Thank You GRAY DAVIS
 

Well It looks like our good old buddy Gray Davis has found a way to bail out the state of California..Raising the DMV fees x3
And He did NOT tell us about this mess..BEFORE his REELECTION Or Maybe he Forgot to tell us that the state was is Trouble Im sure this WILL piss off several Californians...The High end car markit/Dealers will suffer!and lets not forget the truckers with the Big Rigs that cost over $150/$200k....They will pass it on to us at the Markit...
Will our roads be Improved..NOPE!Just a Way to bail out his Oversight....

Many states have been hammered by the tumble. It is an unfortunate necessity that the state and local governments “fix” the problem by screwing tax payers harder than ever. Here, the city council decided to drastically increase fines on something like 100 citations. So greedy has the city become that someone recently was fined for leaving their car’s headlights on in a metered parking spot! The fine was removed only after it made front page news!

I'll bet there is a great maount of opposition to this, so who knows. it may not be passed, or it may be overturned.

Alon

DAvis is a no good! Damn it. First the power BS, now this. Where is SImon when you need him?!

I've oficially been living in California for 2 years now and the last time I had to experience the stupidity of a governor was in NY....Mario Cuomo at the time. He taxed the hell out of the state, eliminated tons of jobs and essentially made most of upstate NY a retirement community with low paying commercial jobs.

I think Davis is on the same track and it kills me to think that we can't get rid of him that easily. Unfortunately regarding taxes if it doesn't come from registration it will come from somewhere else. Either way we're getting screwed for the governments mistakes. Maybe all highly paid officials should take a pay cut to make up for this!

I heard last year Grey Davis spent a huge portion of his campaign budget to eliminate his biggest competitor before he could even run for office! I don't know exact figures but I've heard Davis's budget was 3X's more than Simons. How many terms can this moron run for?:mad: :(

He did. That's why Davis is governor now instead of Richard Riordan. Davis knew that Riordan would win the Republican primary, and that if he did, he would win the governor race hands-down. So, during the Republican primary, Davis launched a serious mudslinging campaign aimed right at Riordan...so we got a complete buffon winning the Republican nomination instead, which was exactly what Davis wanted. Davis then switched his guns to Bill Simon (useless excuse for a politician wannabe IMHO; if he had won it'd be just as bad), but by this time people knew what he was up to, so California had one of the worst voter turnouts in history. People purposefully didn't go to the polls out of protest. I did a write-in vote for Riordan anyways :)

Hopefully, in '06, California'll be able to present one decent human being in the governor's race...I'm not holding my breath, though. :(

Absolutely! If an individual or business runs short on cash, they have to REDUCE SPENDING! Why can't politicians be held to the same standard? Why do we allow our governments to ignore this fundamental economic rule, and to use us, the citizens who elect them, as their personal piggy bank? Don't STEAL more money from taxpayers!...REDUCE SPENDING!

Mike

talk about being asleep at the wheel. I am really upset at what happened, and I'm especially feeling it at school. I go to a community college, and they are getting hit HARD. so far, the cost of classes has gone up more than 200% (from $11 to $24 a unit), they might not offer summer semester (I'll end up doing 3 years then), bigger class sizes, less class variety of classes, and they are also cutting jobs.

Some of my teacher friends (including a certified master teacher) that are nearing 60 are being "strongly encouraged" to take early retirement, with the implication that they may face loss of contract as positions are cut. No new recruiting is going on in their district either, and new hire interviews were cancelled! Yet the student population is growing. Hiring freezes have hit the UC and CSU campuses as well, and retiring professors are being replaced by temporary lecturers.

California consistently spends in the 45th to 50th bottom rank on dollars/student, and on dollars/person/mile of road. If we are nearly last in spending on basics such as students and roads, where is the money going? We didn't have a deficit when GD took office, so where was it spent? THOSE are the areas that should be cut first.

So here's a question.......Does Anyone Like Gray Davis?:confused:

And can he be impeached!:D

CA democrats elected him TWICE! :eek: You guys need to rally the non-democrat troops next time and get RID of that idiot! What's his term limit in CA, anyway?

Mike

I dunno... I voted for Paul Simon

The deficit comes from 1. program expansions (which Democrats are loathe to cut) 2. tax cuts (which Republicans are loathe to remove) and 3. a steep decline in capital gains taxes (which everyone is starting to realize is a lousy source of revenue). Given that the budget needs both Democrat and Republican votes to pass, it will be a long time before we get a budget this year.

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, the 60% reduction in the VLF about four years ago was actually one of the biggest components of this change (certainly the biggest tax cut), worth about $4.3 billion over the next year and a half. Whether you think it should be reinstated or not, people should know that the current proposal is to put it back where it was in 1998 before the tax cut. These VLF monies (currently backfilled by the state) are by far the largest source of discretionary funds for local governments, meaning that it pays for things like Community-Oriented Policing, libraries, park and rec, garbage pick-up, etc. Basically anything that's not fire, life, and safety.

Also, while California still ranks near dead last in per-pupil spending, education nevertheless constitutes by far the biggest chunk of the state budget. K-12 represents 43.6% ($27.4 billion) of proposed 02-03 General Fund spending, followed by UC/CSU/Comm College at 13.6% ($8.5 billion).

K-12 is in line to receive a proposed $1 billion across-the-board hit, but that represents only 3.7% of their GF budget. Compare this to a total $26-34 billion deficit, and that tells you about what's going to happen to other programs.

People also may not know that between 60 and 70 percent of the state budget is non-discretionary, fixed through federal, state and local mandates, as well as through required spending due to population growth. One of the most significant mandates is Prop 98, which was a constitutional amendment passed by initiative in 1988. Essentially, Prop 98 provides a funding floor for K-14 education, and ratchets that floor up in good budget years. Another voter-passed mandate was Proposition 49 from last year (the Schwarzenegger initiative), which dedicates $500 million in state funds to after-school programs, once it goes into effect.

FWIW - three of my friends are public school teachers, and at least one of them is expecting to be laid off within the next five months. She just bought a house too...

-anthony