Government gone mad...

I am beginning to think our government has completely lost their minds. The idea of fiscal responsibility (you know the idea where you don't spend more than you make) seems to be completely foreign to those in elected office. California has a proposed budget deal (incidentally made behind closed doors which would be a violation of the Brown Act at the local level). The deal would cuts several billion this year...although no where near the amount needed to be cut. The deal would also push forward some bills until next year and take several billion dollars away from local municipalities. Overall, the California State budget is only reduced by 4 billion. What amazes me is that these guys are trying to pass off as a solution the idea of pushing bills to the next year and stealing money from counties and cities. By the way, hundreds of millions of that money is being taken from redevelopment agencies and transportation funds (these are taxes your local government tagged onto property taxes in order to fund local improvements).

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To add insult to injury, the Federal government is now saying the bailout could cost as much as 23 trillion dollars! This is 9 trillion more than our GDP! The entire relief effort for the Great Depression came in at 500 billion in today's dollars. Obama said he would bring change, but sadly most voting Americans did not believe some of us who warned that change would be a fundamental shift from capitalism to socialism.

Read the story here.