Posted on 08/17/2012 2:52:24 PM PDT by Marie
*CALIFORNIA IS OBAMA’S DREAM*
Written by Roger Hedgecock, former Mayor of San Diego****
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
I live in California. If you were wondering what living in Obama's second term would be like, wonder no longer. We in California are living there now.
California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democrat 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%.
California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, has added so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call it "Medi-Cal."
Our K-12 schools have more administrators than teachers, with smaller classes but lower test scores and higher dropout rates with twice the per-student budget of 15 years ago. Good job, Brownie.
This week, the once and current Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown had to confess that the "balanced" state budget adopted five months ago was billions in the red because actual tax revenues were billions lower than the airy-fairy revenue estimates on which the balance was predicated.
After trimming legislators' perks and reducing the number of cell phones provided to state civil servants, the governor intoned that drastic budget reductions had already hollowed out state programs for the needy, law enforcement and our schoolchildren. California government needed more money.
Echoing the Occupy movement, the governor proclaimed the rich must pay their fair share. Fair share? The top 1% of California income earners currently pay 50% of the state's income tax.
California has seven income tax brackets. The top income tax rate is 9.3%, which is slapped on the greedy rich earning at least $47,056 a year. Income of more than $1 million pays the "millionaires' and millionaires'" 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%. And that's just for the state.
Brown also proposed a one-half-cent sales tax increase, which would bring sales taxes (which vary by county) up to 7.75% to as much as 10%. Both tax increases would be on the ballot in 2012.
The sales tax increase proposal immediately brought howls of protest from the Left (of Brown!). Charlie Eaton, a sociology grad student at UC Berkeley and leader of the UC Student-Workers Union, said, "We've paid enough. It's time for millionaires to pay."
At least five other ballot measures to raise taxes are circulating for signatures to get on the 2012 ballot in California. The governor's proposals are the most conservative.
The Obama way doesn't end with taxes.
The governor and the state legislature continue to applaud the efforts of the California High Speed Rail Authority to build a train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco. Even though the budget is three times the voter-approved amount, and the first segment will only connect two small towns in the agricultural Central Valley. But hey, if we build it, they will ride.
And 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 because we're already insolvent.
If we get into real trouble with the train, we'll just bring in the Chinese. It worked with the Bay Bridge reconstruction. After the 1989 earthquake, the bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco was rebuilt with steel made in China. Workers from China too. Paid for with money borrowed from China. Makes perfect sense.
In California, we hate the evil, greedy rich (except the rich in Hollywood, in sports, and in drug dealing). But we love people who have broken into California to eat the bounty created by the productive rich.
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. Nothing's too good for our guests.
To erase even a hint of criticism of illegal immigration, the California Legislature is considering a unilateral state amnesty. Democrat State Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes has proposed an initiative that would bar deportation of illegals from California.
Interesting dilemma for Obama there. If immigration is exclusively a federal matter, and Obama has sued four states for trying to enforce federal immigration laws he won't enforce, what will the President do to a California law that exempts California from federal immigration law?
California is also near fulfilling the environmentalist dream of deindustrialization.
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.
The California cap-and-trade tax on business in the name of reducing CO2 makes our state the leader in wacky environmentalism and guarantees a further job exodus from the state.
Even green energy companies can't do business in California. Solyndra went under, taking its taxpayer loan guarantee with it.
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.
In fact, 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.
The rest of us only found out about these plantations when the workers' open campfire started one of those devastating fires that have killed hundreds of people and burned out thousands of homes in California over the last decade.
It's often said that whatever happens in California will soon happen in your state.
You'd better hope that's wrong.
(Roger Hedgecock is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. RADIO STATION 600 AM, SAN DIEGO)
(I did an archive search with the title and I don't think it's been posted yet.)
There’s two choices to deal with CA.
One, give the moonbats all the rope they need and allow the state collapse. That could be a very expensive.
Two, dust off the Reconstruction laws. Declare the state in insurrection, appoint a military governor and move in a division of investigators, prosecutors and soldiers and Marines. Then clean out the commies and fascists.
Beautiful state that is destroyed by the city liberals and, like Texas, the huge illegal population. American citizens have to have insurance and pay taxes but not the “guests”. BUT, if one pays the cheap price to have their lawns mowed, their houses cleaned (and some cleaned out!), service at restaurants, etc., we will continue to loose this life our forefathers fought and died to be free.
Roger Hedgecock is a true conservative and always makes a lot of sense. He was a frequent replacement for Rush a few years ago but seems to have fallen out of favor for the likes of Mary Matilin and that Mark guy.
Maybe the Eagles can write an update on their classic hit and call it “Hotel Obama”.
I think that this is one of the things I hate the most about liberals. They nest in the most beautiful places, then pollute the area completely. Jackson Hole, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New England...
Guess they aren’t tough enough to do any actual WORK (midwest) or to handle the heat (Texas).
Slave state beholden to the king
Hedgecock has his own syndicated show now, which I suspect is why he’s not able to guest host for Rush.
When the losers on the left take control the demise begins.
I knew he had that show (not heard in my area) but didn't know that precluded him hosting another syndicated show. It must be with a broadcasting company other than Rush's.
And for those of you who dislike Romney, if you live in CA or Texas or one of the other non-swing states, knock yourself out. Vote for whomever you please. But if you are in a swing state, I think you have a moral obligation to vote for Romney.
A friend in sanoma californication said on his last run into SF that he didnt see one obamster/biteme sticker on the back of any car.maybe they all were traded in during the cash for clunkers idiot program.
Cash for Clunkers.
*That* was the program that pushed my daughter over the top. As the next year went by and her friends were complaining that they couldn’t find a used car for a decent price, she let every one of them know who was to blame for that and why.
All these kids, trying to buy their first used car on a hamburger salary... Oh, that one struck home!
Glad to hear that.Maybe, just maybe they will get a clue.
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