Routinely, every year I post how the people who were the parents of those who thought up the madness we call AMT should have practiced better birth control. While my rant remains basically the same, this year’s anger is directed toward the state of California.
The Assembly and the Governor have had a year to get a budget deal together. The deficit is $45 billion (yes billion) and growing. Well, the bottom line is that I must file my return by 15 April. But if I am entitled to a refund (and I am), the “Golden State” will send me an IOU which they MAY pay interest on after 1 June.
Here’s my answer to this mess: You can not spend your way into fiscal responsibility and you sure can’t get there by cutting taxes to the point that you can not provide basic required government services. It is the combination of minimum taxes and prudent spending that makes tax payers happy. But when you must raise taxes as California must certainly do – do it and tell the people why, but do it quickly. We are big boys and girls. We can take it. What we can not take is the crap that politicans throw out that we should cut more when we can see that DMV is closed, social services are minimized and you’ll have to open the prisons and release criminals because you can’t afford to keep the bad guys off the street.
I am really unhappy that in the interest of trying to score points, people have lost the meaning of fiscal responsibility. Really unhappy.