Plus d'1,5 millions de vaches laitières menacées de mort aux Etat-Unis
 
Il y a 16 heures
 
TURLOCK, Californie — Des centaines de milliers de vaches laitières américaines ont déjà été emmenées à l'abattoir, le cours du lait ayant tellement chuté que leurs éleveurs n'ont plus les ressources suffisantes pour financer leur alimentation.
 
Prix dans la tourmente de la crise, nombre d'entre eux n'ont plus d'autre choix que de vendre une partie de leur cheptel pour le transformer en viande.
 
Le prix des aliments pour bétail augmente aux Etats-Unis, et les prix à la consommation baissent. Et la récession mondiale fait également baisser la demande à l'exportation en beurre ou en fromage américain.
 
Début février, les producteurs laitiers étaient payés 21 cents le litre (soit moins de 17 centimes d'euro) alors que la production de ce même litre leur coûte 44 cents (34 centimes d'euro), selon les estimations du département californien de l'Agriculture.
 
Les éleveurs de vaches à lait produisent donc désormais à perte, et les responsables du secteurs estiment que plus d'1,5 millions des 9,3 millions de vaches laitères américaines pourraient être abattues en 2009.
 
"Notre infrastructure laitière pourrait bien être détruite", juge Mike Marsh, qui dirige l'association commerciale des laitiers pour l'ouest du pays.
 
Il y a trois mois, un vache laitière adulte se vendait encore 2.500 dollars (1.958 euros). Aujourd'hui, les propriétaires les vendent sur le marché de la viande pour 1.100 dollars (861,80 euros).
 
En janvier 2009, quelque 262.500 vaches ont été tuées dans les abattoirs du pays, soit 43.500 de plus qu'en janvier 2009. Depuis septembre, les chiffres fédéraux font état d'une augmentation de 30% du trafic dans les abattoirs, alors qu'en parallèle l'abattage des vaches à viande a baissé de 14%.
 
"Si le lait rapportait quoi que ce soit, ils les garderaient", estime Jon Dolieslager, propriétaire d'un abattoir dans le comté très laitier de Tulare, en Californie.

La Californie doit libérer des prisonniers
AFP
10/02/2009 | Mise à jour : 07:19 | Ajouter à ma sélection
La Californie (ouest) devra libérer plusieurs dizaines de milliers de prisonniers afin de réduire la surpopulation carcérale qui viole les droits constitutionnels des détenus, ont estimé lundi des juges dans une décision d'étape mal accueillie par l'Etat.
 
Appelés à se prononcer dans une plainte en nom collectif lancée par des détenus, trois magistrats ont donné raison aux plaignants.
 
"Il y a simplement trop de prisonniers pour la capacité existante", notent les magistrats.
 
L'arrêt n'est que provisoire mais a été publié, ont expliqué les juges, pour permettre à l'Etat de se préparer à la seule issue envisageable, la libération de dizaines de milliers de prisonniers.
 
Les prisons californiennes sont parmi les plus surpeuplées des Etats-Unis, abritant environ 170.000 détenus pour 100.000 places théoriques.
Les juges ont estimé que le but était de revenir à un taux d'occupation situé "entre 125 et 140%".

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/us/17cali.html?hp
California, Nearly Broke, Edges Nearer Brink
 
o
 
Article Tools Sponsored By
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: February 16, 2009
 
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.
 
Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. “In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months,” Mr. David said.
 
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 Capitol on Monday morning but almost immediately adjourned until the evening, though it was far from clear when they reconvened whether they would be able to reach a deal.
 
California has also lost access to much of the credit markets, nearly unheard of among state municipal bond issuers. Recently, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the state’s bond rating to the lowest in the nation.
 
California’s woes will almost certainly leave a jagged fiscal scar on the nation’s most populous state, an outgrowth of the financial triptych of above-average unemployment, high foreclosure rates and plummeting tax revenues, and the state’s unusual budgeting practices.
 
“No other state is in the kind of crisis that California is in,” said Iris J. Lav, the deputy director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group in Washington.
 
The roots of California’s inability to address its budget woes are statutory and political. The state, unlike most others, requires a two-thirds majority vote in the Legislature to pass budgets and tax increases. And its process for creating voter initiatives hamstrings the budget process by directing money for some programs while depriving others of cash.
 
In a Legislature dominated by Democrats, some of whom lean far to the left, leaders have been unable to gather enough support from Republican lawmakers, who tend on average to be more conservative than the majority of California’s Republican voters and have unequivocally opposed all tax increases.
 
And then there is Governor Schwarzenegger, whose budget woes far outweigh those of his predecessor, Gray Davis, whom he drummed from office in a 2003 recall that stemmed from the state’s fiscal problems at the time. The governor has failed to muster votes among lawmakers in his own party, whom he often opposes on ideological grounds, resulting in more scorn from Democrats.
 
Furthermore, Republican leaders in the Senate and the Assembly who have agreed to get on board with a plan have been unable to persuade a few key lawmakers to join them. The package needs at least three Republican votes in each house, to join with the 51 Democrats in the Assembly and the 24 Democrats in the Senate.
 
For months Republicans have vowed not to raise taxes, which in California means no increase in either the sales, gas or personal income tax.
 
“It is a dramatic time,” said Darrell Steinberg, the State Senate’s president pro tempore. “The solvency of the state is on the line. It is really quite a system where the fate of the state rests upon the shoulders of a couple of members of a minority party. The system frankly needs to be changed.”
 
In the meantime, drivers are met with “closed” signs at Department of Motor Vehicles offices two days a month, environmental programs are left unattended, piles of dirt mark where highway lanes are to be built to ease the state’s infamous traffic congestion, school systems mull layoffs and counties prepare to sue the state for nonpayment of bills.
 
Last week, Mr. Schwarzenegger and the four legislative leaders concurred on a series of bills that included $15.1 billion in budget cuts, $14.4 billion in tax increases and $11.4 billion in borrowing, much of it subject to voter approval.  
 
The Senate Republican leader, Dave Cogdill, said he thought he had all the votes needed to get the deal done in each house. But on Sunday, two Republican senators — Dave Cox, who was originally thought to be the last vote needed, and Abel Maldonado, whom Mr. Schwarzenegger had been able to woo into voting against his party in the past — said they would reject the plan.
 
Democrats, who had already given into Republicans’ long-held dreams of large tax cuts for small businesses and for some of the entertainment industry and a proposed $10,000 tax break for first-time home buyers, balked at Mr. Maldonado’s request that the Legislature tuck a bill into the package that would allow voters to cross party lines in primaries.
 
“I think with an open primary, we would have good government that would do the people’s work,” Mr. Maldonado said.
 
Sunday evening ended in frustration and exhaustion for lawmakers, who returned to work on Monday facing the state’s uncertain future.
 
“My boss will continue to work toward a responsible budget solution,” said Mr. Cogdill’s spokeswoman, Sabrina Lockhart. “There are real risks and real consequences for not passing a budget.”
 
Kansas in Budget Deadlock
 
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has suspended income tax refunds and may not be able to pay employees on time, the state budget director said Monday.
 
The state does not have enough money in its main bank account to pay its bills, prompting Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, to suggest transferring $225 million from other accounts throughout state government. But the move required approval from legislative leaders, and Republican leaders refused to consent on Monday.
 
Duane A. Goossen, the budget director, said without the money he was not sure the state could meet its payroll. About 42,000 state employees are scheduled to be paid again on Friday. He said the state stopped processing income tax refunds last week.
 
Republican leaders are hoping to pressure Ms. Sebelius into signing a bill making $326 million in adjustments to the budget for the fiscal year that ends June 30.