Sink with California (The Golden State is in dire straights and it is not alone)

National Review ^ | 05/15/2012 | The Editors

[Buckeye McFrog]

2013 is going to be all about bankrupt states panhandling for a bailout, regardless of what happens in the election.

[skeeter]

I'm looking forward to the collapse of the welfare state.

I chuckle at the thought of it happening under the very guy who started us on this fiscal path 35 years ago.

[liberalh8ter]

While California is a beautiful State and there are many good people living there, I can't help but think, “good riddance”. I want it to tank so spectacularly that it becomes the poster child for failed liberalism and then I want it to be rescued by conservatives who have no tolerance for the liberal mindset.. This is my dream.

[mo]

Detroitification...the practical application of Democrat political philosophy.

[Tenacious 1]

This is another good reason to get Obama out of office. Obama will start getting his czars to pump money into failing states (CA, NY, MI) to keep them afloat as the chickens go home to roost. We can’t afford it.

when CA can no longer make payroll for the government workers, we’ll have to cut bait as a nation.

[AmonAmarth]

Wishing for economic growth and creating economic growth are two entirely different things, something democRats just cannot mentally grasp.

[OrioleFan]

How can all Americans be expected to bail out states whose governments have no interest in trying to get their financial houses in order. It’s throwing good money after bad, and only encourages the freeloading states to spend more.

[Tenacious 1]

This is Reagan’s, then Bush’s and finally Bush’s fault that CA is running out of money and spending more than it takes in and driving all the productive tax payers out of it’s bastion of glory.

California is going to need a scapegoat when it fails. The bus is running just waiting for a driver, passengers and a target.

I wonder if there is a line in Vegas on when CA will officially be bankrupt. There has to be some rich odds there.

[Savage Beast]

"for many, getting out of California will be sufficient. As California has just demonstrated, raising tax rates is not the same thing as raising tax revenue. Capital is fungible, and people are mobile."

Yes.

Karl Marx foresaw this loophole. That's why it is crucial to the establishment of his "workers' paradise" that a world-wide totalitarian government (i.e. police state) be established--and by violent means.

Coercion, enforced by violence, and an iron-fisted dictatorship (or oligarchy) are fundamental to Marxism. Karl Marx acknowledged this.

But he didn't have to. Anyone with a brain the size (and function) of a pea can recognize this at the first glance at his hare-brained theories. (Yes, this is an indictment of the Leftists.)

[cuban leaf]

I heard on NPR this morning just how much worse they are than they thought they would be just a few months ago, by many BILLIONS of dollars. It very much reminds me of this analogy, which I think we are all living right now.

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Imagine a magic pipette. It is magic because every drop of water that comes out of it will double in size every minute. So the first minute there is one drop, the second minute there are two drops, the third minute four drops, the fourth minute eight drops and so on… This is an example of exponential growth. Now, imagine a normal sized football stadium. In this stadium you are sitting on the seat at the very top of the stadium, with the best overview of the whole stadium. To make things more interesting, imagine the stadium is completely water-tight and that you cannot move from your seat.

The first drop from the magic pipette is dropped right in the middle of the field, at 12pm. Here’s the question: Remembering that this drop grows exponentially by doubling in size every minute, how much time do you have to free yourself from the seat and leave the stadium before the water reaches your seat at the very top? Think about it for a moment. Is it hours, days, weeks, months?

The answer: You have exactly until 12:49pm. It takes this tiny magic drop less than 50 minutes to fill a whole football stadium with water. This is impressive! But it gets better: At what time do you think the football stadium is still 93% empty? Take a guess.

The answer: At 12:45pm. So, you sit and watch the drop growing, and after 45 minutes all you see is the playing field covered with water. And then, within four more minutes, the water fills the whole stadium. This means that you think you are safe because it seems that you have plenty of time left, whereas due to the exponential growth you really have to take immediate action if you want to have any chance of getting out of this situation.

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My personal opinion: 2008 was 12:45 and most people responded as in the analogy above. We are now at 12:47 and I think we will be to 12:50 by next year AT THE LATEST.

You can read about it almost daily.

[kidd]

The article doesn’t mention how much California has coddled illegal immigrants.

No other state in the union has surrendered as much in the hopes of manufacturing new Democrat voters.

[AppyPappy]

If California has to cut off the supply of free government money, the zombies will move to more charitable states where they can vote themselves some money.
Tax those rich rock, TV and movie stars

[oncebitten]

"Mitt Romney’s tax plan, for example, in order to achieve revenue neutrality, must rely on growth assumptions that are more optimistic than current professional forecasts." Screw the so-called "professional forecasts". They are once again looking at things through a zero-sum prism. I lived through the Carter years and everyone believed the USA was finished, the USSR was ascendant, capitalism was dead, and we would have to get used to gas shortages, 18% mortgage rates, and 9% unemployment. Within 2 years of Reagan being elected, the economy was on full throttle and the supposedly intransigent problems disappeared. I was working in a computer store selling Apples and then IBM PC's and my commissions and salary went from 18K to 60K in 1984. I think Romney's election will do the same thing (if it happens). He "gets" the economy and should release the animal spirits and trillions of dollars currently sitting on the sidelines. If he gets elected in Nov., I am all in on the stock market - including my physical gold. The Dow went from <1000 to >10,000 during the Reagan years. This will be a repeat.

[CharacterCounts]

Michigan is a failing state no longer. 2012 provided a budget surplus which has been attacked by leftists at media outlets such as the NY Times and the Nation.

Michigan now has a Republican Governor, Senate, House, Supreme Court, Attorney General and Secretary of State.

[tankrlm]

CA was one of the states that got part of the billions in rail money that FL turned down........how is that working for them?....cost over run anybody.............

[Tenacious 1]

Michigan is a failing state no longer. 2012 provided a budget surplus which has been attacked by leftists at media outlets such as the NY Times and the Nation.

You are right and I did know that. But it is new and I forgot. I am glad Michigan is turning around. But I fear the lessons were not yet fully learned by the voters. We'll see how Michigan does in November. It will be telling of what the future holds for republican politicians there.

I humbly thank you for the correction.

[moovova]

Moonbeam’s answer...”Raise taxes on the rich.”

[Blue Ink]

“The article doesn’t mention how much California has coddled illegal immigrants.”

That’s because every one of the charges in the article is true. Yours is not.

Every state in the union yawned while California’s border with Mexico was erased.

California voters did their best not to coddle the invaders by overwhelmingly passing Prop. 186; it was thrown out by a Federal judge.

So voting failed us. What would you have had us do? Field our own army?

I think Americans who don’t live in California rewrite history to deflect responsibility for the unopposed invasion and annexation of the greatest state in the union by a foreign power.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I predict Illinois will actually beat California to the punch as the first state to submit an official bailout request to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.