Wait Til’ Next Year — Again
When word of a budget deal first came out, we were told the budget would be balanced with no borrowing. What we were not told was that meant no borrowing from the usual sources–transportation funds or local governments. But I guess borrowing from the taxpayers is different.
By increasing withholding by 10% and requiring quarterly filers to increase payments and paying back any overage later, the state is essentially borrowing from taxpayers. And, it’s an interest free loan at that. When provisions were put in to protect local government from the state vultures, laws required that borrowed money would have to be returned with interest.
Then there are the items in the budget deal which stipulate that millionaires who see an income windfall will be required to make more of their tax payments sooner and businesses will be restricted from writing off losses for two years while recouping those revenue losses in future years.
All this on a day the stock market fell 500 points and Wall Street is in turmoil. I don’t think there will be too many windfall profits to hit up very soon. And, businesses probably will be suffering big losses and still have to come up with the money for taxes.
Quo Vadis California?
It appears as of this writing that we now have a budget agreement. Pardon me if I don’t cheer this development, but I am in no mood to cheer because it is a cruel joke on the people of this great state.
What has happened to California over the last 50 years? I sure don’t recognize it.
I am a native Californian. I was born in San Francisco in 1952 and reared in Marin County when it was a Republican County. I always tell people that I am old enough to remember when the only place you could get a latte or cappuccino in those days was at an Italian restaurant in San Francisco’s North Beach. Now you can get one every street corner. To this day I can’t seem to understand why anyone would pay $5 for a cup of coffee with some hot milk added, but that is a story for another day.
Fifty years ago in 1958, the New York Giants left the Polo Grounds of New York bound for the West Coast where they would become the San Francisco Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers left Ebbets Field arriving in Southern California where they would become the Los Angeles Dodgers. They had been bitter rivals in New York and in the years since they have moved here, the rivalry has been handed down from generation to generation to where no matter where they are in the standings a Giants-Dodgers series is still a blood feud.
I Qualify for Vice-President, Too
After watching Sarah Palin artfully evade Charlie Gibson’s questions last week (despite him showing the proper amount of McCain Campaign-required deference, might I add), I was depressed and wondering what our country was coming to…was this really the best we could do? Is this really how I want my gender to be represented? Is this history in the making or just history repeating itself like the fall of Rome?
Then it hit me this morning…instead of feeling remorse, its time for me to step up and do something! The more I thought about it, the more I realized…I am just as qualified, if not MORE qualified to be Vice President, as Sarah Palin. So here it is my official announcement of my candidacy for Vice President – or at least throwing my hat into the ring for a cool cabinet position…
And since I’m all about transparency in my campaign, I thought I would throw out a few of my qualifications and positions on the issues:
California’s Banks: Strong, Safe and Secure
This summer there has been an endless flow of news stories across the state that may have given many Californians the mistaken impression that we are in the midst of a financial meltdown, centered on the faltering health of our banks. Headlines following an infrequent bank failure in California this summer asked readers, is your bank next? Is your money safe? While California’s economy is under-performing in part due to fall-out related to failures from the sub-prime mortgage lending situation, the banking industry in California remains strong, safe and secure. In fact, capital levels at California banks are at or near all-time highs, with double the amount of capital today as compared to the last significant economic downturn in the early 1990’s.
First and foremost, customers’ deposits at traditional banking institutions are protected by Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance, up to $100,000 with additional protection for joint accounts and $250,000 on individual retirement accounts. The FDIC has more than $50 billion in assets available to protect depositors, and in the 75-year history of the FDIC, not one cent of customer money in an FDIC-insured bank account has been lost.