[Tyler_JC]

There you go.

[Fishman]

"A fifth presenter at the press conference concentrated on the increased fiscal costs to California from illegal immigration, based on the following low, medium and high estimates of that state?s illegal population: a range of 2.47 million to 4.8 million, with a median figure of 2.8 million - up from 1.7 million in 1994. The 4.8 million "high" estimate, based on California's assumed 24% share of the overall illegal population,"
http://www.npg.org/CAPS.html
the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year.

The nanny state
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrati ... 06945.html

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '[')img]http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/expenditures.gif[/img]

There you go.

[Tyler_JC]

That's Illinois. (Another big liberal state).



That's Texas. (A big conservative state).

Would anyone like to analyze?

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('beamofthewave', 'T')he nanny state is far from over, F. Scott Fitzgerald stated in circa 1910 "the rich are different from the rest of us, they need the government to survive," and if you think Goldman Sachs is done taking from the US treasury, you are so, so wrong. We have given them 30 trillion and the wealthy are unhappy because of the crumbs that fall from the table to the poor and the sick citizens of our country. 30 TRILLION compared to what? It makes me want to puke, my fellow citizens all happy because the banks got 30 trillion in the past two years. What do you think these ultra rich are going to do for you. George Carlin is right, they do not care for you, you are not a human being to them, you are less than an ant to them. They dont care if you live or die, they dont care if you are stuck on top of your house because of a big storm and surrounded by water, they will watch you are tv as they eat popcorn saying, "I sure hope someone helps him." The money that could have been used to help the citizens, put into emergency management, rebuilding infrastructure is gone, all gone, the very wealthy have it all now and our electrical grid is falling apart across the country and we are going into third worldom quickly and I swear you are not going to like it one bit. Maybe you will get to watch your kid die because there is no longer a safe water supply because the money for that went to the ultra rich banks, I lived in a third world country and that is typical. You are not going to like peeing shit because of the intestinal parasites or your kids belly huge because of the worms or having to walk over the bridge and the car comes after because it is due to collapse any day. You are not going to like it and all because you care more about the banks than your fellow citizens.

[nobodypanic]

oh yay, the saftey nets are collapsing!

you idiots, once they collapse, revolution will exported up from latin america.

[Kristen]

Don't you think calling California a "nanny state" is kind've using loaded words. Those damn two or three word phrases like "stay the course", & "believe in change" are effective in causing negative dissonance and perhaps blocking people's rationale.

The solution to begin with is to make a law that forces the states to pass budgets before anything else. I'm not sure when the session began, but they should have planned for this instead of focusing on unimportant social issues like civil unions and abortion that just make the populace angry and emotional (For reasons I cannot understand).

Also for the liberals; you might want to come up with a new word for the ideals it really does stand for. It has been tainted with too much negative connotation.

-Kristen Mcgreagor

[bratticus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'T')he solution to begin with is to make a law that forces the states to pass budgets before anything else.

[beamofthewave]

I think it is a propaganda deal to call it nanny state. There is no such in the this country. Our government does not care for the people like the government of Finland, now that is a government that cares for their people. If I had been stuck on a house in Katrina I would personnally held up a sign saying "Canadian" or some first world countries name written on it so I could get off that roof. It is odd, TPTB want to separate and divide the poor and middle class but the ultr rich stick together pretty good.

[Kristen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bratticus', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'T')he solution to begin with is to make a law that forces the states to pass budgets before anything else.

[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')y students had only the vaguest notion of who pays for government services. For them, it was like a magical piggy bank that never goes empty. One black girl was exhorting the class on the need for more social services and I kept trying to explain that people, real live people, are taxed for the money to pay for those services. “Yeah, it come from whites,” she finally said. “They stingy anyway.”
“Many black people make over $50,000 dollars a year and you would also be taking away from your own people,” I said. She had an answer to that: “Dey half breed.” The class agreed. I let the subject drop.

[evilgenius]

From the stats provided it looks as if California does spend a little more than Texas, another big state, for social services. It does if you include the other wedge in the California pie that has to do with this. All in all, though, the difference is not enough to cover the deficit.

Nanny state identifiers aside, the next thing to do is to examine the role of state government bureaucracy in the economic mix in California, and all states. Are we really talking about the same thing as the example that is given in all economics classes regarding the British Navy. It seems the size of the bureaucracy in the navy does not rise to meet the number of ships, rather the size of the budget. If that is the case with California then it probably is not social services per se that are to blame, but the number of people that are assigned to carry them out along with the number that carry out all other government functions.

Perhaps a good starting place would be to find an identifier that has to do with yearly salary expense, say $55,000. At varying levels above that wage the state could roll back pay starting at 2% or something similarly safe and small and increase it by a few percentage points per $10,000 until you achieve an 8%-10% rollback. A person could appeal to a special three person board that hears only hard luck cases.

The idea is that in a bureaucracy a person in charge will almost never take on a single underling to pawn (delegate) their work to. Instead they will take on at least two so that the duties are split and no one person knows enough to replace them outright. A wage reduction at the high end serves to signal real need and therefore bring home the logic of cost cutting. Over time the bureaucracy should shrink as higher ups stop creating or stop filling vacant posts. I don't know what the law is concerning canning people in California's bureaucracy, but if it is possible the incentive would be in place for that as well.

This probably won't get you there either, but couple it with a percentage cut in benefits across all sectors supported by government that have low economic multipliers (not just welfare, but everything else that doesn't inject money into a high turnover point of injection, like some of the business stimulation schemes) and maybe you will get close.

The next thing to look at beyond that is sweet heart special exemptions and rich man cost cutting deals that make it possible for low return businesses to succeed that otherwise would fail or fail to take in enough of a return to compete with other more competitive forms of doing business. What do businesses get to write off of their taxes that if it were brought out into the light of day would offend the body politic? Has the government accepted non-competitive bids? Are there royalties going begging that aren't being paid because lobbies demand their annulment?

There are a host of things wrong with the way that the business of government is being handled in most states. It is a mistake to focus on one thing and declare that some group (illegal aliens for instance) is so responsible that they ought to be tarred and feathered and run out of town. If you give in to that you will probably do it next to a crowd of others that will be very glad you didn't see them for what they were. And so far as you right wingers trying to assuage your guilt at being so greedy in the past by focusing so much on others, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('beamofthewave', 'I') think it is a propaganda deal to call it nanny state. There is no such in the this country. Our government does not care for the people like the government of Finland, now that is a government that cares for their people...

[vision-master]

Tell that to Wall Street.

How do you invest $1 an make $2?

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('odegaard', 'T')his is what you do NOT understand so I'll have to teach you.
You cannot get something for nothing.
Government is NOT some type of magic black box where you insert $1 and receive $2 worth in gov. services.

[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'T')ell that to Wall Street. How do you invest $1 an make $2?

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', 'T')ell that to Wall Street. How do you invest $1 and make $2?

[odegaard]

WOW it seems that people love to take what I say out of context.

I specifically said GOVERNMENT.

[odegaard]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('beamofthewave', 'O')ur government does not care for the people like the government of Finland, now that is a government that cares for their people.

[deMolay]

The Nanny State is Hitting the Wall in California. And Arnie and the Dems are fighting for the steering wheel. When will California's debt be downgraded to Junk Status instead of double B? http://www.howestreet.com/index.php?pl= ... layer/1284