IF YOU HAD ANY DOUBT about who the real victims are in the state's budget impasse, all you need to do is take a look at the California State's Controller's website at the long list of those who will be issued IOUs instead of checks from the state because we ran out of cash due to the budget deadlock Tuesday night. I preview a partial list:
According to a FAQ page on the Controller's site, if you're handed one of these IOUs you'll need to hang on until Oct. 1 to cash it unless you bank at one of the few institutions honoring them. Or you can open a bank account at one that does. Bank of America and a few other institutions say they'll honor them through July 10 only.
And here's the kicker -- even if the legislature returns and miraculously agrees on a budget to start state coffers flowing again, you're still stuck waiting until Oct. 1 to cash that check.
If it's any consolation, you'll be paid 3.75 percent interest, adding even further to the state's deficit.
Repercussions from the late-night refusal by Senate Republicans to pass stopgap measures already approved by the Assembly added $7 billion to the deficit, according to Assembly member Noreen Evans. Our governor "actively recruited" legislators to vote the measure down, Evans wrote.
• Student Aid Commission (includes funding for Cal Grants) - $159 millionWhile social service agencies, colleges and universities could temporarily rely on reserves, it's the small contractors and those counting on a refund from the state who are out of luck.
• Department of Social Services CalWorks (temporary assistance for basic family needs, Including specific welfare-to-work requirements) - $495 million
• Department of Developmental Services Payments (funding for regional centers providing services to persons with developmental disabilities) - $363 million
• Department of Mental Health Payments (assists counties in providing an array of mental health treatment and rehabilitative services) - $90 million
• Department of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Payments (assists counties in providing prevention, treatment, and recovery services) - $127 million
• Small Business Vendors - $424 million
• Personal Income Tax Refunds - $140 million
According to a FAQ page on the Controller's site, if you're handed one of these IOUs you'll need to hang on until Oct. 1 to cash it unless you bank at one of the few institutions honoring them. Or you can open a bank account at one that does. Bank of America and a few other institutions say they'll honor them through July 10 only.
And here's the kicker -- even if the legislature returns and miraculously agrees on a budget to start state coffers flowing again, you're still stuck waiting until Oct. 1 to cash that check.
If it's any consolation, you'll be paid 3.75 percent interest, adding even further to the state's deficit.
Repercussions from the late-night refusal by Senate Republicans to pass stopgap measures already approved by the Assembly added $7 billion to the deficit, according to Assembly member Noreen Evans. Our governor "actively recruited" legislators to vote the measure down, Evans wrote.
We get the government we deserve. Look no further than Ventura County repeatedly sending the Strickland's to Sacramento. In the ten years or so that I have lived in Ventura County I have never seen either Strickland offer a constructive change to the California budget. You never hear specifics in their public speeches - "We need to reform government." - "We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem." They have both refused to meet with local educators to discuss the budget. Strangely, I found myself supporting their positions in the recently concluded Special Election, voting against all of the measures, not because I agree with their approach to government rather because I abhor bad government from either party. We seem poised to drive the California government off a cliff. I stand ready to pay my fair share to keep this state viable and assist those less fortunate than myself. Unfortunately, until we elect representatives that rise above our petty self-interests we will continue to get a fractured government.
Unlike Steve Kane I'm not willing to pay for this nonsense. I'll probably be forced to, but it will be unwilling. I was willing when they could have solved the problems with a lot smaller deficit hanging over their heads. But no more!
I have called the legislature and the governor incompetent. I was wrong. I've called them fools. I was wrong. They are devils of the worst possible kind, protecting their own interests in spite of the whole State of California. They know good and well what they're doing and don't care. They have no idea that their real job is to run California for the benefit of all Californians.
Do several million of us have to show up, surround and literally blockade the Statehouse before they get the message?
So, the parasites are going to receive IOU's. What'S the big deal?
Small business operators and taxpayers expecting refunds are parasites?
I think Larry Nieves was referring to Capitol Venture of Sacramento and Anchor Consulting of Alexandria, Va.. They are the lobbyists Dean Kunicki convinced the Ventura County Board of Education to hire. Larry they didn't get IOU's they got paid by the tax payers. You see Larry Republicans only like the tax payers money being spent on their criminal activity and fraudulent behavior.
At the time, the VCBOE had a majority of trustees that didn't care about the students so I don't think Kunicki had to "convince" anyone. Fortunately, Chris Valenzano lost and Mark Lisagor won as well as Ramon Flores (over his undereducated, Christian Evangelical pastor opponent). One of the first acts was rescinding the decision to spend $$$$ on do-nothing lobbyists.
Katie and Student:
The fiscal foibles practiced by the defeated "Tres Evangelistos" on the VCBOE pale into insignificance in comparison of the 10+ Richter-Scale Fiscal Earthquake that is about to happen in the Golden State..
50 Years from now, when Constitutional scholars look back, they will likely mark today, July 4, 2009, as the Day that California fully and completely lost its Fiscal Independence as a State and became a ward of the Federal Fiscal Bank!
Our Girly-Man Governator and his State Legislative Gang of Four, have placed a fiscal albatross of epic proportion around President Obama's neck..
Given the sheer size of the State's economy, (at last count, the eighth largest in the world, at least for the moment), if California goes bankrupt a fiscal tsunami will move from the West Coast to the East Coast inundating the national recovery, weak as it is..
Essentially, by their actions, (or more accurately, inactions) Arnie and his fellow-traveling Sacramento fiscal buckaroos are giving the President a hellish fiscal trifecta he doesn't want, and the nation doesn't need. Namely, more lost infrastructure projects, more lost jobs, and more lost economic productivity.
Girard Miller's excellent article in Governing Magazine points the way towards what is likely to be the only solution left to the nation in order to correct Sacramento’s fiscal fumbling. That solution is embedded in the Representative Gerald Connelly's bill (HR 1669). His bill authorizes Congress to provide state and local governments’ access to the Federal Financing Bank (FFB), with California leading the pack.
As Mr. Miller’s points out in his excellent article, “That's why the Federal Financing Bank proposal in Connelly's bill could actually be the most cost-efficient way to fund California's debt bridge. Using a 10-year workout period, for example, the Treasury could borrow money serially at 2 to 4 percent in today's market and re-lend at that same rate to California through the FFB.
Unlike a tax-exempt bond issue which yields no revenue to Uncle Sam, California's lower-cost borrowing at FFB would require no tax subsidy as many of the underlying Treasury bond investors would pay income taxes. Keeping California's new debt out of the municipal market would also reduce total supply of tax-exempt bonds, which would benefit conventional muni rates for other states and municipalities. Finally, there is a broader global market for U.S. Treasury bonds than for debt of any state, even California.
In return for federal financial support, the Obama Administration and Congress need to formalize the restrictive terms and conditions they would impose on borrowers who gain access to these credit facilities. Given the sour mood of Americans over "Bailout Nation," a federal debt-market assistance bill for states and municipalities must attach some powerful "strings" that can be explained to constituents nationwide.”
Well Californianos’ I guess now we all know what Arnie meant when he said that if we elected him, he’d blow-up the boxes in Sacramento!!! But I guess we never thought that this would morph into Arnie and the State Legislative Gang-of-Four acting like fiscal terrorists, and by so doing, triggering Federal fiscal shock and awe responses of unprecedented historical proportions..
Hey..I’ve got a “thinking out of the box” solution.. Bernie Madoff, the King of Ponzista’s, has recently been given 150-Years in a Federal Prison. Perhaps Treasury Secretary Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke can ask Bernie to provide fiscal consultation services to the Federal Fiscal Receiver whom will soon be tasked to sheppard California from fiscal insolvency to fiscal discipline.
After all, who better than Madoff would know what Ponzi schemes are really lurking in California’s State Budget? And to make it more interesting, we can incentivize Bernie’s Machiavellian genus by telling him that for each $100 Million he saves the taxpayer by discovering those Ponzi schemes, he gets one month off his 150-year prison sentence..
NostraDemus
Student needs some lessons in civility. Name calling and character assassination are not productive.
I'm a lifelong Republican but I'm at the front of the line to condemn Republican self-interest.
Democrats can't lay claim to being lily-white either. They've done their own share of things to wreck California. Dishonesty and self-interest are where you find them. The measures on the May 19 ballot are a good example of pure self-interest, trying to put off the inevitable reckoning and the political heat for a couple of years in the hope that things would somehow be better then. They completely failed -- both sides of the aisle -- to disclose that prop 1F also extended temporarily increased taxes for two more years. The voters saw right through it.
IOU's is kind of like a tax except they keep everything.
Student is 100 percent right. See below:
Lobbying firms paid by Ventura County Board of Education
rack up big charges for taxpayers, show little results
October 15, 2008 - The Republican-controlled Ventura County Board of Education’s (VCBE) contract to pay two out-of-town firms more than $396,000 to lobby on behalf of the Ventura County Office of Education (VCOE) has produced little more than additional bills for taxpayers and a possible partnership with a private Christian College in Indiana which could help build the college a new $8.5 million building.
Since 2007, the VCOE has enlisted the services of Anchor Consulting, LLC, of Alexandria, Va. and Capitol Venture, LLC of Sacramento. Each of these lobbying firms received $10,000 a month from the VCBE. The board majority originally voted to use money garnered from leasing educational broadband services to pay for the lobbyist expenses. Now it is using money in reserves.
According to an article in the Jan. 16 edition of Roll Call, Anchor Consulting dreamed up a plan for the VCOE to partner with another one of its clients, Grace College, an evangelical Christian college in Indiana, to obtain No Child Left Behind (NCLB) money to fund a project for at-risk youth in Ventura County.
“The biggest chunk of the budget would be a new $8.5 million building on the Grace campus that would be used to host VCOE at-risk youth for four sessions of a two-week summer camp,” the Roll Call article states. “Grace would continue to use the building throughout the year.”
Currently, no earmarks for the at-risk youth program have been placed in the re-authorization of the NCLB measure, which was stalled in the last legislative session.
“No Child Left Behind is underfunded as it is,” said VCBE Trustee Mary Louise Peterson, a critic of the lobbying contracts. “And we’re trying to take money away from a program that is underfunded to give to a private college?” she asked.
The board’s other paid lobbying firm, Capitol Venture, recently billed nearly $800 in expenses for a meeting with Wal-Mart executives to talk about a Regional Occupational Program, Peterson said. “We’re their only education client.” This bill was in addition to their monthly $10,000 fee, Peterson said.
How were these two firms selected?
VCBE member Chris Valenzano, a former legislative aide to Tony Strickland when he served in the Assembly, proposed in September of 2006 that the board consider hiring lobbyists, according to board minutes.
Records from the California Secretary of State indicate Joseph G. Yocca of Capitol Venture made a $1,000 donation to Republican Tony Strickland in October of 2006 during his failed race for State Controller. Anchor Consulting also made a $1,000 donation to Strickland’s race at the same time. Strickland is now running for State Senate District 19, which serves Ventura County and portions of Santa Barbara and Los Angeles County.
Not long after, in February of 2007, according to board minutes, VCBOE member and Ventura County Republican Central Committee member Dean Kunicki said he was considering six lobbying firms for the County Schools Office. He did not provide costs at the time he presented his recommendations. In March of 2007, a majority of the board voted to pursue contracts with these two lobbying firms. No other firms were presented for the vote.
The $396,000 contract is one of the largest expenditures for educational lobbyists in the state. Only a handful of other county offices have hired lobbyists.
Capitol Venture was also involved in work on a failed bill authored by Assembly member Audra Strickland last year. According to the Ventura County Star, AB911, introduced on behalf of the VCOE, would have equalized the amount of money counties receive for students in Regional Occupational Programs. The bill would not have helped the local schools, former Ventura County Superintendent of Schools Charles Weis told the Star, “It would have taken money away from us.”
Recent online reports filed on behalf of the Ventura County Board of Education for the 2007-08 state legislative session show no lobbying activity reported in the second, third and fourth quarters. A report from the lobbying firms presented to the board blamed partisan politics for the lack of activity on behalf of the county schools.
Two candidates currently running for seats on the Ventura County Board of Education will bring much-needed change. Dr. Mark Lisagor is running for District 3, which serves Camarillo, Somis, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru, Meiners Oaks, Oak View, Ojai and Wheelers Springs. Dr. Ramon Flores is running for District 5, serving Oxnard, Colonia, Ocean View and El Rio.
“The unwarranted spending by the current board on dubious lobbyists with little or no accountability must stop. As a trustee, I will be an effective advocate for public education in Sacramento and our nation’s capitol,” Lisagor said.
Jan. 16 Roll Call article:
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/53_79/news/21585-1.html?type=printer_friendly
What a waste of taxpayer money!!!
Thankfully, there are many more sane people like Steve Kane than selfish nimrods like Roy Hogue in California. And don't get me started on Larry "small business owners waiting for tax refunds are parasites" Nieves, whose hyper-Randian idiocy is really instructive concerning typical GOP morals and understanding of civics.
The only reason the sane people can't get the government we deserve is that the vastly outnumbered nimrods hold us hostage with the 2/3 rule.
David Atkins can have it his way then and watch California go down the drain.
I've no use for either party in all of this as I've said quite literally. But somehow that makes me selfish. Perhaps you think that all my life I've been working so I could carry the rest of society around on my back. If so, jerk your head back into the sunshine. Helping others is one thing and giving them a free ride is another. For just one example, universal preschool at taxpayer expense is nothing but a babysitting service -- a very expensive babysitting service. Such things are not the function of government. Civics is a matter of opinion. Bankruptcy is a matter of cold hard fact. We now can't pay for all your "civics".
Hate me if you must, but I speak the truth. And still, I blame both parties for all the mess. And still, California is bankrupt and can't pay its bills. Enjoy your IOUs.