I think houses here in California (SF Bay Area) could drop in price by 50% and they would still be overpriced.

I work in healthcare IT and I can tell you that a large amount of state money is used to cover uninsured illegal aliens. Emergency room are overwhelmed by "immigrant" families.

California is completely f----ed.

There is no political will to raise taxes a penny on anyone or anything.

This leaves employment cuts. The poor will be first to go to the wall, the subsidized services they have access to -- schools, community colleges, libraries, medical care, transportation -- will be reduced.

Gov't will have to cut back payroll and vendor payments.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-statebudget-fl,0,95571.htmlstory

I cut K-14 education back, eliminated community colleges entirely, cut gov't pension and health benefits, added two furlough days a month, eliminated "affordable housing" subsidies to LLs, made the State Park system pay-for-play . . . $15B in cuts, still need to find $8B more, and what's left is really marrow.

$15B in cuts divided by $15K per cut is a million cuts. A million lives or livelihoods impacted, often severely.

All the tax options available on that page make perfect sense to me, but then again, I'm a liberal.

PLEASE DONT RAISE MY TAXES ANYMORE. IM ALREADY PAYING ALOT OF INCOME TAX AND 10% SALES TAX, HIGH RENT AND THE LIST GOES ONNN... IS WORKING IN PRIVATE SECTOR IS BAD?

Big difference between CA and Greece. Greece's debt is around 150% of their GDP so even austerity measure in iteslf would not cure their problems. In, CA all they need to do is get expenses to around the 80B level and the issue is done.

Greeces GDP is 400B and they have been deficits in the 40B-50B range.
Califronia's GDP is 1.85T and they have decifits in 20B range.

A little growth will solve CA's problem whereas the Greece situation is a lot less hopeful.

I hope CA take this opportunity to refocus their resource and decide what their value are and how much they are worth. It'll be great to get CA's spending back to the 80B level, that amount is sustainable. But it'll end up around 90B anyways.

Suggestions:

*10% across the board cut, no exceptions, (It works in the private world, just have the threat of layoff in place as well) excluding education. Education resource needs to be more efficient. downstream responsibility to local levels.
* perhaps cut city college altogether. There are private educators that can fill this void and get specialized education, not some useless generic education that nowadays get you nowhere.
*20% cut across the board cut for prision and health. Perpetaul overtime is unacceptable and there should be consequence for manager's that can't manage costs.
*cut in home service by 50% as the state should not be in the business of providing a nanny for the elderly, except for extreme cases. (A daughter should not be paid to care for their own mother). cut/consodidate unncessary state programs or agencies
* reform pension to share the risk as opposed to loading all the risk to taxpayer's.

Vechicle license fee restored to level prior to rollback
increase fee for service.
this is the time to get tough on out-of-state companies like Amazon who exploit the CA market and pays nothing in income and sales tax (on behalf of their customers). Physical presense model of commerce clause is outdated and does not reflect current environment, time to fight that in court.

Troy, that was a lot of fun. I managed to balance the budget!

I have no problems increasing taxes on cigs/alcohol/gas/high earners/commercial RE. No problem also releasing people from prison that don't need to be there, or sending illegals back to their home countries. We also need to deal with the pension and benefit problems, I had no idea how bad it is, and how taken advantage of by people, until I started working for a semi-govt agency. We also really need to evaluate how much CASH we simply give to people, especially the cash payments to people having more and more children..

I am also all for eliminating section 8 housing, it only helps to pervert the housing market and create scum-lords. We have a section 8 house on our otherwise lovely block, it's an eyesore. Let the market become truly market rate. The section 8 benefits the wealthy landlords more than the people...

In contrast to Greece, CA still has world-class profitable industries (e.g. SV and Hollywood). But curiously enough, Socialism is as well-rooted here as in Greece, with fabulous benefits for those who do not deserve it.

All the noise about "horrible budget situation/absolutely terrible cuts" is patently absurd PR. In reality you can see millions of Mexicans who are doing just fine even without English and any paperwork, 60+ years old plywood boxes sold for anything from 700K (East Bay) to 1M (decent zips in SV), the Democrats winning every single time. So apparently people are happy with the way things are around here.

California is fine, no worse than NJ and AZ. It just appears to be bad because they never took the courage to just cut spending and get it over with, hoping that a recovering economy smoothes things out.

Greece has lots and lots of shipping companies, but CA's economy is pretty diverse.

How is increasing state income tax on those making over $300,000 by less than 1 percent and those making over $600,000 by less than 2%. not an automatic GIVEN for our current crisis...

This is outrageous that that is even up for Debate.. talking 5 BILLION in savings... that won't affect the lifestyles of anyone making that kind of money one bit.. unless they are totally over-extended and can't afford a 1% pay cut.

Housing Optimists Are "Not Paying Attention" to the Facts, Says Dean Baker
Posted May 12, 2010 10:02am EDT by Heesun Wee in Investing, Banking, Housing
LINK

Among the crowded ranks of economists and market watchers, Dean Baker stands out. Baker presciently called the housing bubble when he published “The Run-up in Home Prices: Is It Real or Is It Another Bubble?” in 2002.

So does our guest Baker see the so-called housing recovery now? "No. I mean I think people that are saying that just aren't paying attention to what's in front of their eyes," says Baker, an American economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

"I think we’re going to see a big fall-off in purchases for the rest of 2010 and even into 2011,” Baker says. “So the idea that somehow the market is stable, that housing prices will rise anytime soon – it’s really hard to make a case for that."

Baker lays out several reasons for his bearish case:

Programs that lifted the market, including the tax credit for first-time buyers, have expired.
The Federal Reserve is exiting the mortgage market, which will likely push rates to 5.5% to 6% by the end of the year.
There's still an inventory glut and rental rates are falling in many markets, notes Baker, author of "False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy." He says the rental market doesn't lie.

Nick says

In contrast to Greece, CA still has world-class profitable industries (e.g. SV and Hollywood). But curiously enough, Socialism is as well-rooted here as in Greece, with fabulous benefits for those who do not deserve it.

Which happens to employ more outside of SV than inside. You think we have 300,000 HP employees living in the Bay Area ? Think again, only a handful. The profits are claims to shareholders not employees.

The problem with California is that politicians know we aren't in deep trouble. They know we can dig out with some painful cuts, but that we aren't going to tank either. So they use it to their political advantage.

SF ace is right, most of what needs to be done is some trimming. Probably raising gasoline taxes would be good for the state as well. Many would probably buy new more efficient cars if gas kept going up. That or put the money back into the state instead of real estate.

That latimes site makes it hard to balance the budget because they don't allow partial trade offs. 10% reduction, instead of close it down! kill it all!

jvolstad says

I work in healthcare IT and I can tell you that a large amount of state money is used to cover uninsured illegal aliens. Emergency room are overwhelmed by “immigrant” families.

still think Arizona is 'racist'?

Nick says

In contrast to Greece, CA still has world-class profitable industries (e.g. SV and Hollywood).

wait until the millions of homeless find out that Hollywood and Silicon Valley execs are making a nice profit while they starve to death and die from lack of medical care. Maybe you can make a movie about it or a social network for starving homeless people on the verge of death.

Bob: Hey man, I'm starving to death
Bill: LOL. me too. friend me.
Sally: ROTFLMAO. I just became a prostitute to buy groceries!
Bob: nice.

A better business friendly enviroment, would attract industries to grow and spend on new hires and thus increase state revenues, while the government cuts back on spending and taxes. People, Industries, and State would all benefit. We have seen this work many times over in various global regions.

well Thomas, you have to find a way to bring the ENTIRE state with you. You can't just create a SEZ in the middle of Silicon Valley while the rest of California starves and you hold out your hand to the Federal Government to help them. FUCK THAT. Californians will try to do this, and I predict this will cause many states to violently reject the current course we are on. It is not our job to support billionaire dot-com venture capitalists and Hollywood directors.

California is going to have to boot the Illegal Aliens. its going to happen one way or the other. I see major corrections to the silicon valley economic model. Why do we see report after report of how great business are doing up there while at the same time we read about how horrible everything is in CA? Time to look at both sides of the wooden nickel that is California.

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2010/05/11/nvca-gathers-1700-signatures-opposing-tax-change/?mod=rss_WSJBlog#

The Original Bankster says

well Thomas, you have to find a way to bring the ENTIRE state with you.

Ah! but many other states are already doing that with SV employers, giving out perks to expand
new hires in their state. You can see that with New Mexico, Texas, Oregon, Washington and Michigan to name a few. The SV economic model has changed/corrected starting back in the late 80s and early 90s and still more changes even today, its just many are unwilling to understand it or accept it.

The Original Bankster says

Why do we see report after report of how great business are doing up there while at the same time we read about how horrible everything is in CA?

The old ways of measuring "growth for a region" is useless, since many of our workers are non-californians, employeed in other states or overseas. Growth is no longer localized to a region.

Growth is no longer localized to a region.

then why are they always talking about how much California[1] is growing?

you know thomas, at some point, Californians are going to realize that the future of their state has been greatly compromised if not destroyed by people coming here from Asia to make quick money and justifying totally destructive neoliberal policy. That day will come. Not everyone can get out, the ones that stay are going to be VERY VERY angry. The ones who have lived there for generations are going to be EXTREMELY PISSED OFF.

[1] California is a region.

The Original Bankster says

Growth is no longer localized to a region.
then why are they always talking about how much California[1] is growing?
[1] California is a region.

In the 80s and 90s... no one talked much SV or Tech. You bearly heard a word mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. Since 2000, its been blah blah blah, because of theh gold rush in 1999-2000. its just a bunch of nonsense coming from hypsters who want to pump up the story for their own benefit. VC comes to mind in this case. There are a lot of stupid immature inexperienced journalist out there.

Yes we had some great growth back in the 80s. What you see today is pathic nonsense.

at this point the 'Venture Capital' world is nothing but a bunch of rich kids looking to impress other rich kids. No innovation. Now they are asking for tax breaks in a state that is in crisis mode in order to protect jobs? Whose job? they outsource everything! who the fuck are they kidding? We should give them a tax break so they can make iPads that can't seem to run Flash and movies about Mexican race wars.

California, your time is up.

I like that California budget simulator but I wish it let you also adjust the magnitudes of the tax increases and budget cuts.

For example, they let you raise the gasoline tax by a mere 32c per gallon. I say raise it by $3.00 and solve the budget problem at a stroke!

What's that? That would make gas too expensive? Too bad, drivers. You thoroughly screwed us non-drivers when the streetcar lines were torn up and built a highway, strip-mall exurbia that made people who can't drive cars into virtual invalids. Now you can leave your precious automobiles in the garage and come see how the other half lives.

Before you say "we should raise taxes", you should consider this:

State GDP in 1998: $1086B
State GDP in 2008: $1846B

That's a 70% increase.

State Spending in 1998: $70B
State Spending in 2008: $153B

That's a 118% increase.

The growth in CA State spending has far outstripped the growth of the economy. It's hard for me to look at those numbers and not conclude that spending growth is much of the problem. To bring state spending in line with 1998 levels, as a share of the state economy, about a 20% cut in spending is needed. Not even that is needed to balance the budget.

thomas.wong1986 says

Housing Optimists Are “Not Paying Attention” to the Facts, Says Dean Baker

That's an excellent segment. Dean Baker is one of the guys that anybody who wants to know what's really happening should listen to.

MarkInSF says

That’s an excellent segment. Dean Baker is one of the guys that anybody who wants to know what’s really happening should listen to.

Reality ! wow, what a concept !

Michinaga says

I like that California budget simulator but I wish it let you also adjust the magnitudes of the tax increases and budget cuts.
For example, they let you raise the gasoline tax by a mere 32c per gallon. I say raise it by $3.00 and solve the budget problem at a stroke!
What’s that? That would make gas too expensive? Too bad, drivers. You thoroughly screwed us non-drivers when the streetcar lines were torn up and built a highway, strip-mall exurbia that made people who can’t drive cars into virtual invalids. Now you can leave your precious automobiles in the garage and come see how the other half lives.

I would not mind seeing a $1 a gal tax increase. We have it very good here in the States. I have lived and worked in Europe. Very pricey.

When I was in Germany recently, the gas cost over $8 when converting Euros to Dollars. The only plus I had was that I was able to fill up on Base due to my retired military status. There it was less then $3.

We should keep the community colleges. A lot of the little private colleges are pricey diploma-mills, graduating people with sizable school loans into jobs that make little money, or into no jobs at all. Whereas community colleges are affordable and serve all sorts of people, from kids just out of high school to the guy who needs to learn Mandarin for his job. But community colleges are perhaps too cheap. Under $25 a credit hour, I think. You could double that and it would still be very affordable. Then it might be possible to avoid cutting community college services.

I am all in favor of a gas tax. We have great weather, and there are a lot of nice outdoor alternatives to driving. Not to mention electric cars, which need a nudge to really take off.

I personally would like to see Cali default. It was the investment banks scam that drove much of the problems we see in Cali. And BTW, Texas is facing an 11 billion dollar deficit. They make money off inflated and manipulated oil prices and still are in deep debt.

GaryA says

I personally would like to see Cali default.

and how do you think that's going to go, exactly? just walk away?

A state has never declared bankrupcy, but localaties does every now and then. What happens is the state takes control and blow the finance up until things are balanced again, at which point a new political team comes in place and pick up where it is left off. A judge may then disregard existing contract to help make the finance work. If a state goes bankrupt, I guess the fed will take receivorship.

again, I stress that CA is really not that bad. Actually, i can make a case that Arizona is worse if not equal. 100 billion in outstanding bond in a 1.85T econcomy is a debt to GDP ratio of about 5-6%. There's just no political conviction to solve the problem. In this case, a czar can easily fix the balance, just get the politics out of the way.

Of course, that 100B does not include pension shortfall and other hidden obligations. state employees can have pension if they want, but the state should just contribute a fix % toward pension and that's it, perhaps 5% of wages. If Calpers funding is short, they should go to their members for more contribution (or work harder to get a better investment return), not the taxpayer. If the member don't want to contribute more fine, then they can lower the benefit to match whatever funding, returns and obligations and balance it that way.

SF ace says

Big difference between CA and Greece. Greece’s debt is around 150% of their GDP so even austerity measure in iteslf would not cure their problems. In, CA all they need to do is get expenses to around the 80B level and the issue is done.
Greeces GDP is 400B and they have been deficits in the 40B-50B range.
Califronia’s GDP is 1.85T and they have decifits in 20B range.
A little growth will solve CA’s problem whereas the Greece situation is a lot less hopeful.

When Greece was not in EU it had very efficient economy. It was one of the greatest tourist destination in the world. After joining EU and Euro zone it became extremely expensive. Most of the tourist flow turned to Turkey. The solution is pretty simple: get out of the Euro zone.

Suggestions:
*10% across the board cut, no exceptions, (It works in the private world, just have the threat of layoff in place as well) excluding education. Education resource needs to be more efficient. downstream responsibility to local levels.

California has developed one of the most inefficient public education systems in the world. It has an army of under-qualified teachers. They were mostly hired since mid 90th in order to reduce class sizes. Lots of schools were expended and new teachers hired just to reduce class sizes. However, most of these teachers have very little knowledge of what they supposed to teach. This was simply not in the focus of that change. As the result we have a lot of let's say math teachers in middle schools and even in high schools who have teachers credentials but have practically no idea what math is all about.

Sharp reduction is badly needed in this field. I would say sharply cut the public school expenses. Lay off 10-15% of teachers. I would also cut one year from free middle school coverage. Introduce high school entry exams. If a child can't pass them after finishing 7th grade let them either go to some kind of paid preparatory school (existing middle schools may offer this) or do some state provided trade training instead of high school.

* perhaps cut city college altogether. There are private educators that can fill this void and get specialized education, not some useless generic education that nowadays get you nowhere.

This is not a good idea.
Today a lot of high school drop offs attend city colleges to prepare for college, while working. Most of them would stay in FREE high schools without this option, which would be much more expensive to the state.
Beside this, many city colleges provide much higher quality of classes than even so called "good" high schools.
Also, some of them serve as some kind of outside additions to specialized universities. For example, when a CalTech students need language classes, they take them in Pasadena City College. Providing the same classes in CalTech would be much more expensive.

Perpetaul overtime is unacceptable and there should be consequence for manager’s that can’t manage costs.

Not sure what you mean. Do you propose another level of managers, who will manage managers that can't manage ....? Easier said than done.

*cut in home service by 50% as the state should not be in the business of providing a nanny for the elderly, except for extreme cases. (A daughter should not be paid to care for their own mother). cut/consodidate unncessary state programs or agencies

Again, easier said than done. May be from moral perspective "A daughter should not be paid to care for their own mother", but in our society too many daughters won't care for their own mother w/o being paid. At the end it may cost much more to the public.

* reform pension to share the risk as opposed to loading all the risk to taxpayer’s.

A good idea, however, you can't do anything on this matter, w/o reforming California legislative processes.

Vechicle license fee restored to level prior to rollback

Just pennies, not even worth to bother.

increase fee for service.

this is the time to get tough on out-of-state companies like Amazon who exploit the CA market and pays nothing in income and sales tax (on behalf of their customers). Physical presense model of commerce clause is outdated and does not reflect current environment, time to fight that in court.

Instead of all I would add about $2.5 p/g gasoline state tax and allow local communities to add up to $1 to it to fund their road/transportation/education needs. With similar but lower tax on diesel fuel.
Based on California fuel consumption it would collect about $80billion/year.
I would introduce it with spending of initially up to 20% of the collected tax on limited gas subsidies. It may be done in form of "gas stamps" provided to all legal residents with no regards of their income. The subsidy should fade over time.

Eliza says

We should keep the community colleges. A lot of the little private colleges are pricey diploma-mills, graduating people with sizable school loans into jobs that make little money, or into no jobs at all. Whereas community colleges are affordable and serve all sorts of people, from kids just out of high school to the guy who needs to learn Mandarin for his job. But community colleges are perhaps too cheap. Under $25 a credit hour, I think. You could double that and it would still be very affordable. Then it might be possible to avoid cutting community college services.
I am all in favor of a gas tax. We have great weather, and there are a lot of nice outdoor alternatives to driving. Not to mention electric cars, which need a nudge to really take off.

I agree. In many fields community colleges are the only thing that compensates our completely failed public schools system.

1. They provide better instructions than most high schools.

2. They save a lot of money by hiring top specialists without teachers credentials as per hour employees.

3. They prepare important professionals like registered nurses, pharmacists, lab technologists with no unbearable burden of debt.

4. They allow kids to drop from high schools, work, and prepare for colleges more efficiently than while staying in high schools. This way they actually save a lot of money to the state.

Also, I think gas taxes should be increased by much more than $1/gallon.

5. They provide some necessary general education classes, like language classes, which are either not available or extremely expensive in private colleges. As I pointed in another post about CalTech students, who take language classes in PCC. Adding these kind of classes in CalTech would be too expensive and inefficient.

SF ace says

I stress that CA is really not that bad. Actually, i can make a case that Arizona is worse if not equal. 100 billion in outstanding bond in a 1.85T econcomy is a debt to GDP ratio of about 5-6%. There’s just no political conviction to solve the problem.

this is the difference between CA and AZ. AZ will cut its losses. CA will go to hell.

michaelsch says

When Greece was not in EU it had very efficient economy. It was one of the greatest tourist destination in the world.

you're forgetting something important: Cyprus. One of the main reasons Greece accepted the EU terms was that they offered a financial solution to the Cyprus dispute. It has never really been settled at all, when the money is taken away, I expect the dispute and the military problem associated with it to return.

His comment stated that AZ is in worse shape than CA. They aren't cutting their loses yet.

look bankster, obviosuly you don't like CA. I get that. But before you mouth off about other's problem, please mind your own issues first. You have presented nothing of substance thus far.

SF ace says

look bankster, obviosuly you don’t like CA. I get that. But before you mouth off about other’s problem, please mind your own issues first. You have presented nothing of substance thus far.

excuse me asshole? All I ever hear is how fucking great the CA economy is, while I read about tent cities, collapsing infrastructure and total insolvency. What the fuck is wrong with you stupid fucking people?

I know whats going to happen, you're going to claim you need 'help' from the Federal Government. All the poor billionaires might lose their RE holdings. At this point I think you're going to see some major political tumult. CA is flirting with the greatest humanitarian crisis in history and the dumb fucks in Palo Alto think its a great day for starting a social network.

pkennedy says

His comment stated that AZ is in worse shape than CA. They aren’t cutting their loses yet.

thats what SB1070 was all about. We're passing a number of other measures as well. Our legislature is clearly looking to the future at this point, while the shitheads in Sacramento look for fat payoffs. If I were in CA, I would get the fuck out of there ASAP because they will take your wealth.

On top of all the other problems California is in the process of borrowing about 30 billion dollars to
cover unemployment benefits for the next eighteen months and all those unemployed people are not paying much into the tax system.
A relative of mine who recently was hired for one of the much touted "Obama stimulus projects" funded by the feds in California was told last week that he will be laid-off in two weeks so I guess California will have to borrow a lot more federal money when all the short term stimulus jobs come to an end in the next few months.
Of course all those people will still be counted as "employed" in the official statistics even though they only got a few weeks of work out the colossally expensive stimulus program.

everything they are doing points to short term stop gap measures. I have a feeling the upper ups (not the dumb fuck 'nouveau riche' idiots on this forum) know there will be a collapse of epic proportions. AZ even tried to pass a bill that requires Obama to produce his birth certificate.

wake up libtards.

"When Greece was not in EU it had very efficient economy. It was one of the greatest tourist destination in the world. After joining EU and Euro zone it became extremely expensive. Most of the tourist flow turned to Turkey. The solution is pretty simple: get out of the Euro zone."

Transactions are always a balance between cost and benefit, you have to accept the good (stability) with the bad (inflexability).

"*10% across the board cut, no exceptions, (It works in the private world, just have the threat of layoff in place as well) excluding education. Education resource needs to be more efficient. downstream responsibility to local levels.
California has developed one of the most inefficient public education systems in the world. It has an army of under-qualified teachers. They were mostly hired since mid 90th in order to reduce class sizes. Lots of schools were expended and new teachers hired just to reduce class sizes. However, most of these teachers have very little knowledge of what they supposed to teach. This was simply not in the focus of that change. As the result we have a lot of let’s say math teachers in middle schools and even in high schools who have teachers credentials but have practically no idea what math is all about.
Sharp reduction is badly needed in this field. I would say sharply cut the public school expenses. Lay off 10-15% of teachers. I would also cut one year from free middle school coverage. Introduce high school entry exams. If a child can’t pass them after finishing 7th grade let them either go to some kind of paid preparatory school (existing middle schools may offer this) or do some state provided trade training instead of high school."

One of the casualty of unionization is that they protect the weak and hurt the strong. After many years of the status quo, you are left with a bunch of weakings in the government sector needing union protection while the strong are encouraged to do something else. To break underperformance, we need to allow a mechanism to fire/demote people based on performance, not seniority. In my field, a collague I train and supervise can flip and be my boss in five years.

"* perhaps cut city college altogether. There are private educators that can fill this void and get specialized education, not some useless generic education that nowadays get you nowhere.

This is not a good idea.
Today a lot of high school drop offs attend city colleges to prepare for college, while working. Most of them would stay in FREE high schools without this option, which would be much more expensive to the state.
Beside this, many city colleges provide much higher quality of classes than even so called “good” high schools.
Also, some of them serve as some kind of outside additions to specialized universities. For example, when a CalTech students need language classes, they take them in Pasadena City College. Providing the same classes in CalTech would be much more expensive."

I think what I am thinking is we need to stop making education reachable to all. In any other country, the education system is designed to weed off the weak and only the strongest 10% or so survive. To me, no child left behind means slowing everyone else down, that may work in the past, but the world is too competitive to contunue this. Seriously, a city college education is practically worthless in today's job environment. You'll me better off specializing in a specific field to be able to add value in today's workforce. When you give people second chance, they can't appreciate the first chance. There are public companies that cater to this market and is working.

" Perpetaul overtime is unacceptable and there should be consequence for manager’s that can’t manage costs.
Not sure what you mean. Do you propose another level of managers, who will manage managers that can’t manage ….? Easier said than done."

"No, if I bust my budget for one year, I'm warned, if I bust my budget again, I'm fired. That is the corporate culture. Costs is the easiest thing to control and yet the government can't even control somethong that simple. I don't care if is nurse, prison guard, or CHP's, those OT level year after year is either incompentent management or nothing gives a crap about budget."

"*cut in home service by 50% as the state should not be in the business of providing a nanny for the elderly, except for extreme cases. (A daughter should not be paid to care for their own mother). cut/consodidate unncessary state programs or agencies"

Again, easier said than done. May be from moral perspective “A daughter should not be paid to care for their own mother”, but in our society too many daughters won’t care for their own mother w/o being paid. At the end it may cost much more to the public.

"* reform pension to share the risk as opposed to loading all the risk to taxpayer’s."
A good idea, however, you can’t do anything on this matter, w/o reforming California legislative processes.

It's hard to break old habits. But habits are broken when people need to change their behavior. In this case, the economic backdrop is the perfect opportunity.

"Vechicle license fee restored to level prior to rollback Just pennies, not even worth to bother"

That's not true, there are around 5M registered vehicle in CA, if taxes are rolled back to Grey Davis level and add about 200 per vehicle per year, that is 1B dollars.

"increase fee for service.
this is the time to get tough on out-of-state companies like Amazon who exploit the CA market and pays nothing in income and sales tax (on behalf of their customers). Physical presense model of commerce clause is outdated and does not reflect current environment, time to fight that in court.

Instead of all I would add about $2.5 p/g gasoline state tax and allow local communities to add up to $1 to it to fund their road/transportation/education needs. With similar but lower tax on diesel fuel.
Based on California fuel consumption it would collect about $80billion/year.
I would introduce it with spending of initially up to 20% of the collected tax on limited gas subsidies. It may be done in form of “gas stamps” provided to all legal residents with no regards of their income. The subsidy should fade over time"

The Amazon problem will only get worst and it is unfair for brick and mortars like Walmart who hire and pay tax in CA. I'm not against technology bu there is no reason for the tax advantage when Amazon can reach and exploit the CA market as well as Walmart can.

I agree on a gas tax, but not to that level. Adding that much will effect price of food, shipping and service in addition to causing a severly lower tax base from less consumption.

you are ignoring the obvious:

http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,145918,145918,quote=1

The Original Bankster says

SF ace says

look bankster, obviosuly you don’t like CA. I get that. But before you mouth off about other’s problem, please mind your own issues first. You have presented nothing of substance thus far.

excuse me asshole? All I ever hear is how fucking great the CA economy is, while I read about tent cities, collapsing infrastructure and total insolvency. What the fuck is wrong with you stupid fucking people?
I know whats going to happen, you’re going to claim you need ‘help’ from the Federal Government. All the poor billionaires might lose their RE holdings. At this point I think you’re going to see some major political tumult. CA is flirting with the greatest humanitarian crisis in history and the dumb fucks in Palo Alto think its a great day for starting a social network.

again no substance why CA is any worse than AZ just rants and now cussing.