Posted on 02/25/2013 6:45:43 PM PST by Hojczyk
California is no longer a model that other states want to or should emulate. It currently has the nation's third highest unemployment rate, its highest poverty rate and more than one-third of the nation's welfare recipients.
To make a long story short, the same political constituencies that have made Brown's Democratic Party invincible at the ballot box have also made the state unable to compete economically.
These unions also make it impossible to improve how government services are delivered to taxpayers. As a result, while California once had the most admired education system in the nation, it now ranks near the bottom in almost every measured educational category.
The state's powerful environmental lobby has secured a slew of green energy regulations, including strict clean air rules, the nation's first carbon cap-and-trade program and an ambitious renewable energy mandate. As a result, energy prices have shot up, consumers now have less to spend on everything else they need to survive, and many manufacturers can't stay profitable in the state
Over the next four days, The Washington Examiner will look at what ails California, and how it got to its current state of failure. We will look at the state's out-of-control budget and debt, the powerful union interests driving it, the decline of its education system, the failure of its "clean energy" initiatives and the environmental regulations that are wrecking the economy in many regions of the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
You mean the crime rate dropped in South Central as much as it did other parts of the city? What factors were/are involved?
As for me being from Philly, yes and no are the answers. Born and raised in Delaware County, PA, which separates Philly from the state of Delaware (my stomping grounds were closer to DE than Philly). Went to college in east central PA. Moved to rural Maryland in 1985 for several reasons (crime not really being one of them). Haved lived in the Seventh State ever since except for 4 months in '86-'87 when my (eventually abortive) library career took me to Southern NJ.
ff
So I hit the ten ring....
You get bad mumbo...
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