Posted on January 15, 2014 by Ellen Brown >> Governor
Jerry Brown and his staff are exchanging high-fives over balancing
California’s budget, but the people on whose backs it was balanced are
not rejoicing. The state’s high-wire act has been called “the ultimate in austerity budgets.”
Welfare payments, health care for the poor,
and benefits for the elderly and disabled have been slashed. State
workers have been downsized. School districts in need of cash have been
reduced to borrowing through “capital appreciation bonds” bearing 300% interest. In one notorious case, the Santa Ana school district actually borrowed at 1,000% interest. And the governor acknowledges that California still faces a “wall of debt” amounting to $28 billion. Some analysts put it much higher than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment