why am i yelling?

The CA budget crisis is ridiculous. If tons of cash came in during the dot-com “bubble” politicians shouldn’t increase the size of our budget to unsustainable levels. Budgets increases should take into account population growth and the inflation rate of the country - NOT a superficial upward swing in the technology sector. The people who voted these politicians into office are not totally blameless. Due to pressure from their constituencies, politicians in CA are finding it hard to cut programs funded by the state. It’s a simple equation people - IF YOU HAVE LESS MONEY YOU GET TO SPEND LESS MONEY AND THEREFORE GET LESS STUFF. Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for the programs getting cut (Healthy Families, a ‘Headstart’-like program I can’t remember the name of and some others). The CA government should conduct an impact analysis of all the programs they fund. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the government should empirically determine what programs to cut. This is the only way out of this mess. I don’t understand how people who seem to be able to manage their personal budgets (actually, who knows … some of those politicians might be deep in debt considering what they do with state funds) are completely incapable of managing the state’s budget.