Posted on 06/11/2017 9:01:35 AM PDT by Michael.SF.
California is widely celebrated as the fount of technical, cultural and political innovation. Now we seem primed to outdo even ourselves, creating a new kind of socialism that, in the end, more resembles feudalism than social democracy.
The new consensus is being pushed by, among others, hedge-fund-billionaire-turned-green-patriarch Tom Steyer. The financier now insists that, to reverse our worsening inequality, we must double down on environmental and land-use regulation, and make up for it by boosting subsidies for the struggling poor and middle class. This new progressive synthesis promises not upward mobility and independence, but rather the prospect of turning most Californians into either tax slaves or dependent serfs.
California’s progressive regime of severe land-use controls has helped to make the state among the most unaffordable in the nation, driving homeownership rates to the lowest levels since the 1940s. It has also spurred a steady hegira of middle-aged, middle-class families — the kind of tax-burdened people Gov. Jerry Brown now denounces as “freeloaders” — from the state. They may have access to smartphones and virtual reality, but the increasingly propertyless masses seem destined to live in the kind of cramped conditions that their parents and grandparents had escaped decades earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Maybe California can borrow some money from Puerto Rico.
I was born and raised in California and when I was discharged from the army in 1966 I returned to live there. At that time the governor was moonbeams father and he was a democrat like we used to have. Built freeways and dams and had the best public schools in the nation. State colleges and universities were tuition free to residents and public school teachers were the only employees other than service workers and the principal and were not unionized. I could support my family on the beginning wage of any job that I was qualified to have. Medical care was affordable and most things were paid by me, not insurance which was only for catastrophic coverage. Gas was 29 cents a gallon and you could purchase a new house for under 10,000.00 dollars and a new car for 2,000.00 dollars.
I arrived in Ca in 1981, ran away in 1992, wish I could have seen it in the 60s 70s.
Now they are following me.. to Az, to Tx
I was there 2 years ago, Mexicans attending well manicured lawns and hajibs everywhere.
I was shocked they revoked smoking in public, when I was there in 1997 it was verboten to smoke on the street in Barstow Ca.
Barstow! In the middle of nowhere in the desert!
Bah!!
We moved to South Dakota (where the farm is), housing is cheap and it is the only state where you can have dynastic trusts. However, Texas, Wyoming, Nevada, and Florida all have no personal income tax. Washington doesn’t either but that is just as bad as CA.
A $1B, $500M? Why aren't you considering the wondrous 0bama and his legacy? Everyone making over $250,000 is "rich."
Let's put a wealth tax on everyone in California with $250,000 in assets. Let's really show progress....unless those people are selfish rethuglicans......BWAHAHAHAHAHAH
More than likely it will be replaced by the PRI (Partido de la Revolución Institucional).
I have lived in California since about 1972 and it was still Paradise then. It just amazes me what we have thrown away.
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