Posted on 05/17/2009 6:47:05 AM PDT by WesternCulture
ON MAY 19th Californians will go to the polls to vote on six ballot measures that are as important as they are confusing. If these measures fail, America’s biggest state will enter a full-blown financial crisis that will require excruciating cuts in public services. If the measures succeed, the crisis will be only a little less acute. Recent polls suggest that voters are planning to vote most of them down.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Over here in Europe, California is often admired for many good reasons and we Europeans are well aware California consists of much more than Hollywood stars, drive-by shootings and gay couples.
How did California end up in this mess what could be done about it?
California is home to many great companies which the state (as well as the Obama administration) view just as “milk cows”.
My corner of the world, Sweden, is too. But our attitudes over here towards our successful multinationals has changed dramatically since the 1970s and 80s.
We once used to take success for granted. In connection to the worldwide economic crises in the beginning of the 1990s we were forced to rethink.
If it's nerdish to be proud of things like being home to Ericsson and IKEA I'm proud to be nerdish.
Today, Sweden is an affluent Volvo paradise while the European Continent lacks far, far behind when it comes to standard of living and vast parts of USA is poor. In Japan, a country which Swedish companies once viewed as as threatening, many people don't own a car and although I haven't seen any statistics on the subject, I think it's safe to say Sweden ridicules Japan in the area of owning yachts and summer houses..
Why is that so?
I watched Schwarzenegger in Commando yesterday. He killed a bunch of people. What surprised me was that his daughter in that movie was actually Alyssa Milano.
Cuts in public services. Like welfare for illegals? Like full pay pensions for state retirees? I’m all for that.
What per-centage of your income do you pay in taxes in Sweden?
How’s that jolly Muslim population doing in Malmo?
What could California expect...with those morons running the different areas of the state and allowing it to become one of the biggest sanctuary states for illegals. Illegals take jobs, rents, heathcare, welfare, and the like.
Honestly, how did CA ever think it could survive this burden?
If you are a mean Californian, you vote no on all propositions so that there is no money to educate illegals, stop feeding the insane democratic spending machine, and cutting into poilice and firemen’s pay that is already too high.
Demographics is a huge problem in CA. The state is loosing taxpayers and gaining ignorant legal and illegal immigrants.
They are a huge burdon on the rest of society. The state has a lot of brilliant companies and people that go with them, but they are being overwhelmed.
This article fails to point out that the state expenditures, inspite of the GOP resistance, has grown far faster than population, GDP and inflation. If any big changes are made to voting..that situation would likely get worse. The initiatives and super majority are the only thing that keeps spending and taxes from further skyrocketing. Business and high income people are being driven from the state by enviromental, regulation and taxes. A complete collapse is the only possible result.
If they raise taxes to cover the defecite..more business and taxpayers will leave.
- around 28% (it varies from city to city).
In fact, the richest parts of Sweden, like the dwellers of this nice Stockholm suburb, Stocksund (Stocksund inhabitants are sometimes called “Djursholm wannabes” because people who live there seem to pretend they live in Djursholm which, contrary to Stocksund is the richest community in the country) pay the least in income taxes percentage wise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjljZx3Quvg
Swedes pay more in taxes than Americans, BUT this is not because we have high income taxes, it's because we have a 25% income tax/VAT on most things we buy.
Sweden is taxing PRIVATE CONSUMPTION heavily, while having very moderate corporate taxes.
Perhaps this is of key importance to our 15 years of increased “real wages” and the nice cars we drive around in?
California ranks 50th (LAST PLACE) among all the states for being friendly to business.
Californians did this to themselves. No one else did this to them.
And either they will now fix the situation, or else see their state continue to decline.
And what percentage of the taxes goes toward defense?
The reality is that non-Hispanic white flight is taking place along with businesses. According to the bureau of the census, CA's population was 33,871,648 in 2000 and 36,264,467 in 2007. The white population (including Hispanics) was 20,170,059 in 2000 and 21,892,718 in 2007. In 2000 the Hispanic population was 10,966,556 (32.4% of the population) and in 2007 it was 12,954,535 (35.7%). It is apparent that almost all of the increase in CA's population is Hispanic.
The foreign-born percentage of the population in 2000 was 8,864,255 (26.2%) and in 2007, it was 9,865,537 (27.2%). CA is the state that attracts the most legal immigrants every year. The reality is that CA is importing poverty driving up the social welfare costs and driving out whites and businesses due to the need to increase taxes.
Here are some facts on the impact of immigration on the taxpayer funded social welfare system:
Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, compared to 8 percent of natives. Since 2000, immigration increased the number of workers without a high school diploma by 14 percent, and all other workers by 3 percent.
The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 33 percent, compared to 19 percent for native households.
The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 17 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the rate for natives and their children.
34 percent of immigrants lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 71 percent of the increase in the uninsured since 1989.
The primary reason for the high rates of immigrant poverty, lack of health insurance, and welfare use is their low education levels, not their legal status or an unwillingness to work.
There is a worker present in 78 percent of immigrant households using at least one welfare program.
Immigration accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades. In 2007, there were 10.8 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.
The article opinions it is "extremist" Republicans that are the problem when in reality it has been "extremist" Democrats who have repeatedly used public funds to buy votes.
Out of control state union workers pensions, a bloated hierarchy of chieftains in the school systems and continuous depletion of financial resources used to pander to non-citizens of the nation are the primary causes of this state's financial problem.
The solution, reign in and stop the use of taxpayer monies to buy votes of the special interest groups.
Your post assumes the statistics provided are correct. I would suspect it is much worse.
Total government expenditures, including consumption and transfer payments, are very high. In the most recent year, government spending equaled 55.6 percent of GDP. Spending has been reduced from over 60 percent of GDP in the 1990s but is still at one of the highest rates among OECD member countries. Public debt has fallen below 40 percent of GDP.
Simply to heterogenous to govern in detail. Can only be governed in a very broad or superficial manner...much as the Founding Fathers would have recommended, but beyond the grasp of the average liberal “mind” ....
As someone with no dog in the fight, the article seemed to be a left wing screed clothed in the language of objectivity. Aren’t California and New York vying for the top state income tax rate? Aren’t the public employee union pension plans the biggest drain? To conceal the corrosive influence of those unions as “savvy lobbyists” against greenhorn legislators , is biased reporting.
Simply too....
Trust me...most of the USA net total taxes for the top 10-20% are pretty close to 60% when ALL taxes-gasoline/sales etc are factrored in.
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