"Congratulations, Californians"

[owlmoose]

"You have a bouncing baby budget." And it only took four months of labor!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/19/MNCM160B0E.DTL

Thank god. I don't even care if it sucks (which D-Day says it does), we needed this. Now to go back and fix the process so that this never. happens. again.

Comments

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

Glad something got passed, I hope it's not too terrible!

Both the two-thirds-majority-for-raising-taxes and the entire proposition system are disasters. They both need to go, but it's hard to see that they ever will.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

It's about 1/3rd spending cuts, 1/3rd tax hikes, and the rest borrowing/money from the federal stimulus. It could have been worse.

The 2/3rds for raising taxes is bad, but the 2/3rds requirement just to pass a budget is even worse. Combine that with term limits, and you have a recipe for disaster. As we have now learned. There are already at least two propositions circling to lower the requirements for both to 55%; we'll see how far they get.

There's talk of a constitutional convention, where we throw out all the amendments and set-asides we've passed in the last thirty years and start over fresh, but that strikes me as even less likely to happen than the aforementioned changes. It would be the best solution, though. Crazy state.

[oswulf.livejournal.com]

Including Prop 13? Hey... that sounds interesting. Maybe a backdoor way to accomplish what we need but lack the courage to actually do stright-foreward.

In any rate... I'm just sort of sitting in the corner quivering as I watch little pieces falling off the tower of hope that maybe jobs will one day open up & I can progress homewards...

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether a rewrite of the CA constitution would undo Prop 13 -- it might be a statute, not an amendment, but who knows. What a wonderful outcome, though, if so.

I am crossing my fingers for you, also, although librarian jobs are definitely not lying thick on the ground here right now. :\ But I'll keep my ear out for anything promising in your realm of expertise.