A Balanced Budget

With the imminent collapse of the Euro, because a number of the member states such as Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland had not been running a balanced *budget, then the news that California has finally found the way in which to force the politicians, with their noses in the trough, to behave, might be good news.

They brought in a law (Proposition 25), last year, to stop the California legislature from constantly missing its annual budget deadline, and to concentrate the minds of their greedy masters, they added a provision that the politicians will not be paid until the state budget balances ....

Of course politicians being politicians, they still squabbled about the budget, and were happily trying to overspend with a dodgy budget agreed, when the law suddenly came into effect ..... they are now no longer being paid, after the state State Controller John Chiang, agreed with Governor Gerry Browns determination that the budget they had approved was not in fact 'balanced' as the law required, and was in fact $1.8bn overspent.

Budget Hero or Villain?

This decision means all 120 elected members of the State Assembly and Senate will not be paid their wages, or their living allowances, until they pass a balanced budget. At the moment there is stalemate, but its believed by observers, that when they see their first empty pay cheques arrived (or rather fail to arrive), then the politicos will suddenly make the necessary compromises and balance the books

This seems a likely way forward for all those bent politicos in Europe as well .... budgets must be balanced from now on.

*It should be noted that Britain under the Gordon Brown economic stewardship also racked up a massive budget deficit