Annoying Ads, Our Lying Legislators, and The Terminator

So two hours into the vast empire of Blogdom I've already decided to feed the corporate beast that is Google Inc., I've decided to see if I can generate some cash here with some Internet ads. Times are hard and I need to feed the corporate beast that is McDonald's (and many other fine fast food establishments), and the corpulent beast that is my stomach. And lets certainly not forget 4 teenage kids, three hungry dogs, and my lovely wife (gorgeous beast). Since I love living the "American Dream" lets add on: a mortgage, three cars and their associated expenses, cable, Internet (my yellow brick road to riches), the indispensable cell phones (all 5 of them), and ad nauseum.... So all of these fantastic services and objects have taxes attached to them: sales tax, gas tax, property tax, Internet surtax, federal surtaxes on phones and so on (now I'm nauseated). All of this so that we may collectively feed the unholiest of all beasts: Our duly elected government.

Our state government has a constitutional duty to have a balanced budget by June 30th of each year, and this year our budget for June 30th, 2008 was done by February, of 2009... Hooray for us we have a budget!!! Its a budget that's 111 billion dollars ($111,000,000,000.00), not to mention the additional billions of federal matching funds and directed funds. So why exactly are the state legislature and governor crying over money? Why is the richest state in the union, the sixth largest economy of the world on the verge of bankruptcy? So what took so long to get a budget together? At home we all have budgets, you pay the important bills, and if your lucky you have a little extra for the drugs and the midget porn at the end of the month.

California has a mini-congress set up, two houses of reps, and the make the budget and The Terminator signs it and everybody is happy. For the past five years though the state has been spending more than it collects in revenue (that's politico speak for the second highest tax rate in America). Every year the size of the state budget has increased ever since Arnold promised to stop wasteful spending from about 75 billion 5 years ago to our current bloated balance sheet.

The legislators here in the sunshine state come in two flavors, Democrat & Republican. The Democrats have been shameless in saying that its their job to "redistribute wealth" and maintain social programs, translation, if you make a decent income your going to be flipped over and done dry... The Republicans on the other hand are against taxation, to a degree, they want to lower taxes on business and wealthy people for a "trickle down effect", as the rich and businesses prosper they hire more and provide insurance and security to the working class, trickling down money to us common folk. You also get a trickle down effect when the upstairs neighbor overflows the toilet, in either case both are full of shit and you suffer for it.

You and me and the collective "we" all pay for welfare, food stamps, medi-cal etc. We also pay for public schools, fire and police departments, as well as the prison system. Unfortunately for us our social welfare programs have no over site and no time limits and nobody keeping an eye on where the money goes. What we do have is Democratically controlled state congress that thinks this is an excellent way to run things, and an impotent Republican minority that has just bent over and cried uncle under the pressure of the ruling party.

I'm slipping into an ugly rant here, and this is getting a little long.... I'll do the cliff-hanger and try and wrap it up in another part...