A lot of its revenue has been earmarked for particular purposes (as a sweetener to get taxes approved by a referendum) so that the general fund available for discretionary expenditures is very small. There is hardly any leeway to shuffle money among budget categories. The peak-to-trough part of the business cycle is an outlier. Carnot would have died laughing.
There are very way too many very way too rich people in the state to allow that to happen. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
Anything essential is earmarked to prevent the insane political ideologues in Southern California from using the state budget as a social experiment any more than they already have.
This is why it is typically best to ignore the state when they whine yearly about "going broke" and "catastrophic cuts" because they're really only talking about a very small $% of the budget.
The real issue that is coming to head this year is of course the lack of revenue due to not collecting nearly enough taxes on property. This is just the kind of catastrophe necessary to bring "prop 13" back into the discussion.
