{"id":14252,"date":"2012-05-18T14:19:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-18T18:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=14252"},"modified":"2012-05-18T14:19:30","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T18:19:30","slug":"more-evidence-ca-govt-doesn%e2%80%99t-know-how-to-prioritize-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/14252\/more-evidence-ca-govt-doesn%e2%80%99t-know-how-to-prioritize-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"More Evidence CA Govt Doesn\u2019t Know How to Prioritize Spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"Bloomberg provides a snapshot of California state government\u2019s fiscal insanity:   California Governor Jerry Brown is seeking a 38,000 percent spending increase for a proposed high- speed rail system, even as he plans to raise taxes, cut state worker pay and reduce social programs to narrow a $15.7 billion deficit.  The \u201c38,000 percent\u201d translates into a requested budget increase from $15.9 million to $6.1 billion for construction costs of California\u2019s fantastical high-speed rail project.  The kicker: all that money builds only the first 130 miles of an estimated 800 mile route from Los Angeles to San Francisco.    A lot of internet ink has been spilt rightly decrying this total waste of taxpayer money.  What I want to emphasize in this post is that Governor Brown\u2019s budget request should anger liberals even more than conservatives.    Can it really be true that with California\u2019s budget deficit recently surging from $9.2 billion to more than $15.7 billion that welfare and salaries must be cut and taxes raised so that someone\u2019s bullet train dream can come true?    This is insane.  If Californians \u2013 the unions included \u2013 can\u2019t rouse themselves to kill high-speed rail for the sake of preserving food stamps and health care for the poor, the rest of the nation should wash its hands of the state and let it implode.    Ending any and all spending related to the L.A.-S.F. bullet train should be done today.  It\u2019s a no-brainer.  Unfortunately, that\u2019s also true of the folks in charge of the public fisc.  \" target=\"_blank\">Businessweek<\/a> provides a snapshot of California state government\u2019s fiscal insanity:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>California Governor Jerry Brown is seeking a 38,000 percent spending increase for a proposed high- speed rail system, even as he plans to raise taxes, cut state worker pay and reduce social programs to narrow a $15.7 billion deficit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The \u201c38,000 percent\u201d translates into a requested budget increase from $15.9 <em>million<\/em> to $6.1 <em>billion<\/em> for construction costs of California\u2019s fantastical high-speed rail project.\u00a0 The kicker: all that money builds only the first 130 miles of an estimated 800 mile route from Los Angeles to San Francisco.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of internet ink has been spilt rightly decrying this total waste of taxpayer money.\u00a0 What I want to emphasize in this post is that Governor Brown\u2019s budget request should anger liberals even more than conservatives.<\/p>\n<p>Can it really be true that with <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.boston.com\/2012-05-17\/news\/31751725_1_tax-hike-cuts-latest-budget-proposal\" target=\"_blank\">California\u2019s budget deficit recently surging<\/a> from $9.2 billion to more than $15.7 billion that welfare and salaries must be cut and taxes raised so that someone\u2019s bullet train dream can come true?<\/p>\n<p>This is insane.\u00a0 If Californians \u2013 the unions included \u2013 can\u2019t rouse themselves to kill high-speed rail for the sake of preserving food stamps and health care for the poor, the rest of the nation should wash its hands of the state and let it implode.<\/p>\n<p>Ending any and all spending related to the L.A.-S.F. bullet train should be done today.\u00a0 It\u2019s a no-brainer.\u00a0 Unfortunately, that\u2019s also true of the folks in charge of the public fisc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Businessweek provides a snapshot of California state government\u2019s fiscal insanity: California Governor Jerry Brown is seeking a 38,000 percent spending increase for a proposed high- speed rail system, even as he plans to raise taxes, cut state worker pay and reduce social programs to narrow a $15.7 billion deficit. The \u201c38,000 percent\u201d translates into a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[70,299,59,2665,2035],"class_list":["post-14252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-budget","tag-california","tag-deficit","tag-high-speed-rail","tag-jerry-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14252"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14256,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14252\/revisions\/14256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}