California Citizens For A Saner Budget

STATE OF EMERGENCY!
We are in the midst of learning what is in store for our state.  Recent news articles have indicated that there are proposals to make immediate draconian budget cuts at the state level in order to address a massive budget deficit.  
Some of these proposals include the potential for terrible things to happen, such as: 
* citizens possibly having to die due to not receiving the health care they need to survive
* abandonment of our disabled and our poor right in the middle of a terrible economic downturn when they need help the most
*for many of our youth to have to accept that they will not get the good education they need to provide our state with a pool of talent attractive to business in the 21st century economy
* for our state parks to close even though they generate more to our economy than they cost
* for we citizens to even lose simple services we depend upon such as absentee ballots.

Inhumane and, in some cases, penny-wise, pound-foolish cuts are beginning to cause some citizens to ask why they should pay any taxes to the state at all!

Our state governor has said that the recent rejection (by the small number of citizens who actually voted) of ballot propositions which addressed the state budget sent a "message" that the majority of voters want the state budget deficit addressed with spending cuts alone.
However, there are many voters, from all points of the political spectrum, who are open to seeing the budget emergency addressed with a BALANCE of spending cuts and increased revenues. The caveat is that many do not wish to see increased tax revenue without first being assured of budget cuts in administrative sectors which would show that our leaders in Sacramento are also willing to make sacrifices.
  
Some citizens are presently very concerned about money going to welfare recipients and illegal aliens. These would like our leaders to answer their questions about the ways in which able-bodied welfare recipients are actually required to work and about the reasons why illegal aliens receive state services at all. 
 
But many of us are open to a repeal of some recent tax cuts, and/or possibly a temporary tax increase of some kind, if accompanied by the kind of cuts which we have not yet seen discussed much yet in the media. 
 
Although the governor has said that there is no choice other than the cuts he is planning, people have actually been sharing their ideas about many other possible cuts to replace those being proposed to slash vital services, such as:

* reduction in high salaries of some state workers to a maximum of $70,000 annually
* reform of the current pension systems for state workers and for teachers which are actually projected to soon become unsustainable 
* confronting unions with the state emergency and asking for reasonable rollbacks in salaries and benefits in lieu of mass layoffs which would harm both their members and the state economy as a whole
* elimination of taxpayer-paid-for health care for politicians
* elimination of free use of cars and gasoline for politicians and for state workers whose work does not require a large percentage of time spent out of their offices
* elimination of duplicative or unnecessary positions, boards, and paperwork
* addressing the massive increase in the corrections budget in recent decades by implementing reforms in our criminal justice system which will save the taxpayer money without compromising public safety
* do the work necessary to find out if illegal immigrants actually harm or benefit the state economy overall, and give the people a truthful answer to this question, so that rational policy can be made concerning their presence instead of knee-jerk responses
* repeal the recent billions of dollars in tax breaks given to corporations
* revise Proposition 13 in order to phase out the tax cuts to commercial properties which many voters at that time did not even realize were included in this proposition
*reduce the 2/3 majority requirement our state legislature has to meet in order to pass a budget, since there are only two other states which have such a requirement and since budget delays have been very costly in recent years

* refrain from cutting social programs so deeply that our state loses federal funding for these programs, funding which in many cases would pay for most of the cost and for which California citizens have already paid in federal taxes
*reform our Worker's Comp. program which has so many problems that it has driven businesses from our state
* tell constituencies the truth: that the budget problem should not be fixed solely with spending cuts because the state economy is too fragile to handle much more contractionary action--and the more the economy contracts, the bigger the state budget deficit grows, creating a vicious circle.  A balance of cuts and tax revenue is the safer and saner alternative.

The above is just a short list of possible alternatives to the current cuts being proposed by the state governor.  In the comments, signers of this petition have a chance to tell the governor and their state representatives what they would like to stop from happening, and what they would prefer to see happen instead, in order to address the current state budget deficit.