8 ms·

Failing budget? I get that it's super popular right-wing talking point but it just hasn't been true for years. Prior to COVID (which has decimated state budget

Failing budget? I get that it's super popular right-wing talking point but it just hasn't been true for years. Prior to COVID (which has decimated state budgets Red and Blue) California had a huge surplus and massive rainy-day fund.

busterarm 6y ago
California has a $54B deficit this year. It's been all over the news, including very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico. The state _projected_ a surplus and was off by an entire order of magnitude into the red. The state has been campaigning to Congress all year for about $14B in bailout money.
- boringg 6y ago
  Yes, most places in the country have a massive deficit this year because states are spending money to protect their citizens and stimulate the economy. So this year is an odd year for most states... don't try and single out California as this bad actor that can't manage its finances. That narrative is misleading.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    California has historically had budget problems for decades and resolved things 8 years ago through increased taxes. It also increased taxes by about $2B this year. As recently as 2017, the state miscalculated the costs of Medi-Cal and had a 1.6B deficit for the year. The argument that I'm framing is that the state has to continuously dig further into its citizens pockets in order to fund its appetite for spending. It's entirely true.
    - boringg 6y ago
      Listen, CA is a state of big numbers - big deficits and big surplus's (Surplus of $9B in 2018, $7B in 2019). It's a function of being the 5th largest economy of the world Gross State Produce ($3.2 Trillion) larger than India and the UK. It has raised taxes, but mostly in a progressive way targeted at high income earners. At lot of marginal tax revenue comes from IPOs and equity sales. It has intrinsic problems and some pretty bad policies that linger to this day (impacts from prop 13 for example). It's still the best state to live in, has great opportunity for many people and tries to implement long term policies benefitting is citizens and is a global leader. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/debt-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/debt-by-sta...
      - ghostwriter 6y ago
        > It's still the best state to live in, has great opportunity for many people and tries to implement long term policies benefitting is citizens and is a global leader. This is all good, until we put another element into the equation. How about stability of the system? It turns out it's predicated on your current- and future- (especially future) citizens' productiveness and willingness to cope with ever growing appetites of the state government. It's been accumulating debt since 1990s, and all the growth that you attribute with a "success" tag is predicated on the expectation that the future generations will figure the solution to the ever growing debt problem. What happens in fact is that the government is stealing the future from the generations to come - it's they who will have to pay for the debt of the current government. And they may just rightfully refuse to do it by moving elsewhere.
        boringg 6y ago
        Listen, the debt problem is still a debt problem that isn't fixed in one year and definitely not this year or the next couple. We aren't near a tipping point on debt so out of all our problems right now that one is sitting very low at the bottom. There are many lenders standing quite happily to provide debt to California for ultra cheap rates. We aren't getting out of this pandemic financial mess through cutting spending. Literally no republican or democrat is pitching that solution - do you have your own economic crystal ball to read the future? Go look to how that worked out for the austerity measure put in play in the EU or during the great depression. As well right now debt is ultra cheap so any borrowed money to cover downtime when people can't work to protect their health is likely going to have upside in generation of jobs, general well being and future revenue. If you want to go take that generational wealth tax fight argument probably better to start with the federal government instead of wagging your finger at California. And in terms of stability of the system that is a much larger macro economic question. There is a great amount of debate in the academic community on how much debt countries can sustainably support especially with Modern Monetary Theory getting traction. I don't think MMT is grounded in its origins but it has pointed to a greater sustainability of deficit on our countries balance sheet as well as us getting to a higher level of employment in our population than we had previously though.
  - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
    > Yes, most places in the country have a massive deficit this year because states are spending money to protect their citizens and stimulate the economy. This is Stockholm syndrome. Are citizens being protected? Because last I checked, the "smart" people have largely outlawed working, destroyed any semblance of normal life, the average person is $5k behind on rent, and all the old people died. The federal government has all but given up pretending money is a finite resource. Likewise states are much the same. There really is no such thing as fiscal discipline nowadays. You can't stimulate an economy if no one is allowed to work besides the already well-off that can work from home. It's just class war under the guise of public health.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      Right! All of these state budgets depend on projected tax revenue which isn't coming. People aren't working. People aren't having kids. People aren't staying in the state. The cuts MUST be massive.
      - boringg 6y ago
        It's a long game guys, come on. It's not this year's budget or next years -- it's a multi year cycle. The stress off our health care system as a result of lockdowns and the lives saved is enormous. If California adopted a libertarian approach to the pandemic it would be in a step change of pain compared to where it is. I do get the sense that right now I am just feeding the trolls - it's a bad feeling.
        gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
        > The stress off our health care system as a result of lockdowns and the lives saved is enormous. This is all supposition that says nothing about the horrific costs. You could be right, but this won’t be apparent for a while and it’d be nice if people at least had the humility to admit they’re making a bet and forcing a plan on people that will destroy their livelihoods. What makes this particularly offensive is that the authorities have little accountability and skin in the game. The “libertarian” approach at least respects the dignity of people to assess risks they’re willing to take and assume the responsibility for the costs of the measures they take.
  - dcolkitt 6y ago
    > don't try and single out California as this bad actor that can't manage its finances California's 2020 budget shortfall is projected at $54 billion.[1] Florida's 2020 budget shortfall is projected at $2.7 billion[2]. In other words, on a per-capita basis, California has ten times the shortfall as Florida. [1] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/06/29/governor-newsom-signs-2020-budget-act/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/06/29/governor-newsom-signs-2020... [2] https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/state/2020/09/10/a-2-7-billion-florida-budget-shortfall-looms-as-coronavirus-unleashes-tide-of-red-ink/5766622002/ https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/state/2020...
- jlmorton 6y ago
  Did you miss the part where there's been a massive pandemic and sky-high unemployment for the past year? California had the nation's healthiest budget prior to the pandemic, with the highest per-capita surplus, largest rainy day fund. It's true that California relies heavily on income taxes, which include capital gains, both of which are much more strongly impacted by the business cycle than states primarily funded by property taxes. You can make an argument about that, but California's budget was extremely healthy prior to the pandemic.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - busterarm 6y ago
    From 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2019/04/16/no-californias-finances-are-not-back-in-black/?sh=3d9f445337b5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2019/04/16/no-ca... Where do you expect California to get the money for $1T in unfunded pension liabilities? California's budget is "healthy" only for as long as they ignore their long-term liabilities. California's "healthy" finances was a lie that the state told you in order to have a hope of meeting future obligations. The legislation they keep trying to pass where they're going to chase after money of people leaving the state shows you the true picture. They wouldn't have a need for such games otherwise.
    - jlmorton 6y ago
      First of all, it's not 1T. The figure cited in that article includes not just unfunded pension liabilities, but all state and local debt. We're talking about California's State finances here, so the figure you're citing is absurd on its face. I don't want to sugar coat the unfunded pension liabilities, but they are much smaller than you suggest. The official figure for the unfunded liability for CalPERS is about $140 billion and about $100 billion for CalSTRS. Importantly, this is over a 30 year horizon. And the more we pay now, the less we pay later. Newsom's 2019 budget included $11 billion in pension liability payments. Even if you assume CalPERS and CalSTRS investments return worse than the 7% (or 6.1%) that they calculate, that's still in the ballpark of what is needed to pay the liability. While this is a big deal, the funding levels in the 2019 budget are sufficient to pay the entire liability.
- baron_harkonnen 6y ago
  > very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico. Not disagreeing with your overall claim that CA does in fact have budget problems, but citing the NYT and Politico as "very left-wing" is a pretty hilarious example of just how far right "center" American thinking has gone. NYT is a classic example of a centrist/liberal publication that is widely reviled by anyone on the left. edit: If you think "liberals" are the same as the "left" you are about as confused as someone who thinks that JavaScript is the same as Java.
  - admiralspoo 6y ago
    >90% of the NYT's readers are Democrats: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/americans-main-sources-for-political-news-vary-by-party-and-age/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/americans-m...
    - ecshafer 6y ago
      You are making the gp point. Democratic party is a centrist-liberal party. Not a leftist party. They are a publicly trades corporation owned by wealthy individuals. They are not a worker co-op, they are not a mutual aid-organization, they are not seeking to overthrow the capital class, they are not socialist, maoist, communist, anarchist, etc. therefore they are not left.
- majormajor 6y ago
  I haven't seen that all over the news myself. The 54B seems to be a projection from May? I saw stuff like https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-29/california-new-state-budget-signed-gavin-newsom-overview https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-29/californ... and https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article247265579.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler... which seems like there will be a surplus this year but people aren't sure they're out of the woods just yet, which seems reasonable.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  > very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico. Those are not very left-wing sources. Edit: to the downvoters, this is objectively true. In actual leftist media NYT is considered conservative. The reality is that they are mostly mainstream.
  - chokeartist 6y ago
    > In actual leftist media NYT is considered conservative. The reality is that they are mostly mainstream. "Actual leftist"? Nice No true Scotsman you got there.
- skrtskrt 6y ago
  > very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico These are center-right sources by any reasonable standard
  - Darmody 6y ago
    The far-left managed to create an "amazing" (and terrifying) perspective. If you're a leftist but not as leftist as them, you're a centrist, maybe even center-right which makes everybody on the right to be automatically far-right.
    - skrtskrt 6y ago
      It's not a purity test. To be more clear, the New York Times is left for the media, but (like our entire government-corporate-media complex) center-right of public opinion. They beat the drums of war for Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as every other imperialist act of war that the US dreams up, breathlessly reports the opinions of the NSA, CIA, and FBI as fact, and generally shills for the corporate-backed opinions of both political parties. Poll after poll after poll shows these positions to be out of touch with the average American. The fact that the NYTimes sides more with rich, hypercorporate big-govt Dems more than rich, hypercorporate big-govt Republicans is all part of the charade of choice between the two sides.
      - Darmody 6y ago
        Keep the elites outside as they don't fit into the left-right political spectrum. They side with an elite that gets its power from the left, which is turning very radical.
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        The left wants to dismember corporate power and redistribute wealth, and there are those who want to defund law enforcement and scale back the military, all of which are actual power structures that elites depend upon. The culturally leftist policies that elites adopt are not where they derive their power from.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  It's always amazing when I talk to conservatives about california how they know so many little negative details about my state. A lot of times I'll ask them about the budget of their own state and they won't have any idea.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    I'm center-left. NY has many of the same budget woes that CA does.

busterarm 6y ago

California has a $54B deficit this year. It's been all over the news, including very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico. The state _projected_ a surplus and was off by an entire order of magnitude into the red. The state has been campaigning to Congress all year for about $14B in bailout money.

boringg 6y ago
Yes, most places in the country have a massive deficit this year because states are spending money to protect their citizens and stimulate the economy. So this year is an odd year for most states... don't try and single out California as this bad actor that can't manage its finances. That narrative is misleading.
- busterarm 6y ago
  California has historically had budget problems for decades and resolved things 8 years ago through increased taxes. It also increased taxes by about $2B this year. As recently as 2017, the state miscalculated the costs of Medi-Cal and had a 1.6B deficit for the year. The argument that I'm framing is that the state has to continuously dig further into its citizens pockets in order to fund its appetite for spending. It's entirely true.
  - boringg 6y ago
    Listen, CA is a state of big numbers - big deficits and big surplus's (Surplus of $9B in 2018, $7B in 2019). It's a function of being the 5th largest economy of the world Gross State Produce ($3.2 Trillion) larger than India and the UK. It has raised taxes, but mostly in a progressive way targeted at high income earners. At lot of marginal tax revenue comes from IPOs and equity sales. It has intrinsic problems and some pretty bad policies that linger to this day (impacts from prop 13 for example). It's still the best state to live in, has great opportunity for many people and tries to implement long term policies benefitting is citizens and is a global leader. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/debt-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/debt-by-sta...
    - ghostwriter 6y ago
      > It's still the best state to live in, has great opportunity for many people and tries to implement long term policies benefitting is citizens and is a global leader. This is all good, until we put another element into the equation. How about stability of the system? It turns out it's predicated on your current- and future- (especially future) citizens' productiveness and willingness to cope with ever growing appetites of the state government. It's been accumulating debt since 1990s, and all the growth that you attribute with a "success" tag is predicated on the expectation that the future generations will figure the solution to the ever growing debt problem. What happens in fact is that the government is stealing the future from the generations to come - it's they who will have to pay for the debt of the current government. And they may just rightfully refuse to do it by moving elsewhere.
      - boringg 6y ago
        Listen, the debt problem is still a debt problem that isn't fixed in one year and definitely not this year or the next couple. We aren't near a tipping point on debt so out of all our problems right now that one is sitting very low at the bottom. There are many lenders standing quite happily to provide debt to California for ultra cheap rates. We aren't getting out of this pandemic financial mess through cutting spending. Literally no republican or democrat is pitching that solution - do you have your own economic crystal ball to read the future? Go look to how that worked out for the austerity measure put in play in the EU or during the great depression. As well right now debt is ultra cheap so any borrowed money to cover downtime when people can't work to protect their health is likely going to have upside in generation of jobs, general well being and future revenue. If you want to go take that generational wealth tax fight argument probably better to start with the federal government instead of wagging your finger at California. And in terms of stability of the system that is a much larger macro economic question. There is a great amount of debate in the academic community on how much debt countries can sustainably support especially with Modern Monetary Theory getting traction. I don't think MMT is grounded in its origins but it has pointed to a greater sustainability of deficit on our countries balance sheet as well as us getting to a higher level of employment in our population than we had previously though.
- gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
  > Yes, most places in the country have a massive deficit this year because states are spending money to protect their citizens and stimulate the economy. This is Stockholm syndrome. Are citizens being protected? Because last I checked, the "smart" people have largely outlawed working, destroyed any semblance of normal life, the average person is $5k behind on rent, and all the old people died. The federal government has all but given up pretending money is a finite resource. Likewise states are much the same. There really is no such thing as fiscal discipline nowadays. You can't stimulate an economy if no one is allowed to work besides the already well-off that can work from home. It's just class war under the guise of public health.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    Right! All of these state budgets depend on projected tax revenue which isn't coming. People aren't working. People aren't having kids. People aren't staying in the state. The cuts MUST be massive.
    - boringg 6y ago
      It's a long game guys, come on. It's not this year's budget or next years -- it's a multi year cycle. The stress off our health care system as a result of lockdowns and the lives saved is enormous. If California adopted a libertarian approach to the pandemic it would be in a step change of pain compared to where it is. I do get the sense that right now I am just feeding the trolls - it's a bad feeling.
      - gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
        > The stress off our health care system as a result of lockdowns and the lives saved is enormous. This is all supposition that says nothing about the horrific costs. You could be right, but this won’t be apparent for a while and it’d be nice if people at least had the humility to admit they’re making a bet and forcing a plan on people that will destroy their livelihoods. What makes this particularly offensive is that the authorities have little accountability and skin in the game. The “libertarian” approach at least respects the dignity of people to assess risks they’re willing to take and assume the responsibility for the costs of the measures they take.
- dcolkitt 6y ago
  > don't try and single out California as this bad actor that can't manage its finances California's 2020 budget shortfall is projected at $54 billion.[1] Florida's 2020 budget shortfall is projected at $2.7 billion[2]. In other words, on a per-capita basis, California has ten times the shortfall as Florida. [1] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/06/29/governor-newsom-signs-2020-budget-act/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/06/29/governor-newsom-signs-2020... [2] https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/state/2020/09/10/a-2-7-billion-florida-budget-shortfall-looms-as-coronavirus-unleashes-tide-of-red-ink/5766622002/ https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/state/2020...
jlmorton 6y ago
Did you miss the part where there's been a massive pandemic and sky-high unemployment for the past year? California had the nation's healthiest budget prior to the pandemic, with the highest per-capita surplus, largest rainy day fund. It's true that California relies heavily on income taxes, which include capital gains, both of which are much more strongly impacted by the business cycle than states primarily funded by property taxes. You can make an argument about that, but California's budget was extremely healthy prior to the pandemic.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- busterarm 6y ago
  From 2019: https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2019/04/16/no-californias-finances-are-not-back-in-black/?sh=3d9f445337b5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2019/04/16/no-ca... Where do you expect California to get the money for $1T in unfunded pension liabilities? California's budget is "healthy" only for as long as they ignore their long-term liabilities. California's "healthy" finances was a lie that the state told you in order to have a hope of meeting future obligations. The legislation they keep trying to pass where they're going to chase after money of people leaving the state shows you the true picture. They wouldn't have a need for such games otherwise.
  - jlmorton 6y ago
    First of all, it's not 1T. The figure cited in that article includes not just unfunded pension liabilities, but all state and local debt. We're talking about California's State finances here, so the figure you're citing is absurd on its face. I don't want to sugar coat the unfunded pension liabilities, but they are much smaller than you suggest. The official figure for the unfunded liability for CalPERS is about $140 billion and about $100 billion for CalSTRS. Importantly, this is over a 30 year horizon. And the more we pay now, the less we pay later. Newsom's 2019 budget included $11 billion in pension liability payments. Even if you assume CalPERS and CalSTRS investments return worse than the 7% (or 6.1%) that they calculate, that's still in the ballpark of what is needed to pay the liability. While this is a big deal, the funding levels in the 2019 budget are sufficient to pay the entire liability.
baron_harkonnen 6y ago
> very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico. Not disagreeing with your overall claim that CA does in fact have budget problems, but citing the NYT and Politico as "very left-wing" is a pretty hilarious example of just how far right "center" American thinking has gone. NYT is a classic example of a centrist/liberal publication that is widely reviled by anyone on the left. edit: If you think "liberals" are the same as the "left" you are about as confused as someone who thinks that JavaScript is the same as Java.
- admiralspoo 6y ago
  >90% of the NYT's readers are Democrats: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/americans-main-sources-for-political-news-vary-by-party-and-age/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/americans-m...
  - ecshafer 6y ago
    You are making the gp point. Democratic party is a centrist-liberal party. Not a leftist party. They are a publicly trades corporation owned by wealthy individuals. They are not a worker co-op, they are not a mutual aid-organization, they are not seeking to overthrow the capital class, they are not socialist, maoist, communist, anarchist, etc. therefore they are not left.
majormajor 6y ago
I haven't seen that all over the news myself. The 54B seems to be a projection from May? I saw stuff like https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-29/california-new-state-budget-signed-gavin-newsom-overview https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-29/californ... and https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article247265579.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler... which seems like there will be a surplus this year but people aren't sure they're out of the woods just yet, which seems reasonable.
bosswipe 6y ago
> very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico. Those are not very left-wing sources. Edit: to the downvoters, this is objectively true. In actual leftist media NYT is considered conservative. The reality is that they are mostly mainstream.
- chokeartist 6y ago
  > In actual leftist media NYT is considered conservative. The reality is that they are mostly mainstream. "Actual leftist"? Nice No true Scotsman you got there.
skrtskrt 6y ago
> very left-wing sources like NY Times and Politico These are center-right sources by any reasonable standard
- Darmody 6y ago
  The far-left managed to create an "amazing" (and terrifying) perspective. If you're a leftist but not as leftist as them, you're a centrist, maybe even center-right which makes everybody on the right to be automatically far-right.
  - skrtskrt 6y ago
    It's not a purity test. To be more clear, the New York Times is left for the media, but (like our entire government-corporate-media complex) center-right of public opinion. They beat the drums of war for Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as every other imperialist act of war that the US dreams up, breathlessly reports the opinions of the NSA, CIA, and FBI as fact, and generally shills for the corporate-backed opinions of both political parties. Poll after poll after poll shows these positions to be out of touch with the average American. The fact that the NYTimes sides more with rich, hypercorporate big-govt Dems more than rich, hypercorporate big-govt Republicans is all part of the charade of choice between the two sides.
    - Darmody 6y ago
      Keep the elites outside as they don't fit into the left-right political spectrum. They side with an elite that gets its power from the left, which is turning very radical.
      - Apocryphon 6y ago
        The left wants to dismember corporate power and redistribute wealth, and there are those who want to defund law enforcement and scale back the military, all of which are actual power structures that elites depend upon. The culturally leftist policies that elites adopt are not where they derive their power from.
bosswipe 6y ago
It's always amazing when I talk to conservatives about california how they know so many little negative details about my state. A lot of times I'll ask them about the budget of their own state and they won't have any idea.
- busterarm 6y ago
  I'm center-left. NY has many of the same budget woes that CA does.