California headed “off the fiscal rails”

LOS ANGELES — The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently free of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails.

Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.

After negotiating nonstop from Saturday afternoon until late Sunday night on a series of budget bills that would have closed a projected $41 billion deficit, state lawmakers failed to get enough votes to close the deal and adjourned. They returned to the capital late Monday morning only to adjourn until the afternoon, though it was far from clear whether they would be able to reach a deal.

via California Lawmakers Struggle to Strike Budget Deal – NYTimes.com.

$41 billion, why, that’s a lot of money!  Can California afford to keep busting people for pot and flying helicopters over the Emerald Triangle to rip up marjuana grows?  According to analysis by California NORML, the state could reap $8-$13 billion from legalized marijuana and hemp:

• An excise tax of $50 per ounce of marijuana would raise about $770 – 900 million per year.
• Retail sales on the legal market would range from $3 – $4.5 billion, generating another $240 – 360 million in sales taxes.
• Legalization would save over $170 million in law enforcement costs for arrest, prosecution, trial and imprisonment of marijuana offenders. Need for CAMP helicopter surveillance would also be eliminated.
• Based on experience with the cigarette tax, total revenues of $1.5 – $2.5 billion might ultiimately be realized.
• Based on experience with the wine industry, the total economic activity generated by legal marijuana could be nearly three times as great as retail sales, around $8 – $13 billion. Amsterdam-style coffeehouses would generate jobs and tourism. 
• If the marijuana industry were just one-third the size of the wine industry, it would generate 50,000 jobs and $1.4 billion in wages, along with additional income and business tax revenues for the state.
• Industrial hemp could also become a major business, comparable to the $3.4 billion cotton industry in California.

That doesn’t completely solve the state’s budget woes, but it’s a beginning.  You’d think it would be something the former pot-smoking governor might contemplate.