The size of California State government is ENORMOUS.  All of the debate that we hear about is focused directly on the 100 BILLION++ general fund of the state budget.  But if you want to look at the big picture, you need to add to this number TENS OF BILLIONS in additional state spending that is not included in this discussion – in “special funds” where funds come in from taxes that are not called taxes (they call them by a pseudonym, “fees” and say they take only a majority, not a 2/3 vote to enact) and these taxes go to specific programs, and then they are “moved off-budget” into this other (ignored in the current debate) corner, out of sight.  Let us also not forget the BILLIONS OF BILLIONS of already authorized bonded indebtedness that occurred and will continue to occur, without so much as another vote of the people (or in the case of those scandalous “prison bonds” – without a vote of the people).  All of this adds up to just a VAST and MASSIVE amount of money that California taxpayers, present and future are going to be coercively paying (or in the case of the borrowing, paying back). 

The reason that I bring this up is that I get more than a little frustrated when I hear that there are folks out there who get “frustrated” because the legislative process is not dominated by moderates.  The folks who feel that “partisan gridlock” has taken over Sacramento, creating some kind of paralysis that is keeping state government from functioning, when NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.