WTF???

This is totally not going to be an in depth examination of California’s ongoing budget crisis.  No one outside of California cares, and it’s Friday, so no one is reading anyway.  Besides, the country’s economic issues are so serious, and we’re all so screwed for this next little while (how long?  Oh, just long enough to lose your savings if you have one, just long enough to lose your house if you have one, just long enough to realize you’re how screwed you are if you have nothing), that probably the 90% of my readers who don’t live in California have bigger fish to fry.  But if you live in California, you must be pretty pissed off about our current situation, where our totally screwed up system is forcing the stupid asshat ineffective legislature to present our asshat superstar tough guy governor with a budget that sucks worse than any other budget Ive ever taken the time to read, with the possible exception of Maya’s college fund (ouch…can you homeschool college?).

If you haven’t been paying attention (and why should you, if you don’t live in CA), our stupid idiot legislature has presented a truly crappy budget on to our stupid idiot Governator, in which we try to deal with our budget crisis by putting all of our problems off until next year, and perhaps the year after that.  You know those Check Cashing places where a person goes and gets credit for their paycheck before payday, then you get screwed twice, because not only do you have to pay incredible interest on the loan, you also have to pay the principal, which means your regular check will be much smaller as a result, but you still have the same damn debts, meaning you have even less now than you did last month when you started out this crappy situation?  Not such a good idea if you can avoid it, right?  Well, our asshole Governator came up with a budget that included a 1% sales tax increase for a little while (3 years I think, remember, this is NOT an in-depth analysis) and some fairly decent ideas about perhaps saving for the future (I hate it when I agree with him, and as this is NOT an in-depth analysis, I won’t pretend to know what all he’s planning in the depths of this budget), and our even more asshole (bipartisan) legislature blew it off and came up with an even SUCKIER proposal, which includes a 10% withholding increase beginning in January, and requiring corporations to pay their taxes early, but which claims to not raise taxes.  So, that 10% extra we’re paying?  Supposedly, we’ll get it back when we file our taxes, which means that next year, we’ll be in this SAME CRAPPY POSITION.   And the corporations pay extra now, but it’s not really extra, it’s just early.  AGAIN, next year, we’ll be right where we are now.  So we’ll pass this budget, whatever the hell that means, and we’ll be stuck paying for it all next year and the year after that, and the year after that, etc.   I mean, God forbid, what if we suck it up and raise some taxes and cut some programs, and yes, both will hurt, but if we spread it out over a few years responsibly rather than just putting it off indefinitely, we might get through it, rather than just ignoring the problem and shoving our heads into the sand.

I don’t know.  I don’t feel coherent, but I’m really pissed off at my State government.  Let’s start all over with a new executive, a new legislature, and a new process that doesn’t include a requirement for 2/3 majority in order to pass any damn thing, meaning it’s practically impossible to get anything done in this brutally partisan atmosphere.

Ugh.  Again, not in depth.  Just me being PISSED OFF at the situation, the assholes involved, and the stupid system we have brought upon ourselves.

UPDATE:  I wrote this last night, and then this morning, I see in our paper that the assholes FINALLY came up with a budget, only 80 days late.  Whew. It’s not a good budget, but it doesn’t borrow so much from next year, doesn’t pretend to not raise our taxes by raising taxes, blah blah blah.   All I can say is, yay Arnie, for not signing that first piece of crap.  (I’m not a big fan of Arnie, so it makes me mad when I agree with him.  But this time, yeah, I agreed with him.)