Famed investor Jim Rogers has been warning for years that federal, state and local governments have been wasting way too much of the taxpayers’ money. The result: massive deficits at all levels of government, especially California, and pleas by government to raise taxes even higher — especially in Taxifornia.

In an interview last Friday, Rogers came out with the only feasible solution: “Take a chain saw to spendng in the United States,” he advised. “We’re not in charge of our destiny, we’re the largest debtor nation in the world.”

Debt and deficits mean others control one’s financial destiny. California voters, amazingly, have approved $109 billion in state bond debt, of which $72 billion already has been taken out, according to state Treasurer Bill Lockyer.

The bonds costs the state treasury $5.5 billion in Gov. Jerry Brown’s May Revise to his 2010-11 budget proposal (page 101).

Put another way, without that debt payment of $5.5 billion; and without Brown’s call in the May Revise for an additional $3 billion in spending, there would be no need for the $9 billion in tax increases he called for. (Another $500 million might have to be cut, to round out the figures.)

Jim Rogers is right: Take a chain saw to the spending. We can’t afford anything else.

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June 13, 2011