Tim Cavanaugh Talks Fake Budget and Fake Trains with KGO's Chris Reed, 6:04pm Pacific

Reason Senior Editor will talk about the pending California budget deal and the with the San Diego Union Tribune's Chris Reed tonight on San Diego's KOGO 600 AM.

Topics: Golden State Democrats say they have a budget plan that doesn't rely on the "smoke and mirrors" Gov. Jerry Brown denounced last week. A closer look at the plan's details doesn't exactly support that claim. Will this one sink too? Will legislators ever get paid again? Will anything good come of the deal? if Brown signs another unbalanced budget, will Controller John Chiang stick to his promise to judge the numbers accurately?

Also, the state's high-speed rail dream is breaking down even faster than the Acela. Will Iraq end up being the only country with HSR? Haven't the Iraqis suffered enough? 

Time: Tonight, 6:04pm Pacific, 9:04pm Eastern

Place: San Diegans (Dieglettes?) can tune their sets to 600 on the AM dial.

Others can listen live on the international computerwebs.

Comments

[sevo]

"will Controller John Chiang stick to his promise to judge the numbers accurately?"

It'd be nice to rely on some, well, law, rather than some 'official' to make this sort of choice.
About now, Chiang is all we got, and we can only hope there's something between his thighs other than pubic hair.
Brown's budget is based on finding a Jackson in the gutter last night and planning your finances around the hopes of finding one every night; bullshit.

[Tman]

And our latest nominee for understatement of the year award goes to California state Treasurer Bill Lockyer-

California's vision for an 800-mile bullet train system is bold and appealing, but the project's finances aren't penciling out, the state's top financial official warns.

"I think the federal funding is too speculative," Lockyer said of the project's financial plan. "I think the likelihood of significant private capital is questionable."

At another point, he said, "I've been disappointed by the lack of a disciplined business plan that makes any sense, and I'm not sure the economics work out."

Bill, you are plenty sure. Just admit it.

[WarrenT]

Will driverless cars finally drive a stake through high-speed rail?

This guy thinks so, and I hope he's right.

http://ideasmatter.typepad.com......html#more

It would be so nice to just be able to not drive yet have the car when I got to my destination.

[GSL]

Shorter version of California's position on its high speed rail project: we know we can't pay for it, and we concede that it makes no sense to build a super-train in the middle of nowhere, but . . . must have trains!

Also, our take on the budget.

[John]

I wonder of the UN would take California off our hands. It really would make for a good nation building project; failed government, corrupt, dogmatic backward looking elites, and a population that doesn't have the first understanding of what a proper civil society should look like.

[-]

That's why we still have states. 50 semi-sovereign mini-nations, 50 interpretations of representative government, 49 other places to go if you don't like it.

[John]

The problem is that California is a really important and valuable state. I am all for federalism. But what happens when all of the really stupid and corrupt people congregate in what should be the most valuable state in the union? It was one thing when places like Mississippi were corrupt and backward. They were never going to be that great anyway. But when paradise on earth is turned into Guatemala with a film industry that is a problem. California should be an engine driving US growth and economic dynamism. Instead, it is just the opposite. There is some value to keeping those people confined in one place so they won't mess up the rest of the country. But I think that is outweighed by the disadvantages of the place being our most valuable state.

[-]

All your "really stupid and corrupt people" are not "confined" anywhere. That many of them choose to live in California is no skin off my ass. They're free to come and go, and I'm free to ignore them. And before you repeat the old saw that "what goes in California goes for the nation," take a look around and see how many stupid California experiments are actually being employed in the other 49 states. And then consider that nothing is permanent, that mistakes are reversible, that unjust laws may be overturned, that citizens vote in many ways, increasingly with their feet and dollars, and that, regardless of the size of California's economy, the other states have little say in how they run things there. I would add that California has no monopoly on diseased government. It's just a matter of scale and degree.

[John]

No it doesn't. New York and Mass and Maryland and a few other places are almost as bad. But I think California may have hit a tipping point where the government is so bad that nothing will change it.

[-]

If it's that bad, it will have to change, because it will have become unsustainable. There's no getting around a bankrupt philosophy. Reality demands a judgement day.

[John]

I hope you are right. But there are plenty of places in the world where judgement day never comes. They just remain awful for decades or centuries.

[-]

They don't have our constitution. But even kings and dictators die. Reality spares no one. That's why California and the other states are finally beginning to respond to the impending cataclysm. Is it too late? Maybe. Happily, we have only ourselves to blame.

[johnl]

Does anyone know if Chaing's name means River? If so, then John Chiang is a pretty funny name.