99% Chance of Budget Today

John Seiler:

There’s a 99 percent chance the Legislature will pass a budget today; with the other 1 percent accounting for tomorrow. They’ll use whatever “gimmicks” they need, tax increases or no tax increases. The reason was reported yesterday by my colleague Steven Greenhut: “Legislators I talked to reminded me that about 80 percent of their colleagues are living paycheck to paycheck and are extremely worried about losing their main source of income. For most of these legislators, this is the best gig and the best pay they will ever get.”

“paycheck to paycheck.” In other words, they can’t manager their personal finances any better than they manage the state’s.

I remember about a decade ago the U.S. Congress, then controlled by “fiscally conservative” Republicans (who were in the process of turning budget surpluses into record deficits) voted on cutting their own pay. They didn’t. The report was that their wives wouldn’t let them.

Nowadays, we have more lady politicians. So, make that: their husbands won’t let them, either.

Especially after in April the Citizens Compensation Commission slashed the Legislators’ car allowance.

Of course, all of this is their own fault. If they didn’t pass so many anti-business bills, more businesses would stay here and grow the tax base — and so provide more taxes for the budget.

Also in April, the Legislature passed and Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a mandate that 33 percent of the state’s electricity must come from unreliable, expensive “renewable” sources, such as wind, solar and the hot air of politicians. It could double electricity costs, destroy hundreds of thousands more jobs and reduce the tax base even further.

So don’t cry for California legislators.

June 15, 2011