Off-Topic

Former mayor of San Diego spells out what happens when regulations and entitlements strangle the life out of a state (as a warning to the country as a whole).

Some highlights:

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California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democratic Left enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public employee unions. The unemployment rate is 12%.

... the governor proclaimed the rich must pay their fair share

Income of more than $1 million pays the "millionaires' and billionaires'" surcharge tax rate of 10.3%. Brown's proposal would add 2% for income over $250,000. A million-dollar income would then be taxed at 12.3%. ... Brown also proposed a one-half-cent sales tax increase, which would bring sales taxes (which vary by county) to 7.75% to 10%.

...

we don't want to turn down the Obama bullet-train bucks Florida and other states rejected because the operating costs would bankrupt them. Can't happen here - we're already insolvent.

Illegals get benefits from various generous welfare programs, free medical care, free schools for their kids, including meals, and of course, instate tuition rates and scholarships too. Governor Perry, California has a heart. Nothing's too good for our guests.

... more and more of California's public land is off-limits to recreation by the people who paid for that land. Unless you're illegal. Then you can clear the land, set up marijuana plantations at will, bring in fertilizers that legal farmers can no longer use, exploit illegal farm workers who live in hovels with no running water or sanitation, and protect your investment with armed illegals carrying guns no California citizen is allowed to own.

...After driving out the old industrial base (auto and airplane assembly, for example), air and water regulators and tax policies are now driving out the high-tech, biotech and even Internet-based companies that were supposed to be California's future.

No job is too small to escape the regulators. The state has even banned weekend amateur gold miners from the historic gold mining streams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

I agree. Clearly there is no evidence that California is completely dysfunctional, and run by leftist, environmental weirdos supported by out of control public sector unions.

I forgot when Obama ran California and then imitated how that state was run into how he was running the country.

Can someone do a rundown of all the things in California Obama has done?

Kthanx!

C'mon, I get the interest in finding renewable resources, but this is a ridiculous position for a POTUS to take:

"President Barack Obama on Wednesday dismissed oil as "the fuel of the past"

Really, the "fuel of the past?"

super long but great read on our president

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/march_april_2012/features/the_incomplete_greatness_of_ba035754.php?page=1#

The article conveniently ignores that the real problems with the budget were caused by policies enacted under Reagan. Much like the current budget problems were caused by Bush, but are being blamed on Obama. But hey, I get it, you need to blame the democrats, no one wants to look in the mirror

Why don't you guys just settle on Calvin Coolidge as "The Great Satan," and blame everything on him? He doesn't have that many defenders left, so you'll cause less laughter that way.

"What has brought California to such a perilous state? How did its government become so wildly dysfunctional? One obvious cause is the deep recession, which has caused tax revenues to plunge for all states. But California's woes have a set of deeper reasons: direct democracy run amok, timid governors, partisan gridlock and a flawed constitution have all contributed to budget chaos and people in pain. And at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era. In Washington, the Reagan-Bush era is over. But in California, the conservative legacy lives on."

It will be interesting if conservatives will ever get to the point where they can un-emotionally analyze the legacy of Reagan, but I fear theories of cognitive dissonance prevent that.

Prop 13 remains popular among lefties and righties alike, and overall California is aways in the top 10 of highest taxed states so it's hard to argue that it's starving the state of revenue. BUT, you can make an argument that Prop 13 has contributed to CA's main governing problem--too much power residing in Sacramento, which is in thrall to entrenched lobbyists. Sacramento raises and spends the money that the localities cannot because of their property tax limitations.

Sadly, regardless of whether state or federal, both the people and the politicians of all stripes and persuasions are proving themselves to be fiscal idiots. I doubt either party will solve CA's, 49 other states, and the fed's budget problems - at least until our faces are rubbed in the stinky poo poo of long term debt.

A referendum on tax increases (or cuts) or entitlement cuts will always succeed when you can convince the majority of voters that the other guy is going to take the hit. But that's not even the issue, both in CA and in the entire country. The reality is that the money that's already been spent far outpaces any tax increase you could possibly inflict on the wealthy. Also, in CA and the US, you could utterly destroy the middle class if you were to raise their taxes to the point necessary for lowering the debt to a manageable level. It's a shell game, plain and simple. We just move theoretical money around and make ourselves feel better by raising taxes on "the wealthy" every once in a while.

CA will learn harsh lessons when more and more of the wealthy folks pick up and move out of the state, and when the government has destroyed more of CA's incredible farmland out of concern for (irony alert) "the environment".

"The February 2012 US budget deficit was $237,000,000,000. The largest monthly deficit by any nation ever."

Don't know if this was already posted but it is Obama related....really just posting it to watch Soledad O'Brien get pawned and outed on her bias. She is the worst.