StupidiNews Focus

With states strapped for cash, more of them are turning to legalizing medical marijuana as a new revenue source.  New Jersey's legislature overwhelmingly approved the measure last night, and outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine is expected to sign the measure this week.

But west coast states are considering going significantly further along the legalization road in order to raise revenue, specifically California and Washington State.  The Golden State in particular needs cash flow with its wrecked budget.

The state assembly will make history on Tuesday, when it holds a committee hearing on whether to legalize marijuana and tax it.

It is the first time in U.S. history that any state legislative body has ever considered repealing marijuana prohibition.

California's laws have been in place since 1913.

The bill by Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco would tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol.

The fact that legalizing marijuana for recreational use is even being considered seriously shows you how dire the fiscal situation is right now, and the issue will also be on the state's initiative ballot in November.  This is a state facing a Governor doing the following:

(More after the jump...)

• Massive cuts to (and essentially, the elimination of): CalWORKS, IHSS, Healthy Families. The IHSS cuts were done last year and have been blocked by the courts; Arnold's contempt for the law continues to know no bounds

• However, if the feds come through with $7 billion, the above can be spared. The other cuts described below, however, would happen anyway

• Changing gas tax to an "excise tax" to enable state to make further cuts to public transportation, part of Arnold's war on public transportation and his desire to shackle Californians to their cars, to rising oil prices, and to his oil company buddies - and would force $2 billion in further cuts to schools under Prop 98

• Raiding Prop 10 and Prop 63 funds even though voters rejected this in May 2009
 
• Approving the Tranquillon Ridge offshore oil drilling project and giving the funds to state parks, partly to block the ballot initiative to raise the VLF to fund parks

• $1.2 billion cut to school administrators. Before you say "but admin is bloated" - most school administrators are making $50K-$60K if that, and are basically solidly middle-class folks looking to make ends meet

• 14% pay cut to 200,000 state workers, though their furloughs would end

• $1.2 billion cut to prison medical care, even though the federal courts have said this is not possible

• No Medi-Cal benefits to legal immigrants who have been in the US less than 5 years, Healthy Families eligibility slashed to 200% FPL, elimination of adult health daycare

• No new taxes, and preservation of the indefensible corporate tax cuts made in the 2008 and 2009 budget deals

California's basic duties of running a government are failing before our eyes.

Health care advocates estimate that California's budget cuts have forced more than 450,000 Californians, including severely disabled people, to either pay for or go without dental care since July.

Based on that calculation, the group estimated that since July more than 240,000 people who needed prescription coverage for eyeglasses no longer had it, and more than 100,000 didn't have coverage for exams.

The report estimated that more than 50,000 incontinent people lacked coverage for products to prevent sores and skin infections; 40,000 were not covered to go to a podiatrist and 14,000 lacked coverage to get a hearing aid. (SacBee)

It has gotten so bad that the political whirlwind of legalizing pot in a state is considerably less than the one from the state's budget woes, where hundreds of thousands if not millions of Californians are facing a rapidly deteriorating quality of life disaster.