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California has a $75bn budget surplus
- diogenescynic 5y agoWe should use it to help solve the homeless problem and build public housing.
- jl2718 5y agoI thought we had free public housing already. Why didn’t it work the last time we gave away free houses? I thought we could just give them all free houses and the problem would be solved. Why do we have even more people now that need free houses?
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago> Why didn’t it work the last time we gave away free houses? For those of us not familiar with the daily activities of the government of California, can you provide a reference link giving details about "the last time we gave away free houses"?
- innagadadavida 5y agohttps://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/2011/4960?npage=2 https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/Components/News/News/2011/496... The government spent around $400k per home that is essentially a single car garage. Economics of these just don’t work. But the politicians get good publicity.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y agoSo here the things that stand out to me between what you linked and what the other person said... From your link: "at one-eighth of the standard cost of development...Each bedroom unit has its own bathroom and shower to allow for isolation during the pandemic". So there are special pandemic isolation considerations factored in, which surely increases costs. That doesn't sound terrible if real shelter is being provided. Do we think that California can just ship homeless people off somewhere else that won't then try to ship them back? Or do we think that the cost of building new infrastructure for them all in the middle of nowhere will be lower than the cost of building housing in already established infrastructure? I mean, it's obviously not as cheap as dumping them in the ocean, but that's not our target standard. Between your link and the other person: 300 people sounds very different than "them all".
- offtop5 5y agoIf it wasn't completely illegal, I'd argue to give each homeless person $10,000 and to exile them for life from the state of California. I guess if you get arrested in California after that maybe you get exiled to Siberia or something
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- BugsJustFindMe 5y agoIt's not illegal to pay people to leave. But if your thought is that $10k is enough to get them back on their feet so that they won't be homeless anymore, why not just give them the $10k without the other part? It would both be cheaper to implement and also keep the money circulating inside the state instead of going somewhere else.
- sus77eegeg 5y agoWhy give them anything at all? That's even cheaper. These people aren't coming to the state to escape homelessness they're coming to the state for the free perks. Leave convincing people to change to the charities and quit wasting public money on bottomless pits.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago> Why give them anything at all? That's even cheaper. Because morality isn't measured by how much money you can save watching your neighbors rot. Well...to some people anyway. We start with the desire to benefit others as the first principle and then determine how to do it. That's called being prosocial rather than antisocial.
- jl2718 5y agoYes. Clearly it’s measured by how much money you take by force from other people and give maybe 10% to anybody that ‘needs’ it.
- jl2718 5y agoThey took it from you, and you’re not getting it back.
- w0de0 5y agoI use roads, don’t I.
- vladTheInhaler 5y agoActually, I am. I benefit from a lot of public services, and I'm sure you do too.
- jl2718 5y agoNot the surplus. Unless maybe you’re selling bonds, but, I doubt that this will go toward austerity.
- marrone12 5y agoJust in time for fire season to use all those funds.
- anm89 5y agoNote how the stock market saved them. It's not a coincidence that there is an organized effort to inflate markets. It's the only way that the average american state, city, municipality, or anything with a pension can stay solvent.
- jwhitlark 5y agoNotice how much of the stock market is actually in their state. Even if the market is overvalued, there is still a tremendous amount of value created in California. I wouldn't make the blanket argument that you get what you pay for, in government or anywhere else, but you very rarely get what you don't pay for.
- anm89 5y agoI honestly cannot figure out what you are getting at here. You are definitely correct that California has a massive economy. I'm not really commenting on California's economy or anyone else's though. I'm simply saying California and things like CalPERS are reliant on high equities valuations to maintain their solvency.
- jwhitlark 5y agoFair enough. I'm trying to link up these liabilities with the growth I think they originally supported, but I'm not articulating it well, and likely read too much into your comment. Thank you for asking a question instead of resorting to a flame war. I'll try to come up with a better way to get my point across.
- mycall 5y agoWhen the stock market is high, isn't that the best time to divest and distribute value into other instruments?
- djoldman 5y agoSounds like a fantastic opportunity to put 50 billion in the bank to guard against a future downturn.
- Redoubts 5y agoLast time someone tried that, they capped property taxes by ballot initiative instead.
- prirun 5y agoI love how they have a $75B surplus and immediately jump to spending $100B. Government just can't help spending more than they have.
- jwhitlark 5y agoIn a sense, government is like medical care, the first question is "how do we make this right", then you see if you can afford it, or what tradeoffs you have to make. So having it is second to actually looking at the problems. Why do we single out Government for this treatment? We don't generally say "Look at that homeowner, with that mortgage, the just can't help spending more than they have." We certainly don't say that about startups raising funds, either...
- icedistilled 5y agoWhere does it actually say they are deficit spending? I see the total budget is like $227B but I don't see the total intake. I even did some quick googling could find that number.
- rmk 5y agoThere are so many large issues that this could be spent on: 1. Pushing pension funds toward solvency (perhaps the rising stock market has helped a bit there already). 2. Reducing fire hazards by burying power lines. 3. Improving the dire housing situation by providing funds for development of more housing, or incentivising cities via money payments to encourage more housing. 4. Providing incentives to companies that are leaving for Texas, thus boosting long-term employment prospects. Are any of these included in the spending plan? It appears that a huge bulk of it is simply a giveaway to the voter base that is likely to vote for this Governor next year. The only positive I see is that there appears to be some work to alleviate the housing issues by reducing pressure on renters (and landlords), thereby averting further catastrophes in housing (even more people becoming homeless).