George Rebane
We have long heard that ‘stupid is forever’, and now we have indelible proof of that proposition. Moonbeam has no clue that California has a systemic fiscal disaster on its hands. His proposed budget for FY2013 is $95.4B when he adds up all the transfers to the general fund from raiding every other kind of account imaginable. But the pinhead’s piece de resistance is the brilliant idea of taxing the bejeezus out of the upcoming stock cash-ins resulting from recent IPOs that he projects the fortunate employees of those companies will exercise. His own Legislative Analyst’s Office is telling him not to hold his breath until he collects all those one-time state income taxes.
But what really frosts me is the depth of ignorance that progressives have about what has been going on in the state. We already depend on a small cohort – the top tenth – of wage earners to pony up almost 75% of the state’s budgets, and almost every 3-digit type knows that continuing on this policy is sheer lunacy. So what does Moonbeam do? He doubles down on stupid, and is now trying to convince everyone that he’s solving California’s long-term crisis with a one-off short-term tax bounce that itself is based on la-la land accounting. Meanwhile, he’s driving more companies out the state with economy killing green initiatives that seem to multiply like weeds. And our liberal neighbors are cheering him on as they continue sending to Sacramento people with big bulbous red noses wearing funny looking large shoes. (There’s more, and the details are here.)
‘Can a Nonexistent Congress Issue $1.2T in Debt?’ asks Daniel Horwitz of RS Redstate. While contemplating this, we recall that through an historic decision by the Chief Community Organizer, this same Congress was made “non-existent” through the claim that it is reposing in blissful recess. The CCO then rushed through a recess appointment on another czar whose job is to keep the promised fundamental transformation on schedule. So, without even so much as a wink-wink from behind the teleprompter, our fearless leader brazenly plays the game from both sides of Recess Street.
[update] You remember CALPERS, the California state employees pension outfit that was supposed go forward making 7.5% on its portfolio to work off its members’ hundreds of billions of unfunded liabilities. Well, it seems that reality is striking home and things are going the other way (as CALPERS was warned by all). The funds manager has just decided to write down one fifth of its real estate portfolio taking a haircut that will range between 30% and 50%, not counting the appreciation it could have had on the initially invested monies. The investments were made during the real estate bubble for which government employee pension funds, along with Fannie and Freddie, were somehow left out of the fulminations and fury that unions and occupiers continue to heap on “the banks”.
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