$3 Billion Examples of Why Jerry Brown Has Pegged You As a Sucker!

Our state capital of Sacramento and the actions of Governor Jerry Brown and the Democratic party miscreants who have controlled this cavern of corruption for years have made it increasingly clear that they view hard-working, non-public employee workers as suckers.  On what grounds, some of you skeptics may ask, am I making such an accusation, and what is my reasoning?  Well, I can provide well over $3 billion worth of details in support of my statement.  An itemized accounting is listed below:

1. Beginning in 2013, illegal immigrants accepted by state universities may receive assistance from Cal-Grants, a public program that last year provided aid to more than 370,000 low-income students. The new law also makes students who are not legally in the country eligible for institutional grants while attending the University of California and California State University systems. And it permits them to obtain fee waivers in the community college system. A report by California's Legislative Analyst Office states that the DREAM Act will cost $65 million annually, all for illegal immigrant students.
2.  California is the national leader in welfare recipients.  About 3.8 percent of state residents were on welfare in 2010, the highest percentage in the country. In fact, California houses about a third of the nation's welfare recipients, while only housing one-eighth of the national population.  CalWORKs gives cash grants to children even when their parents are ineligible for benefits for various reasons, such as being illegal immigrants, receiving disability, or failing to abide by the program's rules. Only three other states — Indiana, Oregon and Arizona — have such an expansive policy.  California also allows parents to receive job services and cash grants for up to four years. Before last year, the limit was 60 months.  The policies have made the program an expensive budget line — the state spends $2.9 billion on CalWORKs and related programs.
3. Governor Jerry Brown in March announced that NRG Energy will pay the state $120 million dollars in a settlement over the costs of long-term power contracts from 2001.  The Governor says the state plans to use most of the money to build a network of electric car charging stations. Some $100 million dollars will go to funding at least 200 public fast-charging stations and another 10,000 plug-in units at 1,000 locations across the state. The remaining $20 million dollars will go to rate-payer relief.   Thanks, Governor Moonbeam.  While residents and businesses paid those illegal rates and are due $100% of the settlement monies, you decide to take 87% instead and spend it on charging stations for cars that the public doesn’t want and are not buying!'
4. California state parks Director Ruth Coleman resigned and her second-in-command was fired this month after officials discovered the department has been sitting on "hidden assets" totaling nearly $54 million.  The money accumulated over 12 years in two special funds the department uses to collect revenue and pay for operations: $20.4 million in the Parks and Recreation Fund, and $33.5 million in the Off Highway Vehicle Trust Fund.  The money accumulated, state officials said, because the parks department had a pattern of under-reporting the actual size of the funds in its regular dealings with the state Department of Finance.
5. The sweeping audit triggered by the accounting scandal at the parks department might also result in more allegations of malfeasance, and the situation has already revealed bookkeeping irregularities throughout California's finances. A Los Angeles Times analysis showed hundreds of millions of dollars in gaps between accounting data kept by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration, which plans the budget, and the controller's office, which monitors cash flow.   The Brown administration is planning to release its own review of California's more than 500 "special" funds. These accounts are separate from the state's general fund and are often created to pay for specific programs. The money comes from user fees and from some taxes and is managed directly by state agencies.
6. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, lawmakers in California, where all four jetliners were bound when they were hijacked, established a special memorial plate emblazoned with the words, "We Will Never Forget."  The money raised through the sale of the plates was to provide scholarships to the children of California residents who perished in the attacks and to help fund anti-terrorism efforts.  The Associated Press reported in May of this year that only $20,000 of the $15 million collected since lawmakers approved the "California Memorial Scholarship Program" has been paid out in scholarships.  About three dozen California residents died in the attacks and the state identified 42 people who were eligible for the program.  Documents obtained from the State Treasurer's Office through a California Public Records Act request show that only 16 individuals from six families signed up by the 2005 deadline. Of these, four have used their scholarships.  In the years since the program closed to new applicants, Gov. Jerry Brown and his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, borrowed $3 million of memorial license plate money to help plug the state's budget deficit.  Neither loan has been re-paid
7. California lawmakers have handed out raises to more than 1,000 employees of the Legislature in the last year, even as they made deep budget cuts and trimmed pay for other state workers. Lawmakers gave raises worth $4.6 million annually to more than 1,000 of their aides before cutting the pay of most other state workers, newly released records show.  The lawmakers said they were trying to make up for several years without staff pay increases.  "Modest adjustments based on individual performance were appropriate," after pay and hiring freezes during the previous four years, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said in a statement.  Newly released documents show that officials in the state Assembly and Senate approved raises as high as 10 percent for some top-level staffers. More than 110 of the 1,090 raises given out in the last fiscal year went to legislative employees who were making salaries above $100,000, according to the Los Angeles Times, which first reported the raises.

There you have it, suckers!  And I haven’t even mentioned the multi-billion dollar “high speed” rail project that these dimwits still plan to proceed with, nor Assembly Bill 32,  the so-called “Greenhouse Gas” legislation which will promote additional business flight to other states.  I could go on with blogs all week and still not capture all of the malfeasance and palm-greasing deals!

Oh, and don’t forget to vote “yes” on Proposition 30, the Governor’s “temporary” tax hike, needed because of the budget crisis in Sacramento.