Tuesday, January 22, 2008


A Roll Of The Dice

A couple of weeks ago, Guber Ahnold announced that the State of California is in a fiscal crisis. Apparently he was the last to find out. I've known it for years, and I know many others who do, as well.

The state was in fiscal crisis when Californians voted to toss Davis the Gray out on his narrow ass, just as it was when Guber Pete Wilson raised state taxes when he was in office. Most of the bad stuff started back when Guber Moonbeam started up with those daffy anti-pollution programs while he was boinking Linda Ronstadt and, while Jerry Brown is still involved in California politics, he apparently hasn't learned a thing. But, he did dump Ms Ronstadt.

Back to the point, Ahnold has been spending like a drunken George W Bush throughout his tenure so far, and now has the nerve to say we have to bring things back into balance. As The Lone Ranger's pal Tonto is rumored to have said, "What you mean we, White Man?" Ahnold is a very wealthy man. He caused much of the deficit to occur. He should personally make it good, not push it all 'pon we, the starving masses.

Meanwhile, he keeps creating more programs and promising special interest lobbyists (mostly the state's children's prison system) even more money.

He's suggested an across-the-board spending cut. Commendable, if it actually happens, but he's already suggested a number of exceptions to the cuts. Certain green programs and, you guessed it, the state's children's prison system--which already gets more money than any two other state departments and is only standing behind the interest payments on the state's debts, in size.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (the big spending state official, he of the state-paid $2000 hotel rooms in European cities in which he has no state business whatsoever, not the 1960's singer) has vowed to stop even these meager spending cuts.

I can only hope he cuts deeply into the budget of the Franchise Tax Board, those thievin' bastards.

He's cooked up a scheme--which is on the upcoming Primary ballot--to confiscate an even larger portion of the profits of the Big Four Indian gaming casinos in exchange for letting them have thousands more slot machines.

If and when Californians wise up and realize that the casinos will simply increase the house percentage to make up the difference, they'll quit going to the casinos. If large numbers quit gambling at the casinos, what'll that do for Ahnold's bottom line?

Of course, they won't see me there. Gambling's kind of fun, but what they're doing at California's casinos is no gamble.

Remember! VOTE FOR NO INCUMBENTS!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California

2 comments:

MathewK said...

"Apparently he was the last to find out."

Lol, oh Arnie, he should have stayed in the movies. Then we could accept that he was just another leftie.

Col. Hogan said...

MK,

Politicians continually place bond referenda 'pon the ballot to pay for big infrastructure programs (that'd be done on budget if they didn't waste the funds on bureaucracy), and voters pass them because they won't have to pay for them (their kids will).

There have been so many of them over the years, that paying the interest is a major budget item. It's like folks going crazy on credit cards. Eventually, they catch up with them.

This is a huge part of the problem.

Often, the money gotten this way seems to simply disappear. For example, about ten years ago, there was a bond to make the public water supply cleaner. A few years later, there was an almost identical bond issue placed on the ballot (and ultimately passed). It was for exactly the same purpose.

Where did the money go? Nobody will say, but the water suply is about the same as it was twenty years ago. I'm expecting another bond referendum for water quality any time now.