[quote=davelj]
That’s a nice analysis of the REVENUE part of the equation, but it doesn’t explain why California’s SPENDING has increased at TWICE the rate it should have over the last 10 years based on inflation and population growth. Why Dr. Krugman tries to perform an analysis of CA’s income statement without a discussion of costs (re: spending) – that is, reducing them – speaks volumes regarding his own agenda. [/quote]
Interesting story on the budget. Claims that if you substitute the CPI for some state government price index, growth in spending is very close close to neutral with 1998-99.
I suppose I could see this. Health care and education make up a majority of the state budget, and those costs have been outpacing the CPI for years.
Still, even when they use ‘their’ numbers the budget outpaced “par” by a little. So the argument isnt wrong as the author implies, just not the whole story, as is usual.
[quote] During this time frame, which embraced two booms (dot-com and housing) and two busts (ditto), the state’s population grew about 30% to about 38 million, and inflation charged ahead by 50%. The budget’s growth, the legislative analyst found, exceeded these factors by only an average of 0.2% a year.[/quote]
And his argument that people didnt speak out is total crap. People not voting is a way of speaking out, it says “We are not gonna go along with every cockamamy idea you come up, we elected you, you figure it out.” If they had ment anything differnt, they woulda voted.
[quote]This makes a mockery of Schwarzenegger’s claim that the election delivered a “loud and clear” message. What message? Proposition 1A, if passed, would have extended a parcel of tax increases for an additional two years. Who’s to say that the 81% of eligible voters who just stayed home didn’t intend to endorse the tax increase?[/quote]
