difference anyway? Except that California’s budget deficit is bigger than the total state budgets of ten states.
Government bookkeeping makes the mafia look good.
H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for Newsom’s Department of Finance, said the administration will have different numbers when the governor presents his 2024-25 spending plan next month, but Newsom is preparing to address a significant deficit.
Of course, he’s got his own numbers. The numbers are “sunshine”, “peace” and “love”. Sorry, that was Gov. Jerry Brown who was at least entertaining, unlike Gov. Newsom who was cooked up in some Bay Area cloning lab run by retired Nazi war criminals.
Still a billion here and a billion there (and then you shut down the state, with the exceptions of Hollywood, Amazon, and the French Laundry) and suddenly you’ve got money problems.
Analysts have also projected annual $30 billion deficits in future years.
If a $14 billion projected deficit became a $68 billion deficit, what might a projected $30 billion deficit become? Don’t ask a California high school graduate. The only answer they know is, “that’s racist”.
“Our economy is still good, but what we need to do is be incredibly cautious here,” Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins said in an interview. “We are in a deficit, and therefore, new programs, new spending — in fact, existing spending — we’re going to have to slow down over time.”
Not cut, slow down.
“Captain, there’s an iceberg ahead. Should we stop?” “No, but maybe let’s slow down over time.”
California could offset some cuts by further delaying spending, making some funding conditional on revenue bouncing back, or shifting money to bonds. But there’s already stiff competition for bond money, with mental health on the March ballot and November ballot proposals for education, climate and housing.
Well, that’s that. We need to bankrupt California to fund “mental health”.
His office recommended that Newsom declare a fiscal emergency, allowing the state to dip into as much as $24 billion of its rainy-day funds,
Sure. And what happens when that money runs out?
“Hopefully, the supermajority will see it is time for a more realistic budget strategy,” Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones of San Diego said in a statement, “instead of throwing money at a laundry list of projects that sounds nice on the national television debate stage.”
Let’s be serious, that’s not happening. The only reason Gov. Newsom is even halfway trying is because he wants to be president. The moment it’s clear that’s not happening, all hell will really break loose.
Meanwhile, it’s quite a track record for Gov. Newsom who wants to be president and is running on his record of turning California into a bankrupt, filthy, crime-ridden hellhole.