California audit finds the state is broke

(The Center Square) – California just filed its 2021-2022 audited financial statement, 350 days past the filing deadline. In its filing, the state admits that COVID-era unemployment fraud cost the state $29 billion that must be paid back to the federal government, and that in 2022, the state had $256 billion more in liabilities than it had in unrestricted resources.

After accounting for restricted resources, such as purpose-specific state trust funds and bonds, the state still owed $55 billion more than it had.

California currently faces a $73 billion deficit for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, to which the Democratic legislature has responded with a proposal to cut this year’s budget by $2.1 billion and a proposal to spend $12 billion, or half the state’s rainy day fund. 

With the state reducing 2023 jobs growth from 325,000 to just 50,000, revenues are likely to be much lower than expected. 

With a significant expansion of benefits, including expanding taxpayer-funded MediCal to all illegal immigrants, and a major shift in illegal immigration from heavily-enforced Texas to California instead, state expenditures could end up being higher than expected. 

TheCenterSquare.com

Free health care for illegal aliens

Democrats say "Fuck You"

to Americans Citizens

• American citizens of all colors and ethnic backgrounds were told by Democrats to go fuck themselves and open their wallets to pay for every possible need of millions and millions of illegal aliens.
• But the moron Sheeple voters just bend over and vote Democrat. Voters who are that stupid deserve the coming shit-fest.

(ABC News)  -  . . . . . have prompted California lawmakers to consider proposals that would make the state the first in the nation to offer government-funded health care to adult immigrants living in the country illegally. But the decision on who to cover may come down to cost. 

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to spend about $98 million per year to cover low-income immigrants between the ages of 19 and 25 who are living in the country illegally. 

The state Assembly has a bill that would cover all immigrants in California living in the country illegally over the age of 19. But Newsom has balked at that plan because of its estimated $3.4 billion price. 

"There's 3.4 billion reasons why it is a challenge," he said. 

The state Senate wants to cover adults ages 19 to 25, plus seniors 65 and older. That bill's sponsor, Sen. Maria Elana Durazo, scoffed at cost concerns, noting the state has a projected $21.5 billion budget surplus. 

"When we have, you know, a good budget, then what's the reason for not addressing it?" she said. 

The Senate and Assembly will finalize their budget proposals this week before beginning negotiations with the governor. State law says a budget has to be passed by June 15 or lawmakers forfeit their pay. 

At stake, according to legislative staffers, are the 3 million people left in California who don't have health insurance. About 1.8 million of them are immigrants in the country illegally. Of those, about 1.26 million have incomes low enough to qualify them for the Medi-Cal program. 

"Symbolically, this is quite significant. This would be establishing California as a counter to federal policies, both around health care and immigration," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for health reform at the Kaiser Family Foundation. 

If enacted, it could prompt yet another collision with the Trump administration, which has proposed a rule that could hinder immigrants' residency applications if they rely on public assistance programs such as Medicaid. 

The proposed rule from the Department of Homeland Security says the goal is to make sure "foreign nationals do not become dependent on public benefits for support." 

California is also considering a measure requiring everyone in the state to purchase health insurance. People who refuse would have to pay a penalty, and the money would go toward helping middle-income residents purchase private health insurance plans. 

"We're going to penalize the citizens of this state that have followed the rules, but we're going to let somebody who has not followed the rules come in here and get the services for free. I just think that's wrong," Republican state Sen. Jeff Stone said about coverage of people in the U.S. illegally. 

Many immigrants who are in the country illegally are already enrolled for some government-funded programs, but they only cover emergencies and pregnancies. 

Serrano was one of hundreds of immigrant activists who came to the Capitol on Monday for "Immigrant Day of Action." She and her husband spent the day meeting with lawmakers, sharing Angeles' story. 

"The conversation that I have is about the cost," she said, describing her interactions with lawmakers. "The conversation we want to have is about our families."

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California may be reaching the point of ‘taxuration’

By JON COUPAL

The phenomenon of “taxuration” occurs when taxpayers are so saturated with new tax-hike proposals that they start to rebel.  According to a new poll, taxuration may have finally arrived in California, if hasn’t been here already.

Last week, the Public Policy Institute of California released the findings of a survey showing that a majority of likely voters in the state aren’t very happy with the tax burdens they are forced to pay. Most Californians say the state’s tax system is unfair, which is a reversal from the same question asked in March 2017. More importantly, a solid majority of likely voters in California think they pay more taxes to state and local governments than they should.

While perception is often not correlated with reality, it appears that Californians have a fairly realistic understanding of the tax burden in the state relative to other states.  According to the report, “The public’s perceptions are somewhat in line with fiscal facts: California’s state and local tax collections per capita in 2015 were 10th-highest in the nation,” citing the left leaning Tax Policy Center.  Note that another think tank, the Tax Foundation, ranks California even higher in tax burden.

It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone paying attention that citizens are reaching the breaking point on tax hikes. Every day seems to bring a new big tax-hike proposal emanating from the state Capitol.  Just one example that popped up this week was a proposal to bring back California’s estate tax, which was repealed by voters in 1982. Other tax-hike proposals in the mix include higher income tax rates, a water tax, a soda tax, sales tax on services and a so-called “carbon intensity” tax.  (Don’t ask.)

Moreover, when the California Legislature doesn’t want to do the dirty work of raising taxes directly, it is adept at enacting statutes authorizing local governments to raise taxes. The legislature has engaged in this practice for decades since the passage of Proposition 13, starting with the infamous Mello-Roos taxes on new developments.  The most recent – and dangerous – example of this is Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 1 – which would lower the vote needed to pass a range of bonds and special taxes, including parcel taxes, from two-thirds down to just 55 percent. If approved by voters (constitutional amendments must be approved by a simple majority of the statewide electorate) ACA 1 will leave the door open to billions in new local taxes and bond debt.

And let’s not forget the tax hikes put on the ballot by progressives who never met a tax they didn’t like.  Chief among these is the notorious “split roll” proposal, which has already qualified for the 2020 ballot. It would strip Proposition 13’s protection against higher property taxes from owners of business properties.

The tax-and-spend lobby will argue that Californians actually like higher taxes as evidenced by the failure to repeal the big increases in the gas and car tax passed in 2017.  But the failure of Proposition 6 last November was the result of a deceptive ballot label courtesy of our Attorney General, who doesn’t hesitate to put his thumb on the scales of justice to benefit his political backers.

The reality is that Californians have likely had enough.  Even PPIC president Mark Baldassare interpreted the poll results as troubled water for the tax raisers, noting, “The trends say to me that the governor and Legislature should proceed with caution when it comes to raising revenues or restructuring taxes in light of the perceived tax burden.”

That may be the understatement of the year.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

OCRegister.com

California Agencies "hoarding vast sums of money"

"More Taxes Please"

• Every other word out of a Democrat is he needs more tax money - - - - Meanwhile government agencies are hoarding tens of billions of dollars.

(Orange County Register)  -  California’s most affluent special districts nearly doubled their spending over the course of a decade, while the value of their cash and investments nearly tripled, according to a Southern California News Group analysis of state data.

The figures revive the question many good-government advocates have been asking for decades: Do special districts, which operate largely under the public radar, simply have too much money?

Critics say they do, and argue that their functions should be absorbed into cities and counties that overlap their boundaries.

Special districts say they don’t, insisting they simply safeguard vital infrastructure and are better left alone.

California’s 250 largest special districts had cash and investments worth $47.1 billion when the 2017 fiscal year drew to a close, up dramatically from $17.9 billion a decade earlier, according to data from the State Controller’s Office. That’s a leap of almost $30 billion, or 164 percent.

Total spending, meanwhile, jumped nearly 100 percent — from $27.4 billion to $53.5 billion.

“From the perspective of California taxpayers, special districts are neither inherently good nor inherently bad,” said Jon Coupal, CEO of the conservative Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, in testimony to the Little Hoover Commission in 2016.

“However, few can deny that many government entities have abused the public trust by hoarding vast sums of money.”

Special districts insist he is wrong. They are the guardians of water, sewer, transportation systems and the like — and their money is earmarked to build, repair and replace vital infrastructure, they say.

Six special districts in California have amassed more than $1 billion each in cash and investments, with transportation agencies accumulating the richest treasure chests, according to the data.

Another 48 from all over the state — hospital, utility, water, sewer, flood control, air quality districts and the like — have cash and investments exceeding a quarter-billion dollars each.

The billion-plus players in 2017 were mainly in the business of moving Californians: the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission ($3.8 billion), the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority ($1.6 billion), the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District ($1.55 billion), the Orange County Transportation Authority ($1.48 billion), the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California ($1.37 billion), and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority ($1.06 billion).

The Legislature began requiring the 250 special districts with the greatest annual revenues to have their finances called out separately shortly after the Little Hoover Commission — a good-government watchdog with no enforcement powers — spotlighted reserves that dwarfed annual spending in dozens of agencies and blasted districts for amassing tremendous piles of cash.

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Breathtaking Train Rides of the World

The Corrupt Gravy Train

Never Comes To A Stop

Stockton to pay men not to shoot each other?

(KCRA)  -  Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs condemned the violence in the city over the weekend and is considering a couple different ways to combat crime, including one that pays people not to commit crimes.

There were four homicides in Stockton between Monday and Wednesday night, bringing the total number of killings in the city to more than 24.

Tubbs released a statement Wednesday night after the string of violence.

"All life is sacred and even one homicide is too many ... overall, crime continues to trend downward but we must remain vigilant," Tubbs said.

The city is exploring a couple options in the hopes of curbing the number of violent crimes in the city.

The first option is out of Detroit called Project Greenlight. In this situation, live cameras would be set up inside and outside of businesses in Stockton, and the cameras would be monitored in real-time from the police headquarters.

The second option is more controversial out of the Bay Area. Richmond's Advance Peace uses taxpayer dollars to pay men with firearm history to not shoot guns.

In exchange, the men can participate in adult fellowship, mentorships and job opportunity programs.

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California Bullet Train Gets Greenhouse Gas Funding

Follow The Money

• The political hacks will steal from any pot of cash they can find in order to fund the train to nowhere and keep the $$$$ flowing to their campaign contributors.

(AP) — California regulators did not abuse their discretion when they decided to pay for the state's high-speed rail project with money from a greenhouse gas emissions program, a Sacramento County judge said in a ruling made final on Monday.

The Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, which opposes the bullet train, argued that constructing the $64 billion project would create more pollution than it would eliminate for at least a decade.

The state has argued high-speed rail will help it meet its greenhouse gas-reduction targets.

But the lawsuit by the group based in San Rafael contended that the California Air Resources Board underplayed the bullet train's harmful environmental effects and exaggerated its environmental benefits. The board relied on the California High-Speed Rail Authority's environmental analysis and failed to account for the tons of cement to be used in construction, the lawsuit argued.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang ruled that the decision by the California Air Resources Board was not arbitrary and capricious.

The state has argued that the bullet train will reduce emissions by taking vehicles off state roads.

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CORRUPT - $1.25 billion in high-speed rail bonds sold

"Corruptus in Extremis"

• Corrupt Democrats drive the state deeper in debt to build a train no one will ride. (You can drive faster to San Francisco than this train will run.)
• Corrupt Republicans refused to rock the pig's trough of spending by putting an initiative on the ballot to kill the bullet train. With no issue to run on Republicans lost seats in 2016 giving Democrats a super majority in the legislature.

(AP) — California's state treasurer says ongoing legal challenges didn't harm the sale of nearly $1.25 billion in high-speed rail bonds.

Spokesman Marc Lifsher says all the bonds were claimed Thursday and treasury officials are happy with the results.

He says there was wide participation by different sectors of the bond-buying market. The sale produced yields that would be expected under current market conditions.

The sale was broken into three offerings, with yields as high as about 2.4 percent and maturity dates as distant as 2047.

A Sacramento County judge is to rule next week on whether the California High Speed Rail Authority can now spend the bond money.

The lawsuit challenges legislation that opponents say goes beyond what California voters allowed when they approved nearly $10 billion in bonds in 2008.

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Amtrak rail lines in California.
.
Nothing to Steal
An intelligent person would simply connect the Amtrak line that dead ends in San Luis Obispo with the Amtrak line at San Jose.  For a tiny fraction of the cost of the insane "high speed" rail fraud most of the state from Mexico to Sacramento would be connected by rail.
.
Instead countless billions will be pissed away as payback to the businesses and unions that fund the campaigns of the Sacramento hacks.  All the special interests have their snouts in the trough of corruption. 

Amtrak Pacific Surfliner at Del Mar, CA
Simply connect San Jose and San Luis Obispo and you have a statewide rail system.  But easy and cheap are words the liar politicians have never heard.

Calif Dems insult Trump, but want his money

Democrats really are Idiots

• Moron Leftist scum Democrats have insulted President Trump with the most vicious and vile language possible. Obviously they never bothered to read Dale Carnegie.
• Now they are starting to realize they will have to come hat in hand, like a beggar, to the very man they deliberately insulted. I say screw 'em. Cut off California.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  With President Trump pledging $1 trillion for infrastructure, California officials on Wednesday took a break from their feud with the new administration to propose a list of $100 billion in projects for possible federal funding to help rebuild the Golden State’s system of crumbling roads and bridges and improve transit and water storage.

Any federal money for the 51 projects would be in addition to money California is hoping to raise for its aging infrastructure, wrote Nancy McFadden, the governor’s executive secretary, in a letter to the National Governors Assn.

The list of priority projects includes roads, levees, bridges, ports, train and public transit systems, water storage and recycling projects, and energy, military, veterans and emergency operations facilities and services.

The state faces a $136-billion backlog of necessary repairs on state highways and local roads, and Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed in his new budget to increase spending on transportation $4.3 billion a year for the next decade.

While California Democrats have feuded with Trump over issues including immigration, state officials have voiced encouragement about his pledge to put $1 trillion dollars into infrastructure projects.

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CalTrans inspectors assess the condition of the
westbound bridge on Interstate 10 near Coachella.

California bullet train blasts through budget projections

Typical Los Angeles traffic jam.
Instead of building a statewide high speed rail that no one will ride, that money should have built urban rail systems to get cars off the freeways.

Not even started yet, and already $3.6 billion over budget and seven years behind schedule

(Legal Insurraction)  -  I have chronicled the saga of the California bullet train and its construction since 2012.

• California’s bond dreams become High Speed fiscal nightmare
• California Judge’s Ruling May Save State from Bullet Train
• California Voters Want More Water and Less Bullet Train

A report obtained by The Los Angeles Times confirms my concerns about the project’s fiscal drain on our state. The review shows that this monstrosity will cost $3.6 billion more than original budget projection.

A confidential Federal Railroad Administration risk analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter, just north of Bakersfield, could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion. 

The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning, lags in processing invoices for federal grants and continuing failures to acquire needed property. 

The California High-Speed Rail Authority originally anticipated completing the Central Valley track by this year, but the federal risk analysis estimates that that won’t happen until 2024, placing the project seven years behind schedule.

Even more disturbing is that the estimated overrun is merely for the easiest leg of the track to be constructed. I shudder to think about how many more taxpayer dollars will be squandered to build the entire system.

Officials overseeing this project are quick to dismiss the report:

The rail authority’s chief executive, Jeff Morales, insisted to the Times that the project would cost less than the feds projected. 

“The point of doing this analysis is to identify the challenges and work through them,” he said. “They are not conclusions and not findings.”

G

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Los Angeles had the finest public transportation system in the world
until the government tore it out in order to spend money on buses.

The Los Angeles Red Car Rail System Built in 1901.
.
Government Insanity
#1)  First you build an extensive light rail system.
#2)  Then you tear down that extensive light rail system.
#3)  Now you raise taxes to build another rail system
to replace the light rail system you just tore down.
.
Yes, the Government is run by idiots.

Pacific Electric had over 500 miles of inter urban track in Los Angeles in the early 1900's. The image shows the "Red Cars" stacked for sinking in Los Angeles Harbor - sunk ostensibly for "fish habitat", but really sunk for General Motors Corporation profit.

Democrats fund free lawyers for illegal aliens

Democrats:

"U.S. citizens can go to Hell"

• While American citizen homeless vets freeze on the streets during winter we see soulless Leftists Democrats fund free lawyers for illegal alien law breakers.

(Orange County Register)  -  Los Angeles County leaders have voted to set aside $3 million to help provide lawyers to immigrants facing deportation in response to the election of Donald Trump.

The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday to set aside the funds over the next 18 months.

During a lengthy meeting, many residents voiced support for the plan as a matter of justice. Some opposed, saying there are more pressing needs like homelessness.

The money will go toward a $10 million immigrant legal services fund being created by the county, city of Los Angeles and private foundations.

Cities and counties in Democratic strongholds across the country have been funding immigration lawyers in response to Trump’s promises to boost deportations.

California state lawmakers have proposed a bill to provide lawyers to immigrants facing deportation.

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Leftists look to tax Netflix

“Government! Three fourths parasitic and the 

other fourth Stupid fumbling.” 

― Robert A. Heinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land

(New York Times)  -  Dozens of California cities looking to shore up revenues are flirting with a new idea — tax your “Gilmore Girls” binge.

Pasadena was among the first to say publicly this fall that it wanted to tax video streaming services like Netflix, a step that could make up for lost tax revenue from growing numbers of cord-cutters.

At 9.4 percent, the so-called Netflix tax would treat streaming services as a traditional utility, the city said. If you use multiple services — for example, Hulu, Amazon Video and HBO — it would be added to each bill.

The move in Pasadena, with a population of about 140,000, has drawn consternation from technology companies and consumers who worry that it could be copied across the state.

“Websites and apps are not utilities and it defies logic to tax them like electricity, water or gas,” said Noah Theran, spokesman for the Internet Association, a trade group.

No California city has yet to begin collecting the tax. But roughly 40 cities, among them Glendale, Santa Barbara, Stockton and Sacramento, have gotten guidance from municipal consultants on how they might.

One question officials would need to resolve is where to stop, analysts say. If streaming video is taxable, then what about music, podcasts or video games?

“It opens a big Pandora’s box,” said Paul Verna, an analyst at eMarketer, a technology research company.

Mr. Verna said many of the streaming video tax proposals in California have bubbled up under the radar. If there is to be a larger debate, it will erupt when people start seeing their bills, he said.

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Boondoggle - Opponents trash high-speed rail

“It’s like a Saturday Night Live skit”

• Now the political hacks want to build an elevated high speed rail through the Bay Area.  The money pit spending just gets deeper and deeper.

(Silicon Valley Business Journal)  -  Some of the same Peninsula residents who rose up five years ago to block the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plans to build an elevated railway from San Jose to San Francisco returned Tuesday night in San Mateo to oppose the alternative.

In the second of three scoping meetings beginning the two-year environmental clearance process for the 51-mile segment, the “blended service” plan with high-speed trains and Caltrain sharing the same tracks was criticized for blocking grade crossings so frequently that it will “inflict on the Peninsula the greatest traffic disaster the Peninsula has ever experienced or will ever experience."

Mike Brady, a Redwood City attorney who has led local opposition to high-speed rail, made that argument, adding, “We cannot put up with this.”

Brady’s argument – that the 20 trains per hour up and down the Peninsula during peak service periods will block most automobile traffic across the line – is a major reason why the pre-2012 business plan called for the line to be completely grade separated where it crossed streets.

Ultimately, however, the goal of many of the residents who spoke Tuesday is not to come up with an acceptable way for the new trains to reach San Francisco, a requirement of the 2008 law that authorized the system, but to stop their northbound runs at San Jose.

“I don’t see why people who want to take high-speed rail wouldn’t take Caltrain to San Jose and change there,” one woman said.

At grade, there are 42 crossings between San Jose and San Francisco where high-speed trains may – and Caltrain already does – hit vehicles and people, frequently with disastrous results.

To meet the statutory requirement that high-speed trains be capable of running nonstop from San Jose to San Francisco in no more than 30 minutes, however, the rail authority plans grade-crossing changes. It would eliminate a handful with $500 million and protect the remainder with specially designed crossing gates that are required by the Federal Railroad Administration for trains operating at 110 mph, 31 mph faster than Caltrain now runs at its fastest.

Elected officials from Peninsula communities already bombarded rail authority chair Dan Richard in March with similar grade-crossing concerns. They worried both about finding money to eliminate them all for safety’s sake at the same time they decried raising track levels – and creating long, railroad-topped walls through their cities – that grade separation would require.

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Beyond Boondoggle: California High-Speed Rail Delayed 4 Years

(PJ Media)  -  California's high-speed rail project has seen its share of setbacks since President Obama included more than $2 billion in the stimulus bill for its construction.

But most of the delays have been the result of bureaucratic incompetence. And now, without having laid a single foot of track, the project has been delayed again. The first segment, 119 miles through the Central Valley, was scheduled for completion in 2018. But with only half the land purchased and funding for the project still in limbo, the completion date has been pushed back to 2022.

Politico:

State and federal officials downplayed the shift in the timetable, saying it partly reflected more ambitious plans for the Central Valley work, and in any case merely ratified construction realities on the ground. Jeff Morales, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said his agency is accelerating its pace after a painfully slow start, with a half dozen construction crews now building overpasses, relocating utilities, and demolishing structures from north of Fresno down to the Bakersfield area. 

“Early on, there was a vision, but no clear sense of how to implement that vision,” Morales said. “We have that now, and we’re moving ahead aggressively.”

To be clear: The project was proposed with "no clear sense of how to implement" the vision. That's a truly remarkable statement for politicians who begged the people of California for a $9 billion bond issue."

Concerns about the project’s viability, however, extend well beyond NIMBY-ism and car-bias. The estimated price tag is now equivalent to 35 times the annual federal subsidy for Amtrak. The state’s voters approved $9 billion in bonds for high-speed rail, and Brown has diverted some revenue from California’s carbon trading program to the project, but Republicans shut off the federal spigot when they took back the House of Representatives in 2010. 

So while Morales says there’s enough money to extend the railway north to San Jose, there’s not yet a long-term funding source to finish the entire job. There is some optimism that private firms can help finance construction in anticipation of profits from running the line, but there is also widespread skepticism about the state’s rosy ridership forecasts.

Meanwhile, the choice to start in the middle, in the sparsely populated and economically depressed Central Valley rather than the dense metropolitan areas to the north and south, has been ridiculed as a recipe for a high-priced train to nowhere. The first segment is actually designed to terminate in an empty lot north of Bakersfield. And the authority recently reversed its plans for its second segment, abruptly announcing that it will head north instead of south—understandable given the engineering challenge of tunneling through mountains en route to Los Angeles, but projecting a bit of a whoopsy-daisy vibe.

“It’s like a Saturday Night Live skit,” Patterson said.

Read More . . . .

Amtrak rail lines in California.

Nothing to Steal
An intelligent person would simply connect the Amtrak line that dead ends in San Luis Obispo with the Amtrak line at San Jose.  For a tiny fraction of the cost of the insane "high speed" rail fraud most of the state from Mexico to Sacramento would be connected by rail.
.
Instead countless billions will be pissed away as payback to the businesses and unions that fund the campaigns of the Sacramento hacks.  All the special interests have their snouts in the trough of corruption. 

Amtrak Pacific Surfliner at Del Mar, CA
Simply connect San Jose and San Luis Obispo and you have a statewide rail system.  But easy and cheap are words the liar politicians have never heard.