Posted on 12/27/2009 8:57:57 AM PST by Starman417
It is becoming increasingly clear that the structural deficit in California cannot be solved by any means available to the legislature, by economic growth, or by just plain luck. It is time to think the unthinkable: that the only way for California to get its financial house in order is through bankruptcy.
A few decades ago, California was a Republican state. It was growing like crazy, had great roads, top public schools, top universities, and a vibrant growing economy. Drawn by the nice weather, a business friendly environment and all sorts of creative capital formation, entrepreneurs in technology, biology, engineering, health, and you name it flocked to the state. The universities turned out well educated graduates that stayed in the state and fed the almost insatiable hunger of the business community for intelligent, trainable employees. People young and old flocked to California which they rightfully perceived as a land of opportunity.
Things started to change in the seventies. Opposition to the Vietnam war had been strong in California and as the war wound down, that opposition, already organized around radical principles, began to assert itself as voters, electing ever more liberal local and statewide politicians. Gradually, the state became majority democratic and the legislature and many of the municipal entities became Democrat controlled. A left wing anti-business tax and spend regime gradually took hold and became firmly rooted.
The peculiar way in which the legislature organizes itself gave the Speaker of the Assembly almost dictatorial power and hidden away in Sacramento, there is essentially no fourth estate scrutiny over legislative activities. A succession of Speakers starting with Phillip Burton, then Willie Brown etc. came from San Francisco and the Bay Area, long a liberal bastion, and they were able to control the ebb and flow of legislation such that left wing constituencies were rewarded, municipal unions were strengthened and the teachers’ unions gained complete control over public education. Regulation after regulation was imposed on business and a vast array of social welfare and related programs were enacted. It is estimated that regulations in the state currently cost nearly $500 billion per year. As long as the revenue was there, the legislature could find ways to spend it. Gradually, funding was shifting away from infrastructure maintenance and away from education and toward a miasma of social programs. Deferred infrastructure maintenance grew and grew. State government insinuated itself into nearly all aspects of life. Businesses large and small began to move from the state to escape these burdens.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
Not one nickel for California
There isn’t a single compelling reason to provide the girly-man of American gubernatorial fiscal responsibility, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with a nickel from our federal coffers. His failing California remains the poster-child for liberal fiscal insanity and it’s time for the free-range chickens to come home to roost.
Investor’s Business Daily reports that:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/not_one_nickel_for_california.html
Arnie has more in common with Dennis Kucinich than I thought....
Then the smart people took over the government.
Balderdash.
Cut the salaries of all public employees by 25%, and eliminate their pensions.
Both of these things can be done by simple legislation, which is, by definition, "available to the legislature".
That’s what happens when Demoncrats take over the political system. They destroy everything. Poverty, immorality and chaos result. When will the sheeple get it?
And a few decades ago, the state built incredible large-scale public works to capture, store and deliver fresh water to the citizens as well as numerous power plants and transmission lines to assure a reliable supply of electricity. All that is gone now — just a malaise that we cannot get anything permitted or burned. Nobody proposes any new public works.
How was it that a state with low taxes was able to finance all these grand public works that led to a wonderful life? How is it now with sky-high taxes there is no money to be had anywhere to build anything?
There’s absolutely no way CA will be allowed to declare bankruptcy. If GM was too big to fail, anyone who thinks CA isn’t too big to fail is smoking something. If you were angry about paying Nebraska’s Medicaid bills, you’re going to be stark raving when CA is bailed out and mark by words, CA WILL BE bailed out.
One important goal of Obamacare is to allow states to dump all of their government employees into a public option whose cost will be shared by all of us, even if we live in states that have been fiscally irresponsible. Anything DC Democrats do in the near future is designed, either overtly or covertly, to siphon off taxpayer dollars from Red States to Democrat’s Blue State strongholds.
Illegal aliens have turned California blue. The state has 12 percent of America’s population and 32 percent of America’s welfare population. That, in a nutshell, is what is killing California.
What? I can’t be bankrupt ... I still have some checks left. < /sarcasm>
What else would you expect from a man who said that Obama deserves an ‘A’?
I know a number of people who were long time residents or natives of California.
They left—saw the writing on the wall—and will never return.
California has spent itself into this mess.
They have a great number of ‘entitlements’ which have absolutely no sunset clauses.
The Liberals of Hollywood, San Francisco and Box and Feinstein set this us and they deserve the results.
Use this mess to rid the Congress of Pelosi-Boxer-Feinstein once and for all.
Who says this is “unthinkable?” This is the state that was shipping IOU scrip in lieu of payment a few months ago.
“That’s what happens when Demoncrats take over the political system. They destroy everything.”
Exhibit A: The Carter Administration
We tried that here in Oregon. Voters passed an imitative to repeal the mandated 8% return that Oregon Public Employees retirement system guaranteeed. The Oregon Supreme Court found it illegal and over turned that reform. Of course the Justices were covered by the program in question.
The net is that pension obligations are binding contracts and can not be ended because the provider is unhappy with the terms. This includes public pensions.
Thus the authors suggestion that bankruptcy may be required is a good one. In the case of Oregon we took a different route. We ended the old system and created a new one moving forward. This is still expensive but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Absolutely. No help, just stand back and let it collapse.
We dig out from the ruins, start over...without the 60's freaks.
Only to be reversed by the courts.
" Ai gotda vunny veeling dah Reepublucan Potty tinks RINOS are
pure crapola. Chonny, undt Wooty undt ai ghonna ghet jops ass
Val-Mart greetahs, Home Depot paint mixahs, McD's ketchop pumpahs,
undt vaitahs at Ved Lopstah, ven ai loosses mai jop as govnah."
Your right, They are currently holding the nations purse, and are drunk with power.
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