The way the budget works in California is basically, Gavin Newsom releases a proposed
budget early in the year January February. Then the year goes along, we
assess things based on how much tax revenue the state has collected, and then
in May, the governor gives an updated budget projection. But you still need
to you still kind of need to have an understanding of where you are.
Seems like that wouldn't be that difficult to do. How much of a deficit
do we have? How much of a deficit are we looking at? Now,
here's the problem. We've got two different dueling numbers for how big California's
budget deficit is. One that the governor keeps running with and another that the
Legislative Analyst's Office, which is supposed to be a non partisan entity that assesses
California legislation. They've got a different projected budget deficit. There's a big difference
between the two. Let's dig into this. There's a piece by Lindsay Holden
and Andrew Schieler. I'm assuming this is for McClatchy. Is it thirty eight
billion or seventy three billion? Those are the numbers? Thirty eight or seventy
three, we're thirty five blah blah blah blah blah blah billion dollars apart.
Just how much of a budget gap does California actually have? This is a
one year deficit, by the way, one year deficit were either seventy three
billion over budget or thirty five billion or excuse me, thirty eight billion over
budget. The Legislative Analyst's Office last week through yet another wrench into Governor Gavin
Newsom's push for a rosier fiscal picture when it updated its projected budget deficit to
seventy three billion based on weak revenue collections. This is the latest in a
series of dueling budget estimates the Governor's administration and the LAO have put forward since
December. The LAO the Legislative Analysts Office in late twenty twenty three projected the
state would see a sixty eight billion dollars spending shortfall. Newsom and his Department
of Finance in January suggested it was closer to thirty eight billion. An LAO
analyst of the Governor's budget said the administration had actually filled a potential gap of
fifty eight billion million, meaning the two estimates were about ten billion apart.
Then on Tuesday, the LAO issued the seventy three billion dollar projection. Now
this isn't entirely strange the Department of Finance. So the Department of Finance political
branch, part of the executive branch of government. It's under the governor,
so it's subject to some of his political biases. The Department of Finance and
the LAO have previously had different takes on the budget. The LAO in late
twenty twenty two also estimated a slightly larger spending gap than the governor's administration eventually
projected in January twenty twenty three. What has been different is Newsom's insistence that
it was wrong for journalists and observers to take the lao's bigger estimate as gospel,
setting up a continuing comparison between the two. We have a difference of
opinion in the short run versus the long run, Newsom said in January,
adding, we're just a little less pessimistic than they are about the next year.
So where does a budget gap that's fifteen billion dollars bigger leave California leaders?
Okay, so we're again the numbers are Newsom is estimating thirty eight billion.
The LAO is estimating seventy three billion, but that a big chunk of
it is made up fifty eight billion, So more or less, the LAO,
which is a non partisan entity that's tied to the state legislature, authorized
by California statutes, tied by the state legislature, so it's not under the
governor, it's not subject to the political pressures that the governor puts on it.
The Legislative Analysts Office, the LAO says that the deficit is fifteen billion
dollars, bigger than Governor Newsom says it is. Now where does that leave
us? So? One of the biggest differences between Newsom's projections and the Legislative
Analysts offices estimates is whether fifteen billion dollars in proposed cuts to school and community
college funding is an automatic change or a policy choice that doesn't necessarily have to
be made. Newsom's office considers that spending reduction to be baseline, while the
LAO considers it a policy choice for lawmakers and the governor to make. While
crafting the twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five budget. We take this approach
in order to provide the legislature visibility into the full scope of the administration's choices.
The LAO senten it's January thirteen overview of the governor's proposed budget. Palmer
estimated the state still has some revenue runway left from now through April. More
than fifty one billion dollars in income and corporate tax receipts are forecast to come
in, Palmer said in a statement on Tuesday, No one can say today
with certain see how those numbers may change the budget estimate of a thirty eight
billion dollars shortfall. Okay, so all of this is projected. Okay.
Tax Day is not until April, right, So as we roll along into
April and May, we're going to get a clearer picture of just how far
behind we are for twenty twenty four into twenty twenty five. Now, Chris
Hayne, the executive director of the California Budget and Policy Center, said leaders
will possibly need to plan for more belt tightening based on current conditions. I
think the challenge for them from a governance perspective is that I think many people
had hoped that January's projections would actually improve by May, because twenty twenty three
was relatively speaking a good year for the stock market, he said. And
right now, this early this year, the arrows are pointing in the other
direction, which means they potentially have a bigger budget problem to solve than they
thought even a month ago. Out now, this leads me to a couple
of thoughts. Remember that story from I guess it was last year that the
city of Fresno is gonna get all these hundreds of millions of dollars of state
funding. I think it was like four hundred and fifty million dollars of state
funding to help Fresno develop downtown. And we got the first fifty million,
and then all of a sudden, just like a month or so ago,
Governor Newsom said, whoops, sorry, Fresno, you're not getting this first
hundred million. Well or just pushing it off next year Manyana, I don't
think we're ever seeing that money. I don't. I really don't think we're
gonna see it. I mean, Newsom can make all the right sounds that
he wants right now, so well, I'm committed to this. So this
is something I'm committed to. Oh Newsome and Jerry Dyer, can you know,
go on? As many zoom calls together as they want. They can
have as many press conferences together as they want. They can, you know,
pat each other on the back as much as they want. I don't
think that money's coming because our budget situation in California is dire and it is
getting at d ir not Jerry Dyer d y e R. And the situation
is getting worse. What what's the basic dynamic problem? California had one year
with a budget surplus because we had tons of federal COVID money flooding it.
Outside of that, the financial picture in this state is bad, and COVID
made it worse. Outside of a bunch of federal money flooding the system,
here's the reality. California has always been dependent on a relatively very small percentage
of high income taxpayers, the wealthiest one percent, if you will, whose
shoulder this enormous percentage of all California revenue. So for a state to spend,
they need revenue to come in so that they can spend it. The
revenue that comes in is from taxes, and California has state income tax.
So California has always been dependent on this wealthiest one percent of high earners,
super rich people from La Joya and you know Los Angeles area and Silicon Valley
and San Francisco, this elite, upper crust of earners who would pay a
lot of money and income tax. And it's a relatively really very small number
of people, something like four or five hundred thousand people in a state of
forty million. Okay, again, so we're talking about like one percent of
the population. Well, a lot of them are moving, a lot of
them are leaving, and COVID was this timeframe that probably really ticked a lot
of them off. So if you're not getting the revenue from you, that's
the thing. It's a very high variance thing. If those people don't pay
a lot in taxes, If those people leave the state, if those people
start retiring and their income is more from investments than from normal income, and
then their tax situation is different. Guess what, the state's not going to
get near as much money. The state's going to have these huge revenue shortfalls.
Where we're arguing between is it how many tens of billions of dollars short
are we? You know, where we've got a fifteen billion dollar difference of
opinion between the governor and the Legislative Analyst's office which you know, if you're
going to ask who do I trust here, the non partisan Legislative Analysts Office
that works for the state legislature and whose goal, whose job is to give
them analysis on the budget versus you know, semenity that's basically doing press releases
on behalf of Governor Gavin Newsom. Yeah, I'm going to trust the non
partisan Legislative Analyst's Office. So I that's the core problem here. Yeah,
we're not going to get that money. Like, the financial picture is just
getting worse and worse and worse. And as homelessness got over the last seven
years, homelessness has gotten worse. Crime has gotten worse. You've seen the
election of this rise in various forms of crime, both in Los Angeles and
other parts of the state, Los Angeles electing a Soros backed district Attorney,
George Gaston, who seems more concerned about about the criminals than he does about
the victims and not prosecuting criminals for a whole suath of crimes. The chase
of budin experience in San Francisco, he came and went. But this is
not getting any better and it's not going to basically what it means is this
upper crust of wealthiest one percent high income earner ties. A lot of them
are leaving and they're not coming back. And if they're leaving, they're taking
their tax revenue with them. I don't know if the I guess I just
don't see outside of another kind of black swan event sort of like COVID was,
what this sort of you can't really predict it, like crazy thing that
results in this huge amount of federal bailout cash being spent. I just don't
see how our state budget is ever going to be anything other than tens of
billions in the red for the foreseeable future unless we recalibrate everything. And you
know what I find pretty likely to be a victim of that recalibration, probably
all that money that Gavin Newsom wanted to give to Fresno. And it's the
thing, there's only so many years we can push it back and push it
back and push it back. Governor Newsom got re elected in twenty twenty two.
He's going to be out in January of twenty twenty seventh, assuming that
the Democrats don't make him their presidential nominee, assuming he doesn't be common president
or something God forbid. But that's I think that's a more than zero possibility.
And then by the time Newsom's gone, what if we have they as
they said in the Book of Exodus. What if a pharaoh who knows not
Joseph comes to the throne. What if we get some governor who doesn't give
a crap about Fresno the way that Gavin Newsom at least pretends to give a
crap about Fresno when we return. How this could set the table for actual
tex increases in California. That's next on the John Girardi Show. Are the
budget deficits California keeps running going to lead finally to tax increases? That is
the question. We've got this difference of opinion between the nonpartisan State Legislative Analysts
Office, which is tied to the state legislature and helps produce fiscal assessments for
the legislature, as it works with the governor on the budget. They've got
one number. The governor has a different number for what the state budget deficit
is going to be for this upcoming fiscal year twenty twenty four twenty twenty five.
There's no way to slice it that looks good Okay, we're in the
tens of billions of dollars in the red. Now this story from McClatchy Assessing
this. Yeah, the sacrament of best story Assessing this, written by Lindsay
Holden Andrew Schielder. One of the things it raises is the idea of increasing
taxes. So here's what they write. The Legislative Analysts Office identified several one
time or temporary spending cuts that could be made to address the budget shortfall from
fiscal year twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four through twenty twenty five twenty twenty
six. That includes five hundred and forty two million dollars in cuts from the
Health and home Care Workforce Package from the Department of Healthcare, Access and Information,
one point nine billion dollars in the state's share of school construction projects,
one point three billion in the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program, one point
two billion in broadband infrastructure, one billion dollars in the Clean Energy Reliability Investment
Plan. Jesulaise, how the clean energy reliability So you mean state rebates for
already rich people to buy electric cars. Yeah, I think we could make
be cut that and one point seven billion in transit and rail funding. Oh,
like high speed rail funding? Are we still paying for that? If
you're in a budget. By the way, that high speed rail train is
never ever ever getting done because when belts are actually tight, people are gonna
look at that stupid thing and think, all right, well, maybe let's
spend on something else here. The high speed rail is the biggest example of
the sunk cost fallacy, where you're like, well, we've already spent so
much on it. We can't just let it die. Yes, you can
just let it die anyway, now, the story right, the story continues.
Although Newsome has been staunchly opposed to raising taxes, there's a suggestion that
it may be time to consider some revenue solutions to prevent cutting services to the
bone. That's from Chris Hayne, the executive director of the California Budget and
Policy centur Now, it's not unprecedented to do so, he said. In
prior recession, state leaders have temporarily suspended tax breaks, kind of imposed tax
changes that produce revenues on a temporary basis to help get through these periods.
Okay, let's talk about this. Let me talk about why this is not
a good idea. Right now. There are some that, frankly, a
lot of conservatives who basically view their entire political worldview through the lens of taxes,
tax cuts, tax rates, taxes being too high. There's a lot
of conservatives who their whole universe is defined by that. Basically, they think
there was they view the whole world the universe. Instead of BC and A
D, they have B, R and AD. Instead of before Christ,
they have before Reagan and then the year of our Lord, the year of
our Gipper on O gipperies AG so b R and AG before Reagan and on
O Gipper in the Year of our Gipper, you know whatever. There are
a lot of conservatives who think like that and basically think that all all of
conservative is Conservatism is defined by taxes. Having lower taxes is good, Having
higher taxes is bad in any circumstance. Increasing taxes bad idea, Cutting taxes
good idea. The Laugher curve concept that actually, sometimes when you cut taxes,
it results in people having more money to invest and spend and engage in
various kinds of economic activity, and that can actually increase revenues that government receives.
There's some truth to that. Nonetheless, a lot of conservatives view things
through that lens. I don't. I don't think tax policy is the most
important thing in the world. I'm more of a social conservative. I don't
know that these Reagan air doctrines about fiscal policy tax cuts, tax cuts are
always good, tax increases are always bad. I don't know that that is
necessarily true. But I'm gonna say here, in California, to increase taxes
would be insane. Let me explain why, as I explain LA segment,
what's the dynamic, what's the problem here in California? Why are we having
these budget shortfalls? The reason why is because we have this very small percentage
of people, relatively speaking, shouldering the lion's share of taxes and revenue generation
for the whole state. California has state income tax. Really high income earners
are paying a relatively small number of these people, couple hundred thousand people are
shouldering most of the burden for the state. Those people have started to leave
the state if you keep ticking them off, if you keep telling them,
yes, you're going to be in this top income bracket. And right now
it's about fifty percent of their money gets taken in federal and state taxes and
you're going to say we're going to do more. Or Oh, I could
just have my primary place of residence be in Nevada and I can just you
know, zoom work to my job that's based in Silicon Valley. Oh.
I could have my primary place of residence or have my company be headquartered in
Texas or Florida or Tennessee or state or Nevada or a state that doesn't have
state income tax and I can keep I don't know. I'm not sure what
the top marginal California state income tax rate is. I think it's around ten
percent. A little more than that, might be fifteen something right there.
You mean I can keep that much more of my money if I leave this
state. Yes, please sign me up. I'm already the top one wealthiest
one percent. I have the means to move. I'll make it work.
If you increase taxes in California with a short term goal of well, if
you increase taxes, you take more of people's money, you get more revenue
for the state. That seems pretty short sighted to me. Seems like all
you're going to do is drive these people that you're long term so reliant upon
for tax revenue away from the state. When we return, I want to
explain the brew haha from the Alabama State Supreme Court over I AVF. This
is a big topic we've been talking about on Right to Life Radio. I
feel like I got to address it on the JG Show. That's next on
the John Groardy Show. A lot of talk show hosts I've heard over time
say things like, I just give it to people straight, I don't care
what people think about me. I just speak the truth, and I don't
care about the consequences, And then they proceed to give the most predictably blase
conservative opinions possible that are obviously very very comfortable to their listeners, where there's
actually not much of a risk of their listenership or anyone meaningfully important to them
disagreeing with them. And I don't want to become that kind of a guy,
I must say doing the radio show. For those of you listening,
there are often times where I am tempted to be quiet about things for the
sake of some kind of consideration, not wanting to offend the audience, or
not wanting to do you know, not wanting to do this or do that.
Don't I hate being in those situations because I hate the feeling of I'm
just being a sellout or I'm just being a fraud, or I'm being quiet,
or I'm expressing opinion that maybe I don't believe in. And I can
feel that temptation to express an opinion I don't believe in, and I try
to fight against it. I don't want to do that because I think that's
a real temptation of being a talk show hot I'll tell you I'm not even
like a very big talk show host. Okay, I've you know, I'm
I'm not a three hour a day guy or anything. Okay, and my
main day job is not radio. But I find that there can still be
that sort of temptation, and I don't want to be that guy. I
don't want to be someone who's intellectually dishonest, who comes on the radio and
says things he doesn't believe or you know, kind of half you know,
what's the truth. So one of these stories, some of you are actually
going to disagree with me here, all right, some of the power,
you know, typical power talk listening talk radio audience, some of you might
actually disagree with me, But I just ask you to give me some space
and consideration to make the argument. And it's over the topic of IVF in
vitro fertilization. Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court had a ruling about the
topic of IVF. Now, the Alabama State Supreme Court, their decisions are
dispositive. They control Alabama law, doesn't impact Mississippi law, even doesn't impact
Florida law, doesn't impact anyone else as far as being a controlling authority.
Some other state might who has similar laws on the books, might look at
what the Alabama State Supreme Court decides and say, huh, that's interesting that
they did it that way. It does that reasoning make sense, and maybe
they might find it persuasive. But the Alabama State Supreme Court really only controls
in Alabama. The Alabama State Supreme Court was looking at a case of something
that happened in an IVF clinic and whether people could sue for wrongful death over
the destruction of embryos created through the IVF process, and that hinges on the
question of our IVF embryos human beings for the purposes of Alabama's wrongful death statute.
Okay, so wrongful death. I think we all remember the OJ situation.
Oj got acquitted for murder, but he was found civilly liable for the
killing of Nicole Brown Simpson. So a criminal trial is when the state is
prosecuting you. The state is trying to lock you up for a crime.
A civil trial is when a private party is suing you for some ill you
have done, some wrong you have done them trying to get usually money,
damages, or some injunction to prevent you from doing stuff in the future.
So Oj was found not guilty criminally, but he was found liable civilly.
In Alabama, this was a case where someone broke into an IVF clinic and
destroyed several, as they call them, test two babies. What happens in
the IVF process is basically, a woman's egg cells are mixed with a man's
sperm cells in a petri dish in glass the Latin phrase for in glass on
glasses in vitro okay. So what invariably winds up happening that the woman takes
drugs to hyperovulate produce several eggs. That man has gazillions of sperms. These
are mixed in glass and way more embryos typically are produced via the IVF process
than can possibly be implanted or survive. So what we have today in IVF
clinics all over the United States of America are millions of living human organisms who
can be held in stasis in a freezer, alive but cannot grow, cannot
develop, human organisms embryos in test tubes, in freezers held in stasis.
Okay, someone broke into an IVF clinic in Alabama and destroyed several embryos held
in test tubes. The biological parents of those test tube babies sued for wrongful
death. Okay, kind of like how the family of Nicole Brown Simpson would
sue OJ for like a wrongful death or now obviously the kind of wrongful death
here it was murder in OJ's case, maybe well, maybe it was murder.
Because the question that was presented to the Alabama Supreme Court is are embryos
in an IVF clinic human beings? Are they human beings who therefore trigger the
state's wrongful death tort? Does can you sue with Alabama's law governing wrongful death
over the destruction of an embryo and an IVF clinic. That was the question
presented to the Alabama State Supreme Court. They said, yes, those embryos
are human beings by any stretch, by any stretch of the imagination, these
are human organisms. These are human organisms just as much as I am,
just as much as you are, dear listener. They're just at a very
early stage of human development. Now that can have some pretty broad implications for
the IVF industry. Republicans are so scared of the abortion issue right now that
every republic Publican has just committed well, I shouldn't say every Republican. A
ton of Republicans are rushing out to say, no, no, no,
we protect the right of IVF to be legal, absolutely, positively, one
hundred percent. We're absolutely going to do nothing. The Alabama State Supreme Court
got it wrong. We're gonna do absolutely everything possible to ensure the legality of
IVF. And Republicans that I used to respect just rushed to make these claims,
rush to make these statements. I think the most egregious of whom that
I used to respect, at least I thought was at least an intellectually coherent
person, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson. That
was the most disappointing. But Donald Trump has rushed to say, no,
no, no, we got to protect the right to IVF. Carrie Lake
has run percentate again in Arizona. No, no, we got to protect
the right to IVF. Nancy Mace, Oh, we gotta protect IVF IVF.
We gotta protect IVF. And I'm not heartless. I understand why people
turn to IVF. People turn to IVF because they have deep, difficult struggles
with infertility, and ivf's the only way, they think, the only way
that's presented to them, although frankly, I think there are other modes of
fertility treatment that have fallen by the wayside because fertility docs are so focused on
IVF and the fact that it's chan chi ching chichin, cash money, money,
money in their pockets. And I know some of this through our family
and personal experience of this. I understand the deep longing that people have to
have children, and that's why they turn to IVF. Nonetheless, I cannot
escape this reality. IVF results in the wastage of thousands and thousands and thousands
of human organisms. It just does. There are some people who estimate that
every year in America, two million IVF embryos are either destroyed or put in
a freezer indefinitely. There are only only ridiculous to call this only there are
only nine hundred thousand abortions per year in America. These are staggering figures we
are keeping. We are treating these human beings as human beings because that's what
they are, with a unique DNA never before seen in the history of the
world, never going to be seen again, unrepeatable human lives, as disposable
commodities that we can lose via wastage. I understand that probably some of you
listening have a kid via IVF. I'm not saying that your child is not
valuable. I'm not saying you're an irredeemable person. What I am saying is
that I believe that utilizing that process is wrong. I understand that not a
lot of people who think about it that did not even occur to them that
there was an ethical dimension to the IVF problem. And I'm not judging you
personally your subjective choices. We judge actions, not people. What I'm saying
is that from a policy perspective, I'm not sure how you can be pro
life and be unreservedly pro IVF. And it makes me kind of honestly suspicious.
When people are it makes me suspicious of at least their intellectual coherence.
That's what it makes me suspicious of when we return. Is it racist to
like Taylor Swift? Possibly next on The John Girardi Show. There's a story
in The New York Post being shared about some college professor who thinks that being
a Taylor Swift fan is slightly racist and that the Super Bowl win by the
Chiefs was a white supremacist conspiracy. A California professor is no stranger to controversial
opinions, speculated that it might be racist to be a Taylor Swift fan.
Why do I feel like it's slightly racist to be a Taylor Swift fan?
Molina Abdullah posted to Twitter X on Super Bowl Sunday. Abdullah, a professor
of Pan African Studies at cal State University Los Angeles, is a self described
black hashtag black Lives Matter organizer, Pan Africanist, hip hop scholar, daughter
of God, womanist, truth teller, and mama. According to her post
on x Twitter, she's also listed as a co founder of the Black Lives
Matter Los Angeles chapter and co director of the activist wing of the advocacy organization
Black Lives Matter grass Roots. When one user asked her to elaborate on her
opinion, she replied, I said feel not think kind of like that feeling
I get when there are too many American flags. In the same post,
someone commented that literally everything is racist, Abdullah replied, responded, indeed,
I knew this was coming, all right. There's this undercurrent of liberals have
kind of not liked Taylor Swift for a while because for a long while,
Taylor Swift said absolutely nothing about politics, and then after a while she got
so many liberals complaining that she eventually said a couple of liberal things, like,
you know, she's supported gay marriage, and then I think she supported
Biden, but she was not as full throated about it as basically liberals wanted
her to be. And then there got to be there's a little bit of
this whole Taylor Swift versus Beyonce thing where Beyonce, who is also an incredibly
popular, incredibly famous recording off artist, her moment that kind of like Taylor
Swift's happening having right now, Her moment was probably more like ten or twelve
years ago, and so people are mad. There's a certain undercurrent of liberals
mad that Taylor Swift is like more popular right now than Beyonce because Beyonce's black,
and so is it racist. There's liberals just have all this agita.
There's a great Italian word, ajita, all this ajita that like people like
a thing, and that it's not a black person, it's not someone in
their intersectionality rainbow spectrum. Anyway, that'll do it for John Girardi Show'll see
you guys next time on Power Talk.