Posted on 10/24/2010 10:06:20 AM PDT by WebFocus
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a seemingly endless parade of pop songs about how great life was in California, and millions of young Americans dreamed of moving to the land of sandy beaches and golden sunshine. But now all of that has changed. Today, millions of Californians are dreaming about leaving the state for good. The truth is that California is broke. The economy of the state is in shambles. The official unemployment rate has been sitting above 12 percent for an extended period of time, and poverty is everywhere. For many Californians today, there are very few reasons to stay in the state but a whole lot of reasons to leave: falling housing prices, rising crime, budget cuts, rampant illegal immigration, horrific traffic, some of the most brutal tax rates in the nation, increasing gang violence and the ever present threat of wildfires, mudslides and natural disasters. The truth is that it is easy to understand why there are now more Americans moving out of California each year than there are Americans moving into the state. California has become a complete and total disaster zone in more ways than one, and an increasing number of Californians are deciding that enough is enough and they are getting out for good.
Sadly, the state of California is facing such a wide array of social, economic, and political problems that it is hard to even document them all. It is really one huge gigantic mess at this point.
Just consider the following facts about what life is like in the state of California today....
#1 Official Unemployment in the state of California was 12.4% in September - one of the highest rates in the nation.
#2 The number of people unemployed in the state of California is approximately equivalent to the populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
#3 Not even state government jobs are safe in California these days. Last month, government agencies in California slashed a total of 37,300 jobs.
#4 California has the third highest state income tax in the nation: a 9.55% tax bracket at $47,055 and a 10.55% bracket at $1,000,000.
#5 California has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation by far at 8.25%. Indiana has the next highest at 7%.
#6 Residents of California pay the highest gasoline taxes (over 67 cents per gallon) in the United States.
#7 Even with all of the taxes, the budget deficit for the California state government for the current year is approximately 19 billion dollars.
#8 According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, California's unfunded pension liability is estimated to be somewhere between $120 billion and $500 billion.
#9 20 percent of the residents of Los Angeles County are now receiving public aid.
#10 Budget cuts are making life very difficult in many California cities. For example, Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts says that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.
Things have gotten so bad in Stockton, California that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: "Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops."
#11 According to one survey, approximately 1 in 4 Californians under the age of 65 had absolutely no health insurance last year.
#12 California's poverty rate soared to 15.3 percent in 2009, which was the highest in 11 years.
#13 California's overstretched health care system is also on the verge of collapse. Dozens of California hospitals and emergency rooms have shut down over the last decade because they could not afford to stay open after being endlessly swamped by illegal immigrants and poor Californians who were simply not able to pay for the services they were receiving. As a result, the remainder of the health care system in the state of California is now beyond overloaded. This had led to brutally long waits, diverted ambulances and even unnecessary patient deaths.
#14 California home builders began construction on 1,811 homes during the month of August, which was down 77% from August 2006.
#15 Earlier this year, it was reported that in the area around Sacramento, California there was one closed business for every six that were still open.
#16 The "lawsuit climate" in California is ranked number 46 out of all 50 states.
#17 Residents of California pay some of the highest electricity prices in the entire nation.
#18 Over 20 percent of California homeowners are now underwater on their mortgages.
#19 Large tent cities have been springing up all over the state of California. Just check out the following shocking video news report....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRLupIRhrmg
So why doesn't the state government of California just fix many of these problems? Well, the truth is that it simply cannot. The state government is flat broke. Earlier this year, Bob Herbert of the New York Times described California's massive budget problems this way....
"California has cut billions of dollars from its education system, including its renowned network of public colleges and universities. Many thousands of teachers have been let go. Budget officials travel the state with a glazed look in their eyes, having tried everything they can think of to balance the state budget. And still the deficits persist."
So is there any hope that all this can be turned around?
Is there any hope that the economy of California will recover?
Or will California continue to experience a rapid decline?
I dream of this day. Please, let it come sooner than later.
Yep, CA was a wonderful place to live back in the day, I was moved here at age 3, 65 years ago, and remember the good old days quite well.
I think California should go down and go down hard. Therefore, all freepers should vote straight Democrat down the line, put California into a straight-down vertical nose dive, crash the entire state, and pick up the pieces of what’s left, later. Maybe by then, all those idiotic CA voters will have figured it out . Maybe they will kill each other off in the ensuing chaos.
While those are good selling points, and it is a little creepy how far “public sadism” can go on the subject(*), the point Joe made from the beginning was that this saves a huge amount of public money.
Few today remember that when he first came into office 15 years ago, it was obvious that expenses for incarceration were out of control. Since then, the population of the county has doubled, but because of how he has managed things, the price for incarceration has dropped. While elsewhere costs have skyrocketed, and dangerous criminals are turned out on the street because of overcrowding.
(*) On other forums, “public sadism” directed towards misdemeanor criminals reflects a huge amount of anger at them. Otherwise sensible people openly advocate torture and mutilation of petty offenders, virtually without limit. And it’s hard to tell how much of that they really mean.
I would prefer all the moonbats continue into California. It’s shot anyway.
California Pension Promises May Top Taxes by Fivefold, Milken Study Finds
Good idea. Get all the libs so stoned they forget to vote. Of course, it'll mess up their work habits, home life, social life, and ability to pay taxes....and then the whole state augers in even faster. On second thought, forget the weed, it'll just make everything worse.
I know as well, I was born there 63 years ago and watched the same thing you did. Still remember the sudden deluge of NY'ers one year in the 70's, NY license plates all over the place. Likely Boxer was in that invasion.
The poison came from the NE liberal states, and virtually all of the problems now can be traced to their influx. As has been pointed out, the evil troika of Boxer, Feinstein, and Pelousey are all from the NE, not California.
We did have Reagan for governor for a good while, that should tell the Calif. haters that it was not always a cesspool.
“Calling it an independent country is a bit of a stretch.”
No god damn way!!!
It was the Republic of California and the Capitol was in Monteray!!!!
Its Bush’s fault. He should have invaded Kalifornia before going to Iraq.
Funny, as many believe Hawaii is such a tax hell hole, but it's sales tax is a bit under 4%.
Berkeley?
San Diego
Well, at least the Exotic Erotic ball got cancelled this year.
We're there.....Those begging Californians to come to their states we'll just have to enjoy their icy roads, snow, frigged wind blown temps, Hellacious heat and humidity with out us.....
We'll tough it out here thanks!
To be honest, we're a little selfish...I'd like to see 20 million leave tomorrow, to wherever...
The weather is just about the MAIN reason why people will opt to stay in California. California and Hawaii have the best weather in America.
Just goes to show that you can ruin a God-given advantage with liberal policies.
RE: I would prefer all the moonbats continue into California. It’s shot anyway.
Your wish just might come true. Moonbeam is now leading Meg Whitman by double digits and the trend seems to be going his way...
See here :
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/24/1889465/poll-jerry-brown-has-double-digit.html
here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2413209820101024
and here:
THE GOLD RUSH WILL SOON BECOME THE GOLD RUST.
Not true....
No matter how hard they try, the year around near perfect weather is worth a fortune to us, and is one thing they cannot change.
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