Is California On The Verge Of A Financial Collapse?

California is America’s most populous state and it might be on the verge of a financial collapse.  If this is happening in California, how long will it be before this same type of financial monsoon slams into your state?

More than 200,000 state government employees are expected to stay home without pay today as California began it’s first-ever furlough (involuntary unpaid leave of absence), a move intended to save money during the ongoing fiscal crisis.

State agencies scrambled in the days before the furloughs took effect to avoid confusion for the public, such as people trying to register vehicles, getting drivers license or trying obtain professional licenses or city permits.

Among the offices to be closed Friday are those of the Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Consumer Affairs. The governor’s Office of Emergency Services also would be dark as part of a cash-saving move ordered by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Critical and revenue-generating agencies were scheduled to remain open, including police precincts, fire stations, parks and employment centers that process unemployment insurance claims. California’s unemployment rate is 9.3 percent — a 15-year high.

Schwarzenegger ordered the two-day-a-month furloughs, reducing the average state worker’s salary by 9.2 percent, as he and lawmakers try to solve the state’s $42 billion budget shortfall.

The governor had hoped his order would apply to some 238,000 state employees, but each of the seven other constitutional officers have said they will not comply. Employees of the Legislature are not under his authority.

Schwarzenegger’s legal affairs secretary, Andrea Hoch, said the administration was prepared to sue the state controller if he did not reduce paychecks for more than 15,000 workers in the other constitutional offices, which include the attorney general, secretary of state and insurance commissioner.

A judge who affirmed Schwarzenegger’s authority to order the furloughs said his ruling did not apply to statewide elected officials because they were not a party to the lawsuit. The administration has maintained that employees of constitutional offices are covered by the furlough order.

Doors to about 180 DMV offices were to be locked Friday. Some people said the state gave little notice to the public about the furloughs, which will continue on the first and third Fridays of each month through June 2010.

“They don’t have any signs telling us about Friday,” said Ingrid Dela Cruz of Sacramento, who was inside a Sacramento DMV office on Thursday.

In fact, there were plenty of signs, but they were posted in locations invisible to most customers because they were hidden behind sliding glass doors.

Schwarzenegger’s administration estimated that cutting worker hours would save the state $1.3 billion over the next year-and-a-half.

The state decided to keep some 250 career centers open after previously announcing they would be closed. The centers are where the unemployed get information about job training and benefits.

Dan Gurule, a police officer at the state mental hospital in Norwalk, said the state would have to pay overtime at 24-hour facilities to those workers who backfill the shifts of people on furlough. Five state mental hospitals and 33 adult prisons are required to provide constant care to patients and inmates.

“Somebody has to fill in my position,” Gurule said. “We still have to have a minimum staffing. That’s going to be someone on overtime, being paid time-and-a-half.”

California is not the only state on the brink of a financial disaster. The state of Florida still has a balanced budget — for the time being — but barely.  Governor Charlie Crist has acknowledged that “this economy is struggling greatly.”  He has co-signed a letter with Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, a Democrat, supporting Obama’s stimulus package and encouraging all governors to do the same. “If President Obama sees a need for Republican assistance with his stimulus plan, I’m happy to do that,” said Crist.

He sees in Obama and his recovery plan “lifelines of hope to persevere.”  “There is a level of optimism that is not detached from reality. … I see the glass as half-full —and not without reason. … My optimism does relate to the stimulus plan.”

Many Governors and Mayors support President Obama’s Stimulus Plan since they are on the front lines and see the crises up close and personal on a daily basis. 

Governors and Mayors do not want to see police precincts and fire stations closed.  Nor do they want to see thousands upon thousands of teachers losing their jobs which will cause classroom sizes to increase or schools to close. 

Governors and Mayors do not want to see the millions of unemployed Americans lose their unemployment insurance and lose the ability to pay for food, utilities, rent/mortgage, taxes, car loans and the necessities of life.

I urge you to contact your Senators and Congresspersons from both Houses and encourage them to get together, make the necessary revisions and get this stimulus plan passed for the greater good of all Americans!

Contact Congress:      

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Contact Senate:          

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Will President Obama Make His First Supreme Court Appointment Soon?

  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery today after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the court said.

Ginsburg, 75, had the surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. According to her surgeon Dr. Murray Brennan she will remain in the hospital for seven to 10 days.

The court announcement said the cancer is apparently in the early stages. In 1999, Ginsburg, had surgery for colon cancer and had chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The pancreatic cancer was discovered during a routine annual exam late last month at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. A CAT scan revealed a tumor measuring about 1 centimeter across the center of her pancreas.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers: Nearly 38,000 cases a year are diagnosed and overall, fewer than 5 percent survive five years.  Fewer than one in 10 cases are diagnosed at an early stage — like Ginsburg’s appears to be — before the cancer has begun spreading through the abdomen and beyond. That’s because early pancreatic cancer produces few symptoms other than vague indigestion.

Even when caught early, surgery for pancreatic cancer is laborious. Doctors typically remove parts of the pancreas, stomach and intestines. Radiation and chemotherapy are common after surgery.

Ginsburg has recently told her former law clerks and others that she had no plans to retire any time soon, although those comments were made before the latest diagnosis.  She has been a justice since 1993.

Ginsburg is one of the few liberal freethinking Justices of the Court – we wish her a speedy recovery.

Is Michael Steele The Republican Superman?

 The Republican Party’s selection of former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele as party chief is almost as historic as the Democrats’ nomination of Barack Obama as the party’s presidential candidate. President Obama attracted many independents and even a smidgen of Republicans into the Democratic Party and widened the Democrats’ membership and popularity – can Steele do the same for the GOP?

Can the man of steel pick up the demolished pieces of the Republican Party and put them together again like humpty dumpty to form a winning party?  

Steele is articulate – he’s a great orator, but can he pontificate the Republican doctrines in a populous way that will attract people other than white southern conservatives?  And being black, can he keep southern white conservatives in the party?

I have watched Steele on various television broadcasts over the years and he can be quite impressive.  He knows his facts, he is assertive and when attacked he counter-attacks with a punch.

And since he’s black, when he criticizes President Obama and his administration he can’t be called a racist.  He can be called other things but not a bigot.

There are a few ethereal similarities between Steele and Obama — they are attractive, charismatic, powerful, telegenic speakers. But unlike Mr. Obama, Steele is a divider and fighter; President Obama is a uniter and a peacemaker.

Since being elected party Chief Mr. Steele has reconfirmed his commitment to issues important to religious and social conservatives.  He has mentioned his support to make abortions illegal and has implied that he doesn’t believe in certain gay rights while declaring his support of guns and infusing our government with faith-based policies. But those are not new ideas; those are just the things that will continue to regionalize the Republican Party even further.

These are the concerns of the Bible belt, not the young, urbane professional or the multicultural blend that has become the new America. These ideas are like analog technology versus today’s digital.  These ideas are like using yesterday’s Betamax recorders versus today’s Blu-ray.

It seems to me that even though Steele ‘looks’ like a new fresh face that should have new ideas for the Republican Party he seems to be more of the same.  The same old Republican with the same old broken down outdated ideas that belong in yesteryear.

President Obama Plans Salary Limits For Bailout Recipients

  Most Divinity Schools/Seminaries do not accept Pell Grants (financial aid from the federal government available to students) because they do not want the government to tell them how to administrate their schools.  The thinking is, if you don’t want government interference in your business, then manage your business well so you don’t have to beg the government for money.

Like the rest of us, President Obama has been watching the way that  banks who received ‘exceptional assistance’ have been conducting business as usual — as if they they’re in the black with a trillion dollar profit.  There has been no apparent curbing of spending even though they borrowed billions from us the United States taxpayers.  Even while they lay off employees the executives of these banks are spending money flippantly and frivolously.

President Obama has decided that since the executives are not being responsible and seemingly cannot manage themselves he will intervene and implement a series of pay curbs including a strict new limit on executive salaries at these institutions.  Under the new rules, companies like Citigroup that received “exceptional assistance” from taxpayers may not pay any top executive more than $500,000 a year.  Any additional compensation would have to be in restricted stocks that cannot be sold until the companies pay back the money they borrowed from the government.

In addition all banks receiving help will face tougher restrictions, including requirements that shareholders have a say on compensation, and will face tougher disclosure rules on items such as aviation services, holiday parties and golden parachutes.

Institutions that are financially healthy — and receive more generally available government funds — can waive these requirements if their shareholders vote to do so, according to the plan.

“The American people understand we’ve got a big hole that we’ve got to dig ourselves out of, but they don’t like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole even as they’re being asked to fill it up,” Obama said.

Congress also was furious, with Senator Claire McCaskill, (D-Missouri) introduced legislation to cap compensation at bailed-out companies to no more than the salary of the U.S. president.

President Obama’s annual salary is $400,000.

“We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street that are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer,” an enraged McCaskill said on the floor of the Senate on Friday. “They don’t get it. These people are idiots. You can’t use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses.”

Yeah!  Our government is standing up for its citizens!

President Obama In His Own Words on His Appointments & Economic Stimulus Plan

We have an urgent economic situation right now and President Obama tells us that he is focused on getting the job done and putting Americans back to work. 

Economic Stimulus Plan – President Obama Needs ‘YOUR’ Help Today

Later this week, the Senate will vote on President Obama’s economic stimulus plan which includes historic investments in green jobs, health care, and education to get our economy back on track.

But right now, the stimulus doesn’t have the votes to pass. Republicans and conservative Democrats are teaming up to strip out items that will help the average American — college loan assistance, health research, tax cuts for poor folks — in favor of more tax cuts for corporations. These republicans and conservative democrats promise to block the plan if they don’t get their way.  

President Obama’s plan isn’t perfect but it will:

• Create millions of green jobs to double our clean energy production in three years which will in turn create more jobs
• Create affordable health care for the unemployed which will take make you and I stop paying for very, very expensive emergency  room visits
• Creates the biggest investment in education since World War II.  This will help prevent hundreds of thousands of teachers from being laid off and stop thousands of schools from closing.  If teachers are laid off and schools close where will your children go to get an education?  What will you do with them during the day?

“But what we can’t do is let very modest differences get in the way of the overall package moving forward swiftly,” he said, adding that he hopes a bill can be passed “in the next couple of weeks so we can put America back to work and start digging ourselves out of this deep hole that we’re in.” President Obama 2/2/ 09

This is OUR government and President Obama needs our help today or tomorrow at the latest. 

We need to make sure our Senators and Congresspersons know that we want this plan passed sooner not later.  We have to make them know that they are standing in the way of America becoming economically healthy and we need to let them know that we not going to take their foolishness – we will vote them out in 2010!!!

Please call your senators and ask them to support President Obama’s economic stimulus plan because it will save or create 3 million jobs. Make sure you know the name of your two Senators then call the Capitol Operator at (202) 224-3121and ask to be transferred to your Senators.

You can also select your state and both your Senators office number will pop up and you can call you Senator directly in his/her office by going to:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Desperate times call for desperate solutions.  Please call your Senator today. 

Please pass this on and thanks for all you do for our country!

Pittsburgh Steelers Win Superbowl 43 – Holmes named MVP!

What a game, what a game, what a game!!! The Pittsburgh Steelers are the 2009 Super Bowl Champions after defeating the Arizona Cardinals 27-24 making it the first franchise in NFL history to win six titles.  Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin is the youngest head coach to ever win a Super Bowl.  Undercover ballerina Santonio Holmes was named the 2009 Super Bowl MVP.

The Pittsburgh Steelers came out strong scoring a field goal and two touchdowns while the Cardinals struggled in the first quarter but managed to put up 7 points and almost a second touchdown in the last 30 seconds of the game.Fitzgerald went up in the end zone to bring in the Warner lob for a touchdown! It was an 87 yard drive in less than 3 minutes! Steelers were still winning 20-14.The Cardinals defense held the Steelers to a safety after a foul accord in the end zone. It was the first safety in a Super Bowl since Super Bowl 25.   On the next Arizona drive, Larry Fitzgerald caught a slant pass in the middle and ran it into the end zone to give the Cardinals a 23-20 lead, their first lead in the game – what a run!!!

With less than 3 minutes, the pressure was now on Big Ben. He stepped in and started driving. With less than a minute, Holmes completed a huge 2nd down play to take the ball to the 7 yard line. Now it was up to the stellar Cardinals defense to hold them to a field goal but it was Holmes again who made an incredible catch, keeping both feet inbounds and to return the lead to the Steelers 27-23.

Damn – that was a sweet game!!! 

That was one of the most exciting Super Bowls I have ever seen!

Watch Jennifer Hudson’s spectacular performance of the National Anthem: