| Author | Message | ||
     tjohn Citizen Username: Tjohn Post Number: 1660 Registered: 12-2001  |
Dearest Strawberry, Davis can't quite be blamed for $37B debt. Properly understood, it is a product of 1) Californians passing tax-limiting propositions 2) a tax structure overly dependent on capital gains taxes and 3) the Enron-led rape of California during the electricity deregulaton fiasco. | ||
| REBORN STRAW Citizen Username: Strawberry Post Number: 958 Registered: 10-2001 |
Maybe you should go to work for Gray. Sounds like he needs a few supporters. I myself will be supporting Arnold. | ||
| 1-2many Citizen Username: Wbg69 Post Number: 247 Registered: 6-2002 |
it is an absurd concept and an unprovable one, to think Gray Davis created a $37B deficit in under a year. he inherited this problem. | ||
| Dave Ross Supporter Username: Dave Post Number: 5037 Registered: 5-2001  |
Glad to hear Straw is mad about debts in California. Maybe he can get angry about the national debt now. Don't back down You gotta be a little nuts Don't back down But show 'em now who's got guts Don't back down Don't back down from that wave With their feet full of tar and their hair full of sand The boys know the beach like the palm of their hand They're not afraid (don't back down, don't back down) Not my boys (don't back down, don't back down) They grit their teeth (a-oo) they don't back down Don't back down You gotta be a little nuts Don't back down But show 'em now who's got guts Don't back down Don't back down from that wave | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 17 Registered: 8-2003 |
The reason for CA's deficit is they spent too much money. The idea that the citizenry aren't paying enough in taxes is not the problem there. And i'm not laying this on any particular party's feet. Every politician is good as promising and spending money he didn't earn himself. It's so....Jersey. Where the game is to get someone else to pay for your sorry rearend. | ||
| FreeTibet Citizen Username: Freetibet Post Number: 17 Registered: 8-2003 |
if gray davis inherited anything in "a year" it was from himself, being re-elected and all. nice try alligning it with the bush-backed-enron-conspiracy angle, but davis is trying every angle he can, but nothing holds water. he is a wet paper bag with holes. he is done. he is toast. it is his fault. if all of you sit here and try to blame bush for the economy (of which is getting better and better) of last year and not clinton, then blame davis for this mess. he signed every special interest, social program, lobbyist demanded bill he could and now the state suffers. too bad they can't recall the whole darn legislature, because from the looks of it they are all a bunch of crooks. must be something with the cal water. he blew it, he covered it up during re-election campaign and he is scum. go back to the bottom of the river where you belong, davis. Peace and Harmony in the 21st Century | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 18 Registered: 8-2003 |
all true, FreeTibet, although Arnold isn't the answer...unless he surprises me on his policy recommendations. Bustamante wants to raise taxes, and Buffett would like to as well, exacerbating the business flight from that state. | ||
| tjohn Citizen Username: Tjohn Post Number: 1661 Registered: 12-2001 |
Actually, Buffett's analysis of the California problem is pretty correct. Whether or not Gray Davis is to blame is neither here nor there. The reasons are: 1) Californians passing tax-limiting propositions 2) a tax structure overly dependent on capital gains taxes 3) the Enron-led rape of California during the electricity deregulaton fiasco. Somewhere, there might be a lesson for the nation as Bush plunders the treasury and bogs us down in an expensive war that shows no signs of ending anytime soon. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 19 Registered: 8-2003 |
swing and a miss, tjohn. Just cuz Prop 13 limited property taxes, liberals could just take another whack at the rich (if they're still in the state0, or anyone else. LIberals love to raise taxes. The energy fiasco is entirely CA based, with no decent supply, bottlenecks within the states grid from the north to the south, ,and a drought in the NW scotching 20% of the power they have to import cuz they refuse to site new plants. And the deregulation scheme was insanely oblivious to how markets and the world really work (even to a GOldman Sachs liberal). The deficit is due to spending too much. Why is that hard for so many to see? | ||
| tjohn Citizen Username: Tjohn Post Number: 1662 Registered: 12-2001 |
Deficits are due to a gap between receipts (tax revenue, for example) and expenditures. Whether one believes the imbalance is on the revenue side or spending side is obviously a point of lively debate, but neither spending nor revenue alone is a cause for a deficit. Unfortunately, we now have in government something far worse than tax and spend Democrats and that is borrow and spend Republicans. The bill will come due sooner or later and we will pay for tax cuts today with tax hikes tomorrow. | ||
| 1-2many Citizen Username: Wbg69 Post Number: 249 Registered: 6-2002 |
according to a Gray Davis interview in May 2001, he/CA HAD sited new plants... 13 of them, with 8 stated to be under construction at that time. he also said: "In 1999, the entire state--including public power authorities at municipal levels--spent $7 billion for power. In 2000, a year later, for approximately the same amount of electricity, $32.5 billion--a 450 percent increase. And it's going up this year. So ask yourself ... why are we paying these energy companies so much more money for the electrons we bought two years ago for $7 billion? " citation:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/blackout/interviews/davis.html it sounds like this is a big part of the problem, and maybe the "spending too much" you refer to is, in fact, true - but not because the spending has been for luxury items. but this is just from quickie research... cjc, what is your response to this discrete issue? | ||
| Nohero Citizen Username: Nohero Post Number: 1992 Registered: 5-2001  |
1-2: Have you been googling again? You know how that sets some people off! Your attempt to clutter this discussion with relevant facts will soon be exposed by those who know that attitude and misdirection are all that matter in political discourse. | ||
| notehead Citizen Username: Notehead Post Number: 668 Registered: 5-2001  |
My understanding is that supply "shortage" in CA was proven to be bogus - I'll look for some links when I have some time this evening. Providers took advantage of the newly deregulated environment and conspired to create a false shortage to send prices skyward, with no consideration of the hazards to communities without power. Figures were published showing that if every Californian traded a few incandescent light bulbs in their homes for compact fluorescent bulbs, there would have been no "shortage" at all. In fact, Governor Davis even took some time to go door to door giving these bulbs away in some communities to spread this message. This incredibly simple solution was largely ignored. You can lead a horse to water... but if he doesn't drink it, then I guess it's the governor's fault. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 21 Registered: 8-2003 |
1-2many -- easy. If you lose 20% of your power, have grid problems, have a nat gas line blow up, and have to play catch up in a spot market, you're going to get walloped. THere was some gaming of the system - i don't deny that -- but not near the level Davis portrays, nor what judges and FERC would allow. His prediction of power increases didn't pan out in 2001 for a number of supply related reasons. As for spending too much, Davis and the Dems have program after program after program out there. Just like the NE. And they're easy to pass, cuz only 10% of the population actually pays bulk of the taxes. It's easy to vote for something you don't have to pay for. tjohn -- you only get a deficit if spend more than what you have. You can have record receipts and spend too much, or lower receipts and spend too much. As for BUsh's tax cuts...revenue increases to the Treasury happen every time they're tried -- JFK, REagan, and BUsh will too. REagan increased tax receipts from 500B to nearly 1 Trillion by the end of his term by lowering marginal rates. The deficits he had were NOT because the revenues in the Treasury doubled. To be fair, deficits and their causes have a home in both parties. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 22 Registered: 8-2003 |
notehead - - the market in CA was not deregulated. They weren't allowed to pass along costs to consumers. THose were capped, creating a market imbalance. It was not a free market situation. | ||
| tjohn Citizen Username: Tjohn Post Number: 1663 Registered: 12-2001 |
The economy improved towards the end of the Reagan Administration. Of course tax revenues increased. The theory is that tax cuts stimulate the economy thereby leading to increased tax revenues that more than offset the cuts. Of course, the theory is hard or impossible to prove. Common sense would suggest that the theory would more likely hold true when cutting very high tax rates (e.g. 90%) than when cutting very low tax rates. We have no assurance that what happened under JFK and Reagan will also happen under Bush. We could all be left holding a very big bag. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 23 Registered: 8-2003 |
I think history will repeat in increased revenues. Separately, how do you cut things and have a deficit? And the military spending wasn't near the largest portion of that deficit. Could it be that the 'cuts' were off the famous baseline budgeting scheme for the rest of the budget-- where you build in a guaranteed rise of 8-10% spending, then if you 'cut' it to a 4% increase, that 4% increase is a 6% 'cut'? That thinking goes on to this day. Reagan didn't cut much at all. Tried that TEFRA deal ('83?) where every dollar of tax cuts would be matched with 2 bucks of spending reductions. Spending reductions never materialized. | ||
| tjohn Citizen Username: Tjohn Post Number: 1664 Registered: 12-2001 |
Well, history is certainly repeating in Iraq. Many great powers have demonstrated that you can get bogged down in partisan warfare in fairly backward countries. I guess the right-wing demons Perle and Wolfowitz felt a need to repeat history. For the sake of our children, I hope history repeats with regard to the Bush tax cuts. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 24 Registered: 8-2003 |
previous great powers were trying to use the middle east as their colonies. US isn't anywhere near that. I say we're out of iraq before we pull out of Bosnia and Kosovo -- where human rights were key, and where they're not in Iraq. | ||
| tjohn Citizen Username: Tjohn Post Number: 1665 Registered: 12-2001 |
I agree that we'll be out of Iraq before we are out of Bosnia and Kosovo. Under what circumstances remains to be seen. In any event, the cost of operations in the Balkans and the levels of violence are rather less than in Iraq. |
