Stopped reading after writer started off article with cheez whiz/cheesesteak reference.

Spader: Stopped reading after writer started off article with cheez whiz/cheesesteak reference.

Que so?

Spader: Stopped reading after writer started off article with cheez whiz/cheesesteak reference.

Put down the bong and step away from the computer.

Spader: Stopped reading after writer started off article with cheez whiz/cheesesteak reference.

*confused dog pic*

Whiz on a cheese steak is an abomination.

Provolone, marinara, onions.

Sorry, I'm not going to vote to raise my taxes to pay for their mistakes.

I'll repost what I wrote in a thread about marijuana the other day:

Legalize it and prostitution and tax the hell out of both. CA budget crisis solved.

It's okay. We can just keep cutting police and fire fighter budgets and continue to whittle down school funding!

Lorelle 2009-05-08 04:37:39 PM Sorry, I'm not going to vote to raise my taxes to pay for their mistakes. I'll repost what I wrote in a thread about marijuana the other day: Legalize it and prostitution and tax the hell out of both. CA budget crisis solved.
=====================================

That's almost as stupid as McCain saying that removing 'pork' (which amounts to a couple billion dollars per budget) would solve the budget deficits.

Will legalizing and taxing the shiat out of marijuana and prostitution help? Hell yes it will. Will it by itself solve the problem? HELL NO. It'll be a dent. A large dent. But still only a dent.

Longaberger's on it.

I say let CA go into "bankruptcy" and allow the union contracts to be renegotiated.

Hagbardr: marinara?

I totally agree on the provolone though.
/peppers and onions

they could just borrow the crate of socialism from hannity's liberty tree.

I'll repeat what I've said before and what I've said to our idiots in office. California does not have a budget shortfall. California is simply spending too damn much money. We have some of the highest taxes in the entire country but such a large percentage is allocated to "stupid shiat" that there isn't enough left to pay for essential state government services.

I want the state to actually go bankrupt. Then the elected idiots will be forced to actually do something.

/unfortunately, that "something" will probably be to double my taxes

heap: they could just borrow the crate of socialism from hannity's liberty tree.

What do you think got us into this mess in the first place?

Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

me texan: Spader: Stopped reading after writer started off article with cheez whiz/cheesesteak reference.

Que so?

I saw what you did there. Gouda work.

Lorelle: Sorry, I'm not going to vote to raise my taxes to pay for their mistakes.

I'll repost what I wrote in a thread about marijuana the other day:

Legalize it and prostitution and tax the hell out of both. CA budget crisis solved.

That seems to be Plan D.
We are currently attempting to pass Plan A.

Granted, Plan A is bullshiat and isn't going to pass. But damnit, they're going to try.

gadian:
Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

Like alcohol?

California so broke can't afford more verb.

Illegal Immigration Costs California Over Ten Billion Annually (new window)


"In hosting America's largest population of illegal immigrants, California bears a huge cost to provide basic human services for this fast growing, low-income segment of its population. A new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year.

Among the key finding of the report are that the state's already struggling K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens who now constitute 15 percent of the student body. Another $1.4 billion of the taxpayers' money goes toward providing health care to illegal aliens and their families, the same amount that is spent incarcerating illegal aliens criminals."

...and this was five years ago...it's gotten worse!

jake3988:
Will legalizing and taxing the shiat out of marijuana and prostitution help? Hell yes it will. Will it by itself solve the problem? HELL NO. It'll be a dent. A large dent. But still only a dent.


Well, you obviously don't go thru as much weed and hookers as the rest of us. Gotta run now...the 18 year old blonde I ordered from Craigslist is here.


/weed
//hookers

phlegmmo: gadian:
Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

Like alcohol?

Oh god yes. Home brew is probably better than anything you can buy commercially if you tinker with the recipes enough.

gadian: Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

Do you happen to know anyone who illegally distills their own liquor because it's cheaper than buying a bottle at the store?

Lorelle: Sorry, I'm not going to vote to raise my taxes to pay for their mistakes.

I'll repost what I wrote in a thread about marijuana the other day:

Legalize it and prostitution and tax the hell out of both. CA budget crisis solved.

That will help 2-4 years from now by preventing probably a third of the cuts of that year. Until then expect there to be one school (k-12), one fire engine, and two police officers per county. Expect a third of the state universities to go bankrupt and the rest to cut all arts, humanities, business, and sports. Expect the enrollment in those universities to plummet as the current class will be unable to finish due to too few classes being taught after massive teacher and staff layoffs.

Expect broken roads, bridges, and waterworks to remain unfixed and your power to flicker regularly, with day to week long brownouts as decreased funding cuts the majority of repair crews. Expect more criminals left in the streets, fewer trails to go to court, and more people, justly or unjustly, to remain in holding cells until the limited police can no longer house criminals.

Expect tourism to slow, major industries to relocate, and houses to remain vacant.

Or you can buck up and pay some more taxes for those things you took for granted. It may not be your fault that the situation is what it is, but you'll face the consequences of not trying to fix it if you keep the us and them mentality.

OgreMagi: heap: they could just borrow the crate of socialism from hannity's liberty tree.

What do you think got us into this mess in the first place?

apples, mustard, some leafy vegetable, or any of a variety of vessels intended to convey any of the above.

either that, or i'm really missing the metaphors.

it could also be salami's fault, i'm not willing to rule that out yet.

Legalize it ETC.



/thats all I got

Plan A) Trick taxpayers into helping pass a bullshiat budget.
Plan B) Cut services and release prisoners from jail to scare taxpayers into passing a bullshiat budget.
Plan C) Scapegoat someone (probably illegal immigrants) and cut services for them, eating the political cost.
Plan D) Change laws to change actions that previously would have sent individuals to jail into simple fees or sin taxes.

gadian: Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

You're beyond clueless if you think it wouldn't become much much cheaper if it were legal. And then, you're going to have 1 guy with the overhead of a tiny, inefficient, illegal growing operation...versus the mega pot growers doing it legally. Yeah. Not so much.

Same with prostitution. If you can get a clean (verified via testing), cheap fark for $40, what the hell is the illegal fark going to give you? Beyond STDS? Merely the chance to poop on someone's face? You sick freak. You sick, sick freak.

gadian: phlegmmo: gadian:
Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

Like alcohol?

Oh god yes. Home brew is probably better than anything you can buy commercially if you tinker with the recipes enough.

we're talking about gin...

JollyMagistrate: Or you can buck up and pay some more taxes for those things you took for granted. It may not be your fault that the situation is what it is, but you'll face the consequences of not trying to fix it if you keep the us and them mentality.

You mean like the ten billion a year it costs for education and health care for illegal immigrants? Yeah, I totally took advantage of that.

I love how Arnie is showing his desperation by stating that he'll cut the budget for firefighters and basically let the state burn during the next wildfire season if he doesn't get his propositions passed. How is that not extortion?

If revenues are 9 billion dollars short even after you raised taxes by 50 billion dollars, MAYBE you have a spending problem. We need to make our politicians realize they can't keep raiding our wallets. They need to stop being such a bunch of ball-less pussies and stand up to the special interest lobbies.

Beh, who am I kidding, it'll never happen. Maybe the state'll go bankrupt and we can start over.

Sell hunting permits on illegal aliens. Profit from the permits, and not spending money on the illegals. Done. Crisis solved, fun for all.

Let them rot. They voted themselves into this position.

Hagbardr: Provolone, marinara, onions.


You sound low class.

When Buffy and I vacation at my summer home on Cape Cod, our chef only makes us cheesesteaks using the finest Swiss cheese that was flown in from Zurich that morning.

Remove all Republicans: We've already cut education, transportation, all essential services. We need to pass these measures just to keep the state going. Every dollar cut is another day added to our recession. Spend now and we can all be saved.

Spend what? California doesn't have its own currency. We don't have the option of just printing more.

The Fed can bail us out though....

fernt: ...and this was five years ago...it's gotten worse!

yeah but the residents of cali don't have to trouble themselves with mowing their lawns, cleaning out their gutters, or cleaning out the garage, seems like an even trade!

They wouldn't be broke if the Governator didn't have a 25 Hour Fitness put into every city.

Dear California,

Whatever you do, don't solve your budget crisis by doing something stupid....like having state-run liquor stores with high sin taxes.

Sincerely,

The_Sponge

jake3988: Lorelle 2009-05-08 04:37:39 PM Sorry, I'm not going to vote to raise my taxes to pay for their mistakes. I'll repost what I wrote in a thread about marijuana the other day: Legalize it and prostitution and tax the hell out of both. CA budget crisis solved.
=====================================

That's almost as stupid as McCain saying that removing 'pork' (which amounts to a couple billion dollars per budget) would solve the budget deficits.

Will legalizing and taxing the shiat out of marijuana and prostitution help? Hell yes it will. Will it by itself solve the problem? HELL NO. It'll be a dent. A large dent. But still only a dent.

Humor is wasted on the humorless *sigh*

xalres: If revenues are 9 billion dollars short even after you raised taxes by 50 billion dollars, MAYBE you have a spending problem.

The California budget is designed in such a way that no matter how much you raise taxes, you will have a shortfall.

Yes, it's a spending problem. The state legislature refuses to fix it.

Lorelle: I'll repost what I wrote in a thread about marijuana the other day:

Legalize it and prostitution and tax the hell out of both. CA budget crisis solved.

So just as Republicans have a knee-jerk solution to all problems being "lower taxes", you have a thought-free solution to all problems which involves legalizing what you wish was legal. You theory is apparently that if it legalizes something you like, it must generate enough money to solve whatever ails the state.

Math is not your friend. But you can rent it hourly, for a fee.

I'm sorry guys, but 55% of our state budget is spent on education. Another 25% is spent on "essential services."

The only way to cut the state budget is to cut education along with everything else as part of the downsizing.

This is very hard to do. The California Teacher's Union is incredibly powerful. Every time the governor threatens to even cut the growth of education funding (he's actually never threatened to cut education funding itself), the union spends upwards of $20M on ad campaigns showing adorable wide-eyed children and quaint ruffle-skirted grandmotherly kindergarten teachers being thrown under a bus.

I am actually incredibly pro-education. I think it's one of the most valuable government services there are. I want more money for education.

But at this point, either you guys take a pay cut and downsizing, or there will be no state for you to teach in.

gadian: Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

Pretty much.

You're talking about two things that are as good as decriminalized, yet go wholly unregulated. Unless you have a trunk full of weed, you're not going to face much consequence if you get popped. If you want a hooker, you can get one with little risk of being penalized.

People want "legalization," but they don't understand that with that comes control over the product being legalized. I guarantee you the underground markets for pot and hookers would still thrive, because of what the government did to bastardize the legal versions.

phlegmmo: Like alcohol?

I think the point is that you can't take it too much, otherwise the Grey market will be able to undercut the government at a profit, like they many people are with cigarettes.

You mean you can't afford the massive government spending created during a bubble economy after the bubble pops? I think politician's heads will explode when they finally realize this.

fernt: Illegal Immigration Costs California Over Ten Billion Annually (new window)


"In hosting America's largest population of illegal immigrants, California bears a huge cost to provide basic human services for this fast growing, low-income segment of its population. A new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year.

Among the key finding of the report are that the state's already struggling K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens who now constitute 15 percent of the student body. Another $1.4 billion of the taxpayers' money goes toward providing health care to illegal aliens and their families, the same amount that is spent incarcerating illegal aliens criminals."

...and this was five years ago...it's gotten worse!

Of course the pro illegals will counter with some 'day without a mexican' argument on their contributions to the CA economy and they will be right as well.


The real problem with the CA budget is too much democracy.

Kierkegaard's Pseudonym: gadian: Taxing sins won't help. If you tax prostitution and pot it'll still be cheaper to get it illegally. And guess what people care more about - spending less money or doing the right thing? Sorry, there would be no benefit to legalizing and taxing these things.

Do you happen to know anyone who illegally distills their own liquor because it's cheaper than buying a bottle at the store?

As a hobby brewer, I can say it is not cheaper to home brew. The larger brewers buy in bulk and can regulate price of their ingredients better than I can. I do make a better product though.

The_Sponge: Dear California,

Whatever you do, don't solve your budget crisis by doing something stupid....like having state-run liquor stores with high sin taxes.

Sincerely,

The_Sponge

I say we remove the tax-exempt status from churches. A virtue tax, if you will.

I blame Debbi Baker, she wants everyone to pay for all the illegals wanton desires.

xalres: I love how Arnie is showing his desperation by stating that he'll cut the budget for firefighters and basically let the state burn during the next wildfire season if he doesn't get his propositions passed. How is that not extortion?

If revenues are 9 billion dollars short even after you raised taxes by 50 billion dollars, MAYBE you have a spending problem. We need to make our politicians realize they can't keep raiding our wallets. They need to stop being such a bunch of ball-less pussies and stand up to the special interest lobbies.

Beh, who am I kidding, it'll never happen. Maybe the state'll go bankrupt and we can start over.

They aren't the ones spending like drunken whores. We, the voters are, this is the consequence of years and years of having voters being able to approve budgetary issues.

Example:
Link (new window)