California to Solve Budget Crisis With Make-Believe

[marmar]

via Truthdig:



California to Solve Budget Crisis With Make-Believe
Posted on Jun 22, 2009


Unable to agree whether to raise taxes or cut spending, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state’s lawmakers will instead rely on time travel. Sacramento hopes to “save” somewhere around $10 billion by shifting costs to next year’s budget and resorting to other accounting tricks.

They’ll have to do better to close the $24 billion budget gap.

San Jose Mercury News:

Need an extra $2.3 billion? Easy — just make people pay more of next year’s taxes this year, by increasing paycheck withholdings and estimated tax payments.

How about selling a chunk of a state insurance fund? That’s good for a cool $1 billion on paper, even if experts say it’s highly uncertain the sale would fetch that much, if it can be executed at all.

Expenses still too high? Here’s a really creative one: Push back state employees’ monthly paychecks in June 2010 by a single day — from June 30 to July 1 — and thus onto the next fiscal year’s books. Just like that, $1.2 billion “saved.”

Those are just some of the maneuvers — or, to use a less charitable term, gimmicks — that the governor and lawmakers have suggested to help fill a $24 billion shortfall through June 2010. The proposals add up to about $10 billion, depending on what one defines as a gimmick.

Read more

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090622_california_attempts_to_solve_budget_crisis_with_imagination/?ln

[hobbit709]

1. It is the land of "make believe" after all.

And what happens next year when you come up even more short after covering the gimmicks from this year?

[Historic NY]

2. Sounds like NY State selling off pieces to itself over the years...

now we have a bigger mess & the accidental Governor who can't fix anything.

[moondust]

3. Walk Like a Republican

Borrow a ton of money from China and hand out tax cuts to the wealthy. Problem solved!

[jmowreader]

4. The payday pushback worked once for the federal government

Federal employees get paid on the first day of the month instead of the last day of the month because Ronald Reagan bankrupted the country in 1987, and they ran out of money before the end of the fiscal year. To compensate, they pushed the September 1987 payday to October 1, 1987, the first day of FY 1988, which solved the problem.