(Always great to have Paul 'round these parts. - promoted by Julia Rosen)
Cross-posted from Open Left
During the 2003 recall campaign, Arnold Schwarzenegger promised he would "fix" the budget. He fixed it, all right, his first day in office he repealed the vehicle license fee (VLF), leaving the state liable for an addition $6 billion of local spending annually. He then used all kinds of "creative financing" as it's known in Hollywood, to maintain the illusion that everything was just fine. This January, he dropped the act.
"For several years, we kept the budget wolf from the door, but the wolf is back," he said, as he announced an 18-month budget shortfall of $14.5 billion, a figure that the non-partisan Legislative Analyst soon upped to $16 billion. The Democratic legislative leadership managed to trim that by $9 billion with some creative financing of its own, before the Governor announced on April 24 that it was up to $10 billion, and still climbing as California's economy continued to worsen, along with the rest of America, and the world.
For some idea of what this means, in March, the California Budget Project reported that the Governors proposed budget would hit children, seniors, the poor and disabled especially hard. In Los Angeles County alone, this would include cuts of $670 per student for all 1,544,710 students served by the county's public schools. In the past, conservative Republican governors like Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson agreed to balancing budget cuts and tax increases to fill budget gaps, but so-called "moderate" Arnold Schwarzenegger is dead set against raising taxes-Republican legislators are even more adamant.
All of which means we need to "think outside the box."
Mandatory Blood Donations
Because education cuts account for such a large chunk of the budget gap, it seems only natural to think creatively about how these cuts in particular might be made up. Some have suggested instituting a system of mandatory blood donations for all students, and using the proceeds to help fill the budget gap. At first blush, it seems like a promising approach.
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