Victorville lays off 20 workers – a story that is being repeated across California
Photo from http://ci.victorville.ca.us
Victorville’s Concrete Repair Team. (No one knows who’s being laid off, I just found this photo on Google)
Victorville lays off 20 workers, a story that is being repeated across California- As the new fiscal year 2010-2011 approaches in July, many cities are facing massive budget cuts and layoffs in order to be fiscally responsible in the face of the bad economy and the State’s own raids on city governments.
According to the Victor Valley Daily Press, 12 of the positions are going to be full-timers, and the rest part-timers. There is currently no information available on what positions are being laid off, so please don’t take the photo I chose as meaning anything. Last year, 50 employees were laid off because of the budget crisis.
A fiscal crisis is a problem being faced in just about every city in California. On the one hand, economic problems mean sales tax isn’t being generated to help cities conduct business, and on the other hand the State of California is raping the cities for their funds – often Redevelopment, with no regard for how large the city is or their financial situation. And so, California cities are often found in a precarious situation.
Of all the levels of government – city, county, state, federal – cities are the ones that are the most fiscally responsible and able to balance budgets. This is especially the case for smaller cities. Of course, there’s exceptions but as general rule, this is true. Think about how large the deficit is for the United States as a whole, then think about the deficit of California, and on down to the county and city levels.
Too bad that the higher levels of government don’t operate with the same level of fiscal responsibility as local governments. Sometimes, when I’m wandering the desert and I’m not dodging rattlesnake strikes or being skewered by a Joshua tree, I wonder what would happen in a world where the local government had more power than the feds? What if people paid more taxes to their local government, and created their own little regional socialist/libertarian utopias with their own municipalities? What if the federal government was responsible, as it was originally intended, for the nation’s defense and keeping a national currency, etc.?
I know. It sounds a little too Thomas Jeffersonish, doesn’t it? I admit that I am an admirer of Jefferson’s agrarian philosophy.
