Poll: Californians financially better off
By Josh Richman, San Jose Mercury News
For the first time in seven years, more California voters say they’re financially better off compared to the previous year than not, a Field Poll finds.
Forty-four percent of the state’s registered voters are feeling they’re doing better now than a year ago, while 28 percent say they’re worse off and 28 percent say there’s no change, the poll found. But the level of optimism on this and other questions differ dramatically, depending on where the voters live and how much money they make.
Nowhere is the outlook sunnier than in the Bay Area, where those who say California is having good economic times are tied with those who say we’re in bad times, at 35 percent each. This probably is the result of who lives and works in the Bay Area: Democrats and more affluent people are far likelier to say we’re having good times, according to the poll.
But the rest of the state is also feeling somewhat better.
We survived ENRON and Arnold! California is back!
Gray Davis (D) was governor during the Enron fiasco.
How much of a role did Davis play in the Enron thing?
Dog. Everyone, except you, knows Pete Wilson pushed for Deregulation of Energy in California, signed the Deregulation Bill in 1996 and Deregulation started in 1998. San Diego, where Wilson was Mayor, was the first to lift the consumer price caps on energy. In 2002 all energy companies had lifted caps on energy and the theft of $28 Billion via ENRON began. But, according to Libertarians, Deregulation is part Nirvanaland. I dare any Libertarian to try to Deregulate Energy in California again.
Greys biggest issue, and one of the major reasons he was recalled was because just before the election he was acting like the state budget was fine and shortly after(extremely shortly) there was billions of dollars in the red. He should have addressed the issue when he first knew about it. Another issue that caused this problem was that he put new items in the budget that were going to be there forever but funded it based upon funding that is known to change, ie capitol gains on stocks. Brown however knows that these income streams will change and refuses to increase budgets to items that are not temporary.
Rock,
Democrats controlled the Legislature when all that happened! So if they didn’t stop it, they didn’t have a problem with it. And bottom line, Davis was Gov. when the blackouts happened. Had been Governor for awhile when they happened, and he never tried change what had been done.
But I guess there was never a budget shortfall under Davis, huh?
Relo. The State Budget WAS FINE before 2003. IN 2003 ENRON STOLE $20 – $35 BILLION IN OVER PRICED ENERGY FROM CALIFORNIA!
Parker. Re-write history someplace else. Once a bill is law, it is hard to reverse; you know that. Davis did not push through or sign the bill; it was Wilson; look it up. California had a surplus and rainy day fund of about $7 billion before ENRON scammed us. Arnold met with ENRON/Ken Lay in May of 2001 and the fix was in.
Here. Read some of what ENRON thieves were saying from transcripts…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/06/02/31820/-Enron-manufactured-California-power-crisis
I really like the one about “Grandma Millie.”
Boy, you people have very short memories.
So Davis did not try to change the law and the Democratic Legislature went along with the original proposal! Exactly!
We can have some long, long, long discussions about liberal v. conservative, Democrat v. Republican. But if anyone proclaims their views, or their party only and always does what’s correct, and the other side is responsible for all that goes wrong, they are in their own little fairy tale land!
Rock you also cant re write history, yes there was a surplus but as i said, this surplus was from capitol gains from the dot com bubble. it was unwise to increase spending by over 5 billion based upon something that was sure not to continue(short term capitol bains) most of the Enron scam was paid for by the consumers and electric companies. Your memory is not that good on the gray budget. I remember days after the election that the budget crisis was worst than we thought, then 30 days later even worst. I thought at the time “there is no way he didnt know about that before the election”
Parker. So, when crooks (ENRON) rob a bank (California Energy Grid) you are going to blame the Cops and Judges for not stopping the robbery to begin and making it illegal to jack the Energy Grid? Now that is fairy tale land. Davis declared a power emergency, tried to buy back the overpriced power from ENRON, asked FERC to investigate (they refused) and got Californians to lower electricity used by 15%. Meanwhile, Ken Lay and Dick Cheney were using the ENRON “Model” for the draft National Energy Strategy!
Relo. A surplus is a surplus. We had one before ENRON and it was gone after ENRON. Arnold settled with Texas for 2 cents on the dollar then floated a $15 billion dollar bond to cover-up the ENRON heist.
AGAIN, please knock yourselves out and try to get California to Deregulate Energy again. You could try a Ballot Initiative…