You Can't Always Get What You Want

... but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you can't always get what you need, either.

Thinking more about the California budget agreement, whatever they agreed to in the details, they still haven't grasped the reality of the situation just as the Federal Government hasn't figured it out with the health care reform bill.

You can't have what you can't pay for. Right now, neither California nor the US Government can pay for what they have. California is solving its problems by blowing up city and county budgets.

It also calls for the state to siphon $2 billion of local property taxes meant for cities and cities, $1 billion of gasoline tax revenue meant for local governments and another $1 billion earmarked for redevelopment agencies. Some of that borrowed money would be repaid with interest. Local governments could sell bonds backed by the promise of repayments.

They don't like that.

“If, in fact, that is what’s adopted by the Legislature, depending on the actual language of the legislation, we would challenge both those of those premises in court,” said Paul McIntosh, executive director of the California State Association of Counties, in an interview today.

The California deal also assumes the good times are coming back and soon.

Schools will be repaid $11 billion once the state’s economy turns around ... Some of that borrowed money (borrowed from local governments, above) would be repaid with interest.

More fantasy economics are included.

The agreement also shifts $1.5 billion between accounts to save money and moves the last payday for state workers in the current fiscal year into the next.

This is an exact mirror of the health care debate. We want health care for all and so we will have it. Anyone who stands in the way of it is greedy or heartless or both. 47 million people are uninsured, according to the proponents.

Too bad. It happens sometimes that you can't afford what you want or need. This fiscal crisis, a balance-sheet problem (read: debt), comes from behaving like children and demanding that we get what we want when we want it. It won't be solved until we grow up and decide to pay for what we get.

It is entirely possible that there is no tax rate that will provide the funds necessary to solve both of these problems. As California has discovered, high taxes and onerous regulations are driving businesses (read: tax revenue sources) out of the state. More taxes will drive out more people and businesses.

You can't have something because you want it.