Just a fun little fact to put the California situation in perspective. Californians are pretty mad about the budget deficit of 38 billion accrued on Davis' watch. Nevermind that at least 2/3 of that is related to Enron and energy market manipulation (thanks, Republicans, for the deregulation and privatization, along with stripping enforcement budgets). Anyway, that works out to about $1100 per person in California. I don't know if that deficit stretches out over a two-year period, though. If it does, the per-capita debt is half that.
The Federal budget deficit (keeping in mind Republicans control the legislative and executive branches along with the Supreme Court and most high-level judgeships at the federal level, by the way) is just a wee bit larger. Current estimates by White House number crunching outfits (which can be trusted to make things appear rosier than they are) are in the neighborhood of $450 billion, which works out to about $1600 per person in the United States (including the people in California, of course). And of course that leaves out the cost of the Iraq war, which is so far in the neighborhood of $300 to $700 per person for the first year alone.
Where is this kind of perspective in the liberal media's reporting on the recall election out there? Of course, I guess Gray Davis can't distract everyone by invading Oregon either.
Posted by Observer at August 14, 2003 07:17 AMComments on entries can only be made in pop-up windows while those entries are still on the main index page. Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but this blocks about 99.99% of the spam the blog receives.
I knew you'd get to this at some point. :-D
So why don't you email CNN with this little tidbit and see what happens?
Posted by: Perkusi on August 14, 2003 08:21 AMIt's very simple.
California is a liberal state.
The US is a conservative country.
Posted by: Humbaba on August 14, 2003 10:09 AMSo that's why the US deficit is about twice as much per-capita as California's? Ok, that makes sense.
Perkusi: I saw your blog comment, didn't want to disappoint. :)
Posted by: Observer on August 14, 2003 12:26 PMCouple more things: CNN would never report something like this in this context. It would constitute an editorial opinion at that point, and holy crap, they don't want to appear biased! Heaven forbid!
Also, I'm not convinced the US is conservative. Compared to other countries, sure, but Gore voters outnumbered Bush voters last time they counted (not that that meant anything).
Posted by: Observer on August 14, 2003 12:35 PM