Friday, November 13, 2009

Golden State: Sell Hollywood to Balance Budget?


That's your local politician trying to figure out a way to balance the state budget. California in particular has a 17 Billion dollar budget shortfall. With constitutionally required items to be paid and a populance unwilling to demand cuts or pay more taxes something has to give. Here's some of the current thinking":
"I looked as hard as I could at how states could declare bankruptcy," said Michael Genest, director of the California Department of Finance who is stepping down at the end of the year. "I literally looked at the federal constitution to see if there was a way for states to return to territory status."

Very troubling indeed. I expect to see dramatic cuts in services and a variety of tax increases of the stealth variety. Small increases on a varity of items such as gas, cigarettes, etc.
To see a piece concerning this in the WSJ click here.