{"id":5348,"date":"2010-05-17T20:03:18","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T00:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=5348"},"modified":"2010-05-17T20:03:18","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T00:03:18","slug":"california-no-fruits-just-nuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/5348\/california-no-fruits-just-nuts\/","title":{"rendered":"California: No Fruits, Just Nuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

From California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s press conference unveiling his budget proposal<\/a> amidst a $19.1 billion deficit:<\/p>\n

“California no longer has low-hanging fruits \u2013 we don’t have any medium-hanging fruits, and we also don’t have any high-hanging fruits,” Schwarzenegger said, explaining the cuts Friday at a news conference in Sacramento. “We have to take the ladder from the tree and shake the whole tree.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And no, he wasn\u2019t making a Steve Miller Band reference<\/a>.\u00a0 (At least, I hope not.)<\/p>\n

Though Sacramento\u2019s spending commitments must be addressed, it\u2019s interesting that the governor targeted eliminating the welfare-to-work program known as CALWorks, along with certain child care funding.\u00a0 For their part, Democrats are wailing for a delay in scheduled corporate tax breaks.\u00a0 As if further depleting business capital is the answer to balancing the state\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

There are no easy, \u201ccomprehensive\u201d answers for reforming California\u2019s budget crisis.\u00a0 But there is a better place to start the discussion: suspend AB 32<\/a>, Schwarzenegger\u2019s signature global warming bill.<\/p>\n

In fact, that\u2019s the name of a group<\/a> making the case that since California is responsible for \u2013 at most \u2013 1.4% of the world\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions, AB 32\u2019s severe, self-imposed restrictions amount to a jobs killer.\u00a0 The group estimates that when fully implemented, AB 32 will cost the state 1.1 million jobs, the average family $3,857, and each small business $49,691.<\/p>\n

The net result?\u00a0 \u201cDevastated budgets of California social services agencies through massive losses in tax revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granted, suspending AB 32 would be largely symbolic, but if Schwarzenegger took the ax to his prized \u201cgreen\u201d bill, he could chalk it up to serious times calling for serious budgets.\u00a0 When times are good, economies can afford to absorb major public investments on microscopic returns.\u00a0 These are not those times.\u00a0 Californians have needs and wants; it\u2019s past time the state\u2019s nutty politicians understood the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s press conference unveiling his budget proposal amidst a $19.1 billion deficit: “California no longer has low-hanging fruits \u2013 we don’t have any medium-hanging fruits, and we also don’t have any high-hanging fruits,” Schwarzenegger said, explaining the cuts Friday at a news conference in Sacramento. “We have to take the ladder […]<\/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":[1285,299,205,699,234,1286],"class_list":["post-5348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-ab-32","tag-california","tag-global-warming","tag-governor-arnold-schwarzenegger","tag-state-budgets","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348","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=5348"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5353,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions\/5353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}