California dreamin'

So, what happens when you "balance" a budget but still come up $11 billion dollars short as California did just a couple of months ago? Not a problem... you just pencil in that $11 billion as "unanticipated revenue" and send it up to the Governor's office for a sign-off. What could possibly go wrong?

California's tax revenue plummeted in July, missing expectations by nearly $539 million and raising fears that deep education cuts will be needed to keep the state budget balanced.

The bad news, announced Tuesday, came less than two months after Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers patched together a budget on the assumption that a budding economic recovery would produce a $4-billion revenue windfall. Those hopes are now fading.

The plunge occurred before the recent Wall Street gyrations that wiped away many of the year's stock-market gains. If the economy remains sluggish and the $4 billion does not materialize, cuts in public schools, universities, libraries, child care, and services for the elderly and frail will automatically take effect.

"Every drop in revenues puts us closer to the drastic trigger cuts that could be imposed next year," state Controller John Chiang said in a statement accompanying his July revenue report.

(italics, ours)

If you're wondering where that downgraded expectation of $4 billion in unanticipated revenue came from, we're just as confused as you are as that $11 billion figure was the one reported out in back in June.

And, it is duly noted that while California's political class were "missing expectations", we're curious about just what it is about California's economic/poltical climate that would be cause for any expectations to be missed.

More than most states, California depends upon revenue generated from capital gains on the wealthy but if you create a hostile business climate where the evil rich are moving out of the state and taking their businesses with them, what would you expect?

Again, more evidence of the completely amateurish and un-serious nature of California's ruling class.

Dear, Governor Davis: "Sorry. Our bad."*

And the fear-mongering continues...

California could run out of money as soon as July, the Legislature's chief budget analyst warned Thursday, as a new poll showed voters poised to reject five budget-related measures on the May 19 ballot.

If the propositions do not pass, the state could find itself as much as $23 billion short of the money it needs to pay its bills over the next year, according to a new forecast by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor. The poll, from the Public Policy Institute of California, found that even as voter interest in the ballot measures rises, all are trailing except the sixth one -- Proposition 1F, which would bar pay hikes for lawmakers in deficit years.

So, after threatening to hack firefighters, what was another one of the Governor’s big ideas to close the budget gap: Prisoners running loose in the streets. For reals.

On Thursday, the administration advised law enforcement officials that it was preparing plans to commute the sentences of 38,000 state prison inmates, including all illegal immigrants. It also is considering closing some prisons and sending inmates to county jails, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by The Times.

Under the plan, 19,000 illegal immigrants -- 11% of state prisoners -- would be turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency after having their sentences commuted. An additional 19,000 "relatively low-risk offenders" would have their sentences commuted as well.

It's always, repeat, always these apocalypto-type scenarios that are conjured-up when talking about Sacramento budgets and never trimming any fat. As Capt. Ed suggests, how about knee-capping some non-essential spending like stem cell research the state is helping fund. We had completely forgot about that one. That's a $6 billion dollar hit, right there.

But it'll never happen. Scaring the townies with Wes Craven-like campfire stories is so much more fun and easy than taking a wood axe to non-essential elements of the budget.

* Not saying it would be any better but it sure as hell wouldn't be any worse. A whole lot of churn for nothing, it looks to be.

In the end, it does make sense.

Though we are personally vested in the defense industry, we are trying to keep an open mind about budget cuts in the military made by the President. Unlike the private sector, the job of the President is indeed to pick winners and losers in the public sector via budgetary priorities.

Despite what that clownish windbag of a Veep says, we’re not all that convinced that we are safer now than we have been in the previous 8 yrs. under Bush (at 2+ months in, a fatuous claim to be sure). Then again, if by “safer”, one means simply shutting things down and ignoring the threats all around you then, yes, we could be talked into a nice warm cup of “ignorance” with respect to the threats posed to us. Hello, 1990s.

Besides, with every other part of the government growing at an astronomical rate, the President has decided to cut into large portions of the one job of the government that is specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

KT has some thoughts, here as to why this may be. Remember: who it is that you hang with speaks volumes about yourself.

And with specific respect to Navy acquisition and the strategic profile of the Navy, Information Dissemination has an outstanding post, here, regarding Influence Squadrons.