Judgment Day: Broke California Faces Shutdown At Arnie Schwarzenegger ’s Hands

[MOP]

Judgment day: broke California faces shutdown at Arnie Schwarzenegger ’s hands

From The Times June 13, 2009

The state of California is in crisis and time has almost run out. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor, has spent this week haggling with state legislators to agree cuts to basic services in one of the world’s largest economies.

The state’s top finance officials warned that unless an emergency austerity plan is agreed by Monday — and there is little chance that it will be — they will not be able to borrow the billions of dollars needed to keep the current government functioning. If California was a company, it would have gone bust months ago.

The breadth and depth of Mr Schwarzenegger’s cuts are unprecedented and no one in the state, not even its dozens of billionaires, will be unaffected. His more radical proposals include wiping billions of dollars from the education budget, with the school year shortened and larger classes.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of police and firemen will be laid off, and state employees who keep their jobs face pay cuts of at least 10 per cent.

Parks will close, shutting access to thousands of square miles of beaches, redwood forest and other attractions that draw 80 million visitors a year. Thousands of prisoners will be released early and the notorious St Quentin penitentiary will be among state buildings put up for sale.

All financial aid for university students, affecting 200,000 people from low-income families, will end.

Local governments will no longer have to provide absentee ballots in elections, nor run programmes to help infants exposed to drugs. Even stray animals will no longer be kept alive for the statutory three days.

Mr Schwarzenegger, whose popularity has plunged to levels that George W. Bush would recognise, told lawmakers in Sacramento, the state capital: “California’s day of reckoning is here. Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up.â€

For the self-styled Governator and former Hollywood action hero used to getting his way, the issue has become humiliating. His proposals last month to raise taxes and boost borrowing to help to cover the deficit were rejected.Now he has embarked on a “day of reckoning†strategy, asking voters to recognise that Californians must “live within our meansâ€.

The crisis represents a dramatic fall not only for Mr Schwarzenegger but for America’s Golden State. It faces a $24 billion (£14 billion) deficit in the fiscal year starting on July 1 — nearly $700 per head of population.

Were it an independent country, California would be among the ten biggest economies in the world, but its finances have been crippled by the recession. Unemployment already stands at 11 per cent, the fifth-highest in the nation, and another 63,700 jobs were lost last month. Now it will almost certainly need federal guarantees from Washington to borrow money from the financial markets.

Shocked welfare organisations are scrambling to protest at the savagery of the social cuts. Jean Ross, the executive director of the California Budget Project, a public policy research group, wrote in the San Diego Tribune: “These proposals target children and the young, California’s very future.â€

Indeed, they would send a state that prides itself on its youthful image, its innovations, its tradition of reaching the future first, reeling backward in time into what one advocate called “an era of Dickensâ€.The Governor says that he “sees the faces behind those dollars†but he and other Republicans in the legislature will not raise taxes again after agreeing to $12.8 billion in sales, personal income and vehicle tax rises earlier this year.

Last year overall personal income declined for the first time since 1938. The land of Hollywood’s dream factory has turned into a fiscal nightmare.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle6489325.ece

Police and firemen to be laid off. Financial aid to be cut. Prisoners to be released early.

Recipe for disaster.

[Injin]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle6489325.ece

Police and firemen to be laid off. Financial aid to be cut. Prisoners to be released early.

Recipe for disaster.

State failure.

Told you so.

[athe]

State failure.

Told you so.

But I thought you didn't like taxes. It's ridiculously low taxation that's California's problem.

Also I thought you proposed that states didn't exist?

Edited June 13, 2009 by apr400

[Saving For a Space Ship]

'I'll be broke!'

Kegifornia?

[Guest anorthosite]

All the same, his appearance in the new Terminator film is pretty funky.

[athom]

That's a pretty serious sounding state of affairs, laying off police, closing prisons and schools. If they were a country i bet they'd have tried QE, still, a year down the line and it'd be Zimbabwe. Now i wonder how we'll be fairing in a year or 2s time....

[50%deposit]

Sounds like good news to me, cuts cuts cuts.

govt employees have had it too good for too long. I read somewhere that California govt employees earn like 3 times the average salery or in otherwords really really high saleries, set in the good years.

cant wait for death camp england to go the same way. given the choice i think i would rather not pay taxes and not recieve the benefits, especially the pie chart i get with the council tax bill that shows me where its going. All parts of that pie chart do not efect me, especially the police who are as effective as a choclate fire gaurd. i can tell you.

[50%deposit]

All the same, his appearance in the new Terminator film is pretty funky.

where does he appear? the current downloads are totally crap, cant see a thing

[the flying pig]

stuff like 10% off public sector wages sounds good and sensible.

the cuts to education sound horribly short-sighted.

as for the police & prison stuff...

couldn't they have raised taxes a little bit as well?

Edited June 13, 2009 by the flying pig

[Guest anorthosite]

where does he appear? the current downloads are totally crap, cant see a thing

SPOILER ALERT - HIGHLIGHT TO READ

In the cells towards the end - he attacks John Connor when John is searching for Reece. He's the big terminator that John fires his little grenade launcher at

[MOP]

Arnie now regrets this from 2004:

Don't Be Economic Girlie Men!

[Ulfar]

Its ironic that the state that contains Hollywood which makes billions worldwide has run out of tax funds.

In addition doesn't California produce a lot of other things like wine, oranges, etc.

[Timm]

State failure.

Told you so.

Ahh. I thought you meant the UK.

For what it's worth, my guess is that the UK is at the stage California was when it voted on substantial budget cuts. That is, it's not too late to take the pain and save ourselves, but it will be if the nettle is not grasped.

[PricedOutNative]

I worked in California a few years back during the time they were experiencing rolling power cuts, many were predicting 'the end' for the state but things got sorted in the end...

You can't keep Californians down, it's the UK that's got the bigger problem...

[athe]

Its ironic that the state that contains Hollywood which makes billions worldwide has run out of tax funds.

In addition doesn't California produce a lot of other things like wine, oranges, etc.

I think they've been known to make the odd bit of software and the occasional bit of electronics too.

[InternationalRockSuperstar]

Its ironic that the state that contains Hollywood which makes billions worldwide has run out of tax funds.

In addition doesn't California produce a lot of other things like wine, oranges, etc.

Argentina grew enough food to feed 200m, but people still starved.

[Bardon]

SPOILER ALERT - HIGHLIGHT TO READ

In the cells towards the end - he attacks John Connor when John is searching for Reece. He's the big terminator that John fires his little grenade launcher at

Was it him though, I thought he looked to young to be him, I didn't stay to watch the credits.

['Bart']

Also I thought you proposed that states didn't exist?

I think we need a definitive list of what does and doesn't exist for use in threads like this, trying to keep up with my frail memory is murder.

[SNACR]

I think we need a definitive list of what does and doesn't exist for use in threads like this, trying to keep up with my frail memory is murder.

I though it'd been previously agreed that lists don't exist.

[Cogs]

Also I thought you proposed that states didn't exist?

I thought it was countries that didn't exist.

Have we had an adjudication on nation states?

[Woot]

Was it him though, I thought he looked to young to be him, I didn't stay to watch the credits.

Nope - CGI. Well worth seeing though.

[Bloo Loo]

More like ridiculously high state employment, and salaries

"state employees who keep their jobs face pay cuts of at least 10 per cent"

That is only a start, and they may need to move to :

The 40% Solution

I do my laundry at 40%.. saves the planet too.

[aa3]

California is the end run of radical green policies, overpaid state workers and mass immigration of poor migrants. It is the ideology most of the western world has followed in this decade, California just went earlier than most.

Its a glimpse of our future, if we stay on the current path.

Otoh I think many elites like the look of California. No middle class, just a vast poor trying to survive in the face of high energy prices and the like, and a super rich.

[Tin Foil Hat]

To those who have put/quotes the Terminator spoilers in their posts:

PLEEEEASE edit and use the "Insert special item" drop down and wrap the stuff in spoiler tags to hide it.

I want to follow this thread but won't if it means my enjoyment of the film will be knacked up.

Cheers,

TFH

[Bloo Loo]

To those who have put/quotes the Terminator spoilers in their posts:

PLEEEEASE edit and use the "Insert special item" drop down and wrap the stuff in spoiler tags to hide it.

I want to follow this thread but won't if it means my enjoyment of the film will be knacked up.

Cheers,

TFH

Connor wins....but THAT was revealed in the first film.

Like Titanic....the ship sank.