HILL & YEE. MORE TALK, MORE TAXES, MORE DEBT, NO CASH. WOULD YOU REDUCE CALIFORNIA'S $12B HIGHER EDUCATION BUDGET TO INCREASE CALIFORNIA'S $36B K-12 EDUCATION BUDGET ?

by Bill Baker, J.D.
Editor and Publisher, The San Bruno Beacon

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Would you reduce California's $12.64 billion Higher Education budget to increase California's $36.787 billion K-12 education budget? Then, you would have angry college students, parents and college professors squaring off against angry elementary and high school students, their parents and k-12 teachers. Those families having kids in college and grades k-12 could fight among themselves.

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California State Assemblyman Jerry Hill and State Senator Leland Yee stopped by San Bruno earlier this week. They gave some lip service and a pep talk to the crowds of parents and children in San Bruno who are being hit with education cutbacks in the San Bruno Park School District. These education cutbacks are the result of Democrats like Hill and Yee burying California under a mountain of debt that will sooner or later result in the total financial collapse of California's State government, crushing taxes and a level of State services similar to what you would find in the Alaskan wilderness.

Want to see what California's future looks like? Take a look at the current economic catastrophe playing itself out in Greece. California's economic collapse is not unlike the current financial meltdown going on in Greece. Like Greece; the State of California is plagued with powerful public sector unions, massive amounts of government debt and a huge budget deficit. Greece is also being dragged into the financial gutter by an inefficient government bureaucracy and widespread political corruption. What is now happening in Greece is almost exactly what is going to happen in California. Union riots, disintegration of government services and tax increases that will result in almost every private sector businesses and middle - upper income Californian, who works in the private sector, leaving California. On the positive side, both Greece and California have nice weather.

Politicians, especially Democrat politicians like Hill and Yee, excel at wrecking the economy and lying to their constituents. These two will tell a crowd almost anything the crowd wants to hear. If a crowd yelled loud enough for blue sky in the middle of a thunderstorm, Hill and Yee would tell the crowd the sky was blue.

Hill and Yee are poster boys for the old political adage, "There is no morality in politics; there is only expediency". That observation was made by Vladimir Lenin who, like Hill and Yee, was a fan of huge, expensive, intrusive government; destruction of the private sector; and big speeches, filled with empty rhetoric,  to the crowds of people suffering from his policies.

Democrats like Hill and Yee have been instrumental in increasing California's debt and raising your taxes.  They continue to tell the growing angry crowds of people that they don't want to cut whatever part of the budget a particular crowd happens to be yelling at them about. This is the same type of asinine political pandering that has gotten California into the financial mess it is now in.

More than a few of the crowds yelling at these two political hacks are going to have their hearts broken when the political circus these two clowns are acting in comes to a screeching halt when the money runs out.

Since Hill and Yee are either too ignorant or deceitful to tell you the real truth about how bad things are in California; let me do it:

According to the California State Controller's Office:

The State started the fiscal year with an $11.9 billion cash deficit in the General Fund, which grew to $24.1 billion by January 31. Those deficits are being covered with a combination of $15.3 billion of internal borrowing from special funds and $8.8 billion in short-term Revenue Anticipation Notes.

According to the California States Treasurer's Office, the State of California has $63.4 billion in bond debt outstanding and $47.5 billion in bond debt that has not yet been sold.

You don't need to have a degree in finance to know that when you have a $24.1 billion cash deficit and $63.4 billion in outstanding debt, you are in deep Scheiße.

Now that we have established that California is flat broke, let's take a look at California's State Budget items:

K-12 Education (31% / $36.787 billion); Health and Human Services (25.1% / $29.794 billion); Corrections and Rehabilitation (6.8% / $8.031 billion);  Environmental Protection (1.2% / $1.470 billion); Labor and Workforce Development (.4% / $435 million); State and Consumer Services (1.1% / $1.366 billion); Higher Education (10.6% / $12.64 billion); General Government (3.7% / $4.4 billion); Legislative, Judicial, Executive (5.2% / $6.13 billion); Business, Transportation and Housing (10.5% / $12.5 billion); Natural Resources (4.4% / $5.187 billion).

A very strong case can be made not to cut every one of the budget items mentioned in the previous paragraph. For example: Would you reduce the Corrections and Rehabilitation budget from 6.8 percent of California's State Budget to 5.8 or 4.8 percent of the State Budget so the k-12 Education Budget could be increased? Good luck trying that budget maneuver. The CCPOA would probably have a thing or two to say about reducing California's Corrections budget. By the time they were done getting people all hot and bothered about having criminals released and on the streets you would be lucky if the k-12 Education Budget didn't lose a few percentage points to the Corrections and Rehabilitation Budget. Another example: Would you reduce California's $12.64 billion Higher Education budget to increase California's $36.787 billion K-12 education budget? Then, you would have angry college students, parents and college professors squaring off against angry elementary and high school students, their parents and k-12 teachers. Those families having kids in college and grades k-12 could fight among themselves.

Here's the bottom line. Sooner or later, California will have to shrink the size of State government to a fraction of what it is today. In the meantime, Democrats, like Hill and Yee, are going to continue raising taxes and selling more debt until California's lenders shut the money window. Politicians like Hill and Yee don't care how bad things get. They will move on to other jobs in politics like Jackie Speier who is also one of the architects of California's current budget disaster.  Private sector businesses and their employees will flee the taxes and leave California. California will turn into a dirt poor State of government employees and welfare recipients. Since neither one of these groups creates original tax dollars, they will both end up in the same boat as everyone else who depends on California's government for services. Out of luck.