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It's no secret that Krugman is a complete moron. Anyone who espouses Keynesian beliefs as he does, knows nothing of actual ecomics, or reality for that matter.

And Krugman is a liberal from where? New York? Rose colored glasses.......

Krugman has lots of facial hair - just like most good old school communists.

can we ever expect anything less from the NEW YORK SLIMES and liberal left-wing collomists like PAUL KRUGMAN

Krugman is actually a pretty briliant economist. You wouldn't know it by his columns though.

The very first time I read Krugman, I was just out of B-school. I thought it was parody. Can you believe I got through B-school with nobody forcing me to read and gush over Krugman?? What's the matter with universities back then??

Krugman: The Republican rump retains enough seats in the Legislature to block any responsible action in the face of the fiscal crisis.

responsible action= Taxing the everlovin' #$%* outa the Kahleefornyan populace.

Prepare for the progressive caterwaul call to do away with Prop 13 and the 2/3rds majority vote needed to pass a budget in CA. These folks never tire of imposing confiscatory taxes or "fees" on anything that moves out here.

..while Krugman is full of himself (and that notoriously smelly diarrhea effluvia), some blame should accrue to the limp-member California Republican Party for (1) being enablers, and (2) engaging in an (almost) complicit game of political musical chairs to retain their dwindling power. They plotted with the Democrats and went back on a pledge to block the tax increases and set up these elusively-worded propositions.

Also, indirectly, Krugman may be correct in asserting that California could be pointing the way for the nation. Both democrat and Republican taxpayers out here were fed up with this crap and either stayed at home in record numbers (74%) or voted down propositions 1A through 1E by almost 2-1 across the board. Proposition 1F was passed because it dictated no pay raises for legislators in years of a state deficit.

But he truly has no insight; he is just some dumb-assed NYT dead-paper columnist as out of touch with things as that tattooed, greasy-haired skank, Jeanine Gerafalo who thinks all of the "tea-baggers" are racist spawn of the Republican Party..

..no freaking clue.

Well, the article does seem like a poorly written piece of crap ...

But it also seems like another case of you folks making a story where there is none, by focusing on irrelevant details. He does do some conservative bashing along the way, but really the piece is about prop 13. To fill in a few of those gaps:

"The seeds of California’s current crisis were planted more than 30 years ago, when voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 13, a ballot measure that placed the state’s budget in a straitjacket. Property tax rates were capped, and homeowners were shielded from increases in their tax assessments even as the value of their homes rose.

The result was a tax system that is both inequitable and unstable. It’s inequitable because older homeowners often pay far less property tax than their younger neighbors. It’s unstable because limits on property taxation have forced California to rely more heavily than other states on income taxes, which fall steeply during recessions.

Even more important, however, Proposition 13 made it extremely hard to raise taxes, even in emergencies: no state tax rate may be increased without a two-thirds majority in both houses of the State Legislature. And this provision has interacted disastrously with state political trends."

It's always about government's income and not living within its means with people like Krugman. Social engineering is not the job of government. Their job is to maintain the stadium, mow the field and provide the referees so the people can play the game.

"when voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 13, a ballot measure that placed the state’s budget in a straitjacket."

Uh... do you remember what property taxes were like pre-prop 13?

I like straightjackets on gov't. :)

I don't live in CA and don't pretend to have an answer for the state's troubles.

My ONLY point was that Krugman (while admittedly taking several artless swings at y'all) wasn't laying the blame for the problem at the feet of Republicans, as it sounds in the opener.

"The very first time I read Krugman, I was just out of B-school."

Karin - I hope you mean undergraduate B-school. If you went to graduate school in business and never ran across Krugman during your international trade studies, I would question that program.

RE: Posted by: Anonymous at May 26, 2009 12:52 PM

No, Anonymous / Moon bat - I think he's pretty clear about it:

"And while the party’s growing extremism condemns it to seemingly permanent minority status — Mr. Schwarzenegger was and is sui generis — the Republican rump retains enough seats in the Legislature to block any responsible action in the face of the fiscal crisis.

Will the same thing happen to the nation as a whole?"

"The seeds of California’s current crisis were planted more than 30 years ago, when voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 13, a ballot measure that placed the state’s budget in a straitjacket."

No Paul, this has been the left's strawman and default target for attack for the State's running out of money for the past 30 years. Never are the CA House & Senate Dems blamed or even scrutinized for their crack-addict like spending for umpteen years by the lamestream local media.

Instead you get this nonsense:

To be blunt: recent events suggest that the Republican Party has been driven mad by lack of power.

Ground Control to Major Tom!! Repubs have been a minority in CA govt for umpteen years Paul. This situation is different how? Who has traditionaly run CA's cities, a) Evangical die-hard Christian Conservative Repubs or b) "Progressive" cadres of Dems?

Krugman's facial expressions makes me think of a guy just beginning to catch on he has just been given a hotfoot.

It’s inequitable because older homeowners often pay far less property tax than their younger neighbors. It’s unstable because limits on property taxation have forced California to rely more heavily than other states on income taxes, which fall steeply during recessions.

Do you have any idea how a budget works? Income tax is fairer in this case, because it's based on yoru ability to pay. How the hell is a staticly high property tax fair if you've lost income? Are you suggesting that those people, especially the retired on fixed incomes, should stop paying bills, starve, or freeze?

Just so the fucking government can keep handing out freebies to illegal invaders, welfrare leeches, and crooked lobbyists?

Let’s look at the facts:

Total proposed 2009 budget: $95.5 bn

K-12 education: $35.4 bn

Higher education: $11.7 bn

HHS: $30.0 bn

Corrections: $10.3 bn

Sum: $87.4 bn (92%)

The HHS expenditure is primarily Medi-Cal, which provides health care for low-income people. So, objectively, spending on medical care for low-income people (and on criminals, in the corrections budget) is at the core of the problem (although the educational bureaucracy could certainly use a few good swings of the ax too). I hadn’t known this myself until reading the budget.

Btw, the site is confusingly laid out, and internally inconsistent (somewhat different numbers quoted in different places for the same item, so you’ll see figures for HHS on the summary page (above) that differ from those on the HHS page ($37.985 bn).

To see the problem, look at the graph on p. 3 of this.

State spending has nearly double in a decade. Arnold has been steamrollered by the Legislature, which is heavily Democratic (and we have the deficit to prove it). The problem isn’t lack of taxes, but excess of spending.

Krugman, taking his marching orders from Obambi: blame the Republicans; if you can do so, be more specific, and blame Booooooosh, or lately, Cheney, when your aimless, random, socialist crap isn't working. The Idiot Media will back you, all the way.

Hey, drones! How's that Hope and Change workin' out for you?

hey, don't blame it on me - we left californistan 10 years ago...noting the writing on the wall. some people will cling bitterly to the golden state - as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.

Krugman = asshatowitz

California has the second-highest taxes in the nation, as a percentage of its residents' income, tied with New Jersey, after only New York.

So much for Krugman's little tale about it being "under taxed".

Now a curious fact is that these same three highest tax states (all run by Democrats) this year had $65 billion in budget deficits -- more than two-thirds of the combined budget gaps faced by all 50 states!

Does that tell is anything? It might!

some people will cling bitterly to the golden state.

Posted by: nancz at May 26, 2009 9:00 PM

Count me as a "cling bitterly" please.

Easy to pass judgement from the other side of the country, isn't it. For an individual who can theoretically read, I guess real election result seem to escape his grasp.

Economics usually become intellectualized when somebody is looking for trouble. There isn’t much real argument between the fundamentals of leftist or conservative agendas. The problem is the people running the democrat/republican machine.