Budget Crisis: Gov. Schwarzenegger Declares Fiscal Emergency

Gov. Schwarzenegger took 2004’s Proposition 58 out for test drive by declaring a fiscal emergency and ordering the whole mess ‘o’ lawmakers into a session to figure out how to come up with $11.2 billion by February — because as of now, the state is gonna run out of cash in February.  Yes,we’ve heard this before.

Under Prop. 58, the legislature has 45 days to figure it out.  If they can’t figure it out in 45 days, the legislature is not allowed to act on any other bills.  But, as the SacBee notes, this 45 day thing isn’t that big of a deal because the legislative committees don’t start discussing new bills until mid-February at the earliest.  Of course if they don’t come up with the $11.2 billion there won’t be any money in February anyway — so it’s tough to imagine what sort of non-financial-crisis bills they would discuss.

Gov. Schwarzenegger issued a list of things that need to get done:

“Without immediate action our state is headed for a fiscal disaster and that is why with more than two dozen new legislators sworn in today – I am wasting no time in calling a fiscal emergency special session,” Governor Schwarzenegger. “We must act now to address the current year revenue shortfall of $11.2 billion and we must implement an economic stimulus package to help retain and create jobs, keep Californians in their homes and fix the state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund…”

Geez, that’s a lot to do, especially for the 26 new legislators who don’t even know where the bathroom is yet.  We want to know how they’re going to implement an economic stimulus package if there’s only enough cash to last until February.  Where is that money gonna come from?  It ain’t coming from the feds, we know that.

Didn’t we solve our “budget crisis” with all those safe and secure bonds we sold to ourselves back in October?   Weren’t those that supposed to do the trick?  Oh well.

Oh and there’s this — even if they come up with the $11.2 billion by February, in 18 months we’re on track to be $28 billion short, that means they’ll have to start figuring out how to come up with another $16.8 billion.

Good times.