There are trial balloons being sent out from the state capitol daily. And the news organizations take each and every one of these lead balloons as the next change in our horrible budget problem. The latest is the closing of our state parks, including our Central Coast treasures. Let me state one thing: The media is looking for news headlines, and the state capitol knows it.
These ideas are set in motion to get our anger up, get us to call our state representatives, and issue our sheer displeasure of them not doing their job. Well, everyone needs to wake up. This is only a step in the long process to increase the fees we pay for entrance to these treasures.
The governator will come out and say, due to overwhelming displeasure for the proposed budget cut of closing the state parks, we will leave them open, but will double (or increase even more) the fees as of the first of July to offset the costs related to the expensive state parks program. Wake up.
We are being played to increase fees (aka taxes) and not cut the real budget, like excessive administrative positions in Sacramento. How did the state government grow so much in the last five years? Remember, 2003 and 2004 was when the stock market shot up and when our incredibly smart bank and mortgage lenders figured out how to make billions off unsuspecting borrowers on the M-bomb that we are living today. Wake up.
Let’s combine the school districts to one per county and leave the teachers alone. Let’s make the fire and police departments more of a geographical region instead of the city/county/township/whatever. Let’s look at the amount of oil extraction that can be produced from existing leases on and offshore, including slant drilling for our existing facilities, like my next-door neighbor, ConocoPhillips on the Nipomo mesa. Imagine the royalties we would receive as a state without increasing our footprint in the environment.
Imagination. That is what we need—not scare tactics by our little children in the state capitol.
This article appears in Jun 11-18, 2009.