Everyone is blaming the suddenly brave Republicans for the budget mess in Sacramento, but why won’t the Democrats cut the budget further instead of raising our taxes? Is there really no more room left to cut? Honestly?
Here are a few state agencies/departments that ought to be cut NOW:
- Acupuncture Board – let cities and counties deal with enforcing state acupuncture regulations
- California Commission on Aging and Dept. of Aging – cut them! Let others deal with this
- Office of Aids – isn’t this why we have a federal CDC? More people die from staph infections than HIV, maybe we should have an Office of Staph?
- Arts Council – are you kidding me? Cut it!
- Athletic Commission – why do we even need this?
- Office of Binational Border Health – huh?
- Biodiversity Council – huh?
- Braille and Talking Book Library – can’t the free market deal with this one?
- California Broadband Initiative – seriously? Broadband?
- California Council for the Humanities – oh the humanity! Cut it!
- Cyber Safety for Children – isn’t this something that local cops and the FBI deal with?
- Film Commission – can’t Hollywood mind their own affairs without state intervention?
And the list goes on and on. It is amazing how many ridiculous state departments our taxes are paying for! Read the full list of agencies at this link.
And I can think of several other ways to cut the budget:
- Make our State Legislature part-time
- Get rid of the Legislators’car allowances and per diems – let them use their own cars and pack their own sack lunches
- Slash the Legislators’ staff by half – and cut the pay of the rest of the staffers
- Get rid of all those State Commissions that pay retired Legislators six figures to duplicate what State Employees are supposed to do
- Sell off surplus state land and start selling offshore oil drilling leases
- Look to outsource as many state jobs as possible and to slash as many of these as possible
- Close as many state departments as possible – if they are not absolutely necessary
- Ask Wal Mart to open more of their low budget clinics instead of spending so much on public clinics
Readers – any more ideas to cut the state budget?
Art, you are right on the money. It’s funny how the lefties are always defending this garbage and explaining that it’s just an insignificant drop in the bucket anyway.
And of course Arnie got in on tough talk and has done zero to cut it out this nonsense. In fact he seems to enjoy apponting termed out legislators and his former employees to the high-paying, do-nothing boards and commissions.
Stop paying 90k to dim-wit political appointees to be assitant spokesholes for Fish & Game.
“can’t the free market deal with this one?”
You mean the way the free market drove us into the current economic crisis?
And you think the WORLD’S third largest economy should have a part-time Legislature? LOL. That’s priceless. What you free-market, small government-o-holics always seem to forget is that the free market is largely run by a bunch of greedy, short-sighted, self-interested white males who can’t police themselves. THOSE are the bums we need to rid ourselves of.
it must be snowing in hell ART I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU . wow we found something we agree on . i hope this dose not pass and the reps hold out . we are already the number 1 tax state in the nation . hey arnold renember the car tax you ran on . how about cutting instead of spending for once . we only have ourselves to blame . we keep picking the same clowns every year .
great one,
Certain truths are universal, just as our rights are inalienable. The Democrats need to stop whining about the Republicans and start CUTTING. Let’s see if they can figure it out. Somehow I doubt it…
I would like to see state employees stopped from double dipping in their retirement.
Such as retiring from Job A at 50, then walking across the hall to work Job B a week later, and collecting pension from JOB A while working at JOB B. If your getting 70% or above of your original salary in JOB B you should not get retirement until your done working for the state government.
I would like to see a site where we could all work together to trim government.
Wow I have got to agree with Art on this one, the great one is right it must be snowing in hell.
Interesting list of potential cuts. The State Department of Aging should be merged into State Department of Social Services, thus eliminating one layer of Executive Management at the least. The barrier to doing this in the past has been a strong senior citizen lobby throughout California that fights any such proposal, arguing that the federal Older Americans Act money that flows to the states needs a free standing state department to over see it. If nothing else, this indicates that every proposed cut has a constituency, and where seniors are involved that constituency votes and no one has been willing to alienate them by becoming an advocate for reducing or eliminating their bureaucractic identity.
I really like the part time legislature idea – who needs 12 months a year of posturing, per diems and mostly inaction? These folks seem to believe they are royalty, so moving to part time makes sense. You can bet though that most every lobbyist working Sacramento, and there are thousands, would work to defeat a change to part time, as the income of lobbyists is founded on year around work! Another industry threatened.
matt munson wow is that true if so I TOTALL AGREE WITH YOU . can we put a stop to this that is awfull
Anon, Wow! You make a strong case for raising taxes, and keeping up out of control spending! Who could argue with Kill the greedy white man?
Government regulation hurts business. Period. Forget the Feds, How many companies move to Nevada, Arizona, or Idaho every month? Why for the great weather? No, because they are not hated by their officials there.
So, what has our Legislature passed in the last 5 years that has helped grow the Economy? All I see is out of control Social spending on a pathetic education system with no accountability, people in prison at a cost of $40K per year for a little bit of Pot. This may come as a surprise to you, but most states have part time legislatures! When you pay people to sit around and think of stuff to do to, to justify their salary and per diem, you get crazy crap like we have in this state!
But, for waht it is worth, I agree with Art, and that means I am probably wrong.
Bigmarkod,
LOL! Surely we are all right once in awhile? I mean you can’t always be wrong, can you?
John and Ken were talking about this today and they identified $34 million that could be cut from the budget or raised by other means.
The Democrats just don’t want to cut, period. They are the ones who are being recalcitrant, not the Republicans.
The budget hole is about $40 billion.
The current proposed budget is roughly $14B in cuts, $14B in new taxes, and $12B in lending to fill it.
Thanks to John and Ken, taxes will now only have to be raised $13.966 billion. Thanks for the comedy guys!