Gov. Schwarzenegger has announced further details and cuts as part of his post-initiative failure plans for easing California's troubled fiscal situation--but L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa doesn't want to see the state balancing its budget on the backs of California's cities.
Schwarzenegger's latest proposal includes a new $5 billion in proposed cuts on top of $16 billion announced last week, and a likely additional $3 billion in cuts to come later in the week.
Part of his plan to solve Sacramento's problems, though, involve borrowing billions from the property tax revenues of cities and localities. And L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, along with other local leaders, went to Sacramento to protest. As the Daily News reports:
Organized by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, officials from San Diego, Sacramento and Santa Ana met with state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Controller John Chiang and legislative leaders, offering to work with them to solve the state's $21 billion deficit without harming local government.
"The state often balances its budget on the backs of cities, counties and school districts," Villaraigosa said at a news conference that was aired for Los Angeles reporters.
And as reported in the L.A. Times,
The League of California Cities and others have formed a coalition to fight state reliance on local money to get out of the fiscal hole, called "Save Your City," complaining that city services, and its citizens, will suffer unduly if Schwarzennegger gets his way on this. From a League of California Cities press release:Villaraigosa, along with the mayors of Santa Ana, San Diego and Sacramento, said he was skeptical that if state officials raided their coffers, money would be available to repay them -- with interest -- within three years, as the state Constitution requires.
Across the state, many cities are enacting drastic cuts to their budgets including public safety reductions, employee layoffs, hiring freezes, project delays, program reductions and more. More than 40 cities have passed or are scheduled to pass a resolution declaring a state of severe fiscal hardship by Tuesday, June 2.
Meanwhile, local blogger and former Daily News editor Ron Kaye is complaining that L.A.'s own latest budget proposals are similarly loaded with unsustainable gimmicks:
Just like that in 26 seconds without further adieu or debate, the City Council last week grabbed another $27 million out of the money we pay for electricity and put it into the treasury to help mask years of reckless spending.
Today, the council will put its final seal of approval on a budget that is a work of fiction. It won't even stand up 26 seconds into the new fiscal year starting July 1.
When it comes to government spending, from City Hall to the state capitol, things are tough all over.
(Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
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Mayor is V is too weak to stand up for the city. This is where all the failure talk boils down to nuts and bolts governance issues. A weak mayor - even of the nation's largest and most vibrant metro - won't be able to fight off the state gov.
OVERPOPULATION--HIGHER TAXES-- E-VERIFY should be classed as the paramount issue when it comes to illegal immigration. The corporate elitists who are partnered with many corrupt politicians do not live in the real world. The business entities who lobby for cheap labor are isolated from the traffic chaos on our highways. They do not live in the pollution of our cities, amongst the gangs and criminals who have swarmed across the borders. Only mainly the middle class will be subjected to a new push for a second path to citizenship or better known as AMNESTY. This revised so-called immigration reform will sweep across America, without any voice allowed to repudiate it from—THE PEOPLE--who must pay for everything. Business pay NOTHING, nor the farmers and using slave labor at cheap rates without any benefits, that lowers American wages across the board. Here are the issues that voters must consider:
1. Are Americans expected continually to pay for the hiring practices of businesses and farmers? 2. Why have the agricultural community not advanced in using mechanized machines to harvest crops, when they are well subsidized by government agencies? Sen. Feinstein is reintroducing an AGJOB bill that would allow at least 2 million foreign nation legalization. The issue here is 3. Why are our legislators drafting a 2nd AMNESTY, when the 1986 Simpson/Mazzoli bill was weakened on not even enforced and full of fraud? 4. If another AMNESTY is forced on Taxpayers are they expected to cover the costs of an almost impossible regimen of processing 20 million plus foreign nationals? 5. Who is going to pay for the--CHAIN MIGRATION--for the extended family members who will want to live with newly legalized migrant? Then Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), stated “the borders are now safe enough to take a step forward. We can pass strong, fair, practical and effective immigration reform this year," he said. Perhaps he should take a trip to the fence and reverse his initial statement. The border is definitely not secure. It's a place of death at the hands of criminal drug cartels that have even infiltrated the American communities. 6. Isolated border sheriff's voices of alarm, fell upon deaf ears for years in Washington, repeatedly stating of their limited manpower, could not stem the tide of drugs crossing our border.
Our Washington elitists, who are adamant free traders and open border zealots, have not only ruined small Mexican farmers living standards, because of the inception of CAFTA, but now unable to scratch a living have poured across the border along with other impoverished peoples. 7. If millions illegal aliens are legalized, why should honest potential immigrants waiting patiently for years, bother with a employment visa and not just slip past an undermanned, poorly erected border fence? 8. Why are taxpayers forced by mandated law to support hired illegal labor, when businesses pay nothing for them being here. 9. Although not the illegal children's fault, why should our own children suffer under the controversial Dream Act? This gives an academic education within state lower tuition fees, while American students must pay higher fees? 10. In conclusion, should the anti-sovereignty, pro-illegal immigrant, open border pass AMNESTY, how are they going to halt the next daunting waves of indigent people looking for a better life in the United States and placing in jeopardy poorly skilled American workers, who should not have to compete with alien labor?
We now know the major Democratic culprits who under funded, weakened or otherwise killed strong immigration legislation such as E-Verify. Sen. Harry Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Sen. Burris, and others, including even Republican Party members involved in this travesty to cut-out the Real ID Act, 247(g) giving the power of arrest to the police. NUMBERSUSA is the site to reveal the poor grades of Senators and Congressman. They are the ones who approve the laws and added weight to your taxes. California--A Sanctuary State--is a great example of out-of-control illegal immigration, where taxpayers have been stung by higher taxes to pay for the benefits by an unfit Sacramento Liberal Democrat assembly. Next in line is New York that is staring into a chasm of potential bankruptcy. IF THIS IS NOT "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" what is?
Sorry to take this discussion to the gutter, but that picture of the Governator grinning behind Mayor V is pretty priceless. Is this an, ahem, illustration of what the State government is about to do to local governments?