Posted on 08/16/2012 3:46:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
Driving across California is like going from Mississippi to Massachusetts without ever crossing a state line.
Consider the disconnects: California's combined income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest, but the state's deficit is still about $16 billion. It's estimated that more than 2,000 upper-income Californians are leaving per week to flee high taxes and costly regulations, yet California wants to raise taxes even higher; its business climate already ranks near the bottom of most surveys. Its teachers are among the highest paid on average in the nation, but its public school students consistently test near the bottom of the nation in both math and science.
The state's public employees enjoy some of the nation's most generous pensions and benefits, but California's retirement systems are underfunded by about $300 billion. The state's gas taxes -- at over 49 cents per gallon -- are among the highest in the nation, but its once unmatched freeways, like 101 and 99, for long stretches have degenerated into potholed, clogged nightmares unchanged since the early 1960s.
The state wishes to borrow billions of dollars to develop high-speed rail, beginning with a little-traveled link between Fresno and Corcoran -- a corridor already served by money-losing Amtrak. Apparently, coastal residents like the idea of European high-speed rail -- as long as noisy and dirty construction does not begin in their backyards.
As gasoline prices soar, California chooses not to develop millions of barrels of untapped oil and even more natural gas off its shores and beneath its interior. Home to bankrupt green companies like Solyndra, California has mandated that a third of all the energy provided by state utilities soon must come from renewable energy sources -- largely wind and solar, which presently provide about 11 percent of its electricity and almost none of its transportation fuel.
How to explain the seemingly inexplicable? There is no California, which is a misnomer. There is no such state. Instead there are two radically different cultures and landscapes with little in common, each equally dysfunctional in quite different ways. Apart they are unworldly, together a disaster.
A postmodern narrow coastal corridor runs from San Diego to Berkeley, where the weather is ideal, the gentrified affluent make good money, and values are green and left-wing. This Shangri-La is juxtaposed to a vast impoverished interior, from the southern desert to the northern Central Valley, where life is becoming premodern.
On the coast, blue-chip universities like Cal Tech, Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA in pastoral landscapes train the world's doctors, lawyers, engineers and businesspeople. In the hot interior of blue-collar Sacramento, Turlock, Fresno and Bakersfield, well over half the incoming freshman in the California State University system must take remedial math and science classes.
In postmodern Palo Alto or Santa Monica, a small cottage costs more than $1 million. Two hours away, in premodern and now-bankrupt Stockton, a bungalow the same size goes for less than $100,000.
In the interior, unemployment in many areas peaks at over 15 percent. The theft of copper wire is reaching epidemic proportions. Thousands of the shrinking middle class flee the interior for the coast or nearby no-income-tax states. To fathom the state's nearly unbelievable statistics -- as the state population grew by 10 million from the mid-1980s to 2005, its number of Medicaid recipients increased by 7 million during that period; one-third of the nation's welfare recipients now reside in California -- visit the state's hinterlands.
But in the Never-Never Land of Apple, Facebook, Google, Hollywood and the wine country, millions live in an idyllic paradise. Coastal Californians can afford to worry about the state's trivia -- as their legislators seek to outlaw foie gras, shut down irrigation projects to save the 3-inch delta smelt, and allow children to have legally recognized multiple parents.
But in the less feel-good interior, crippling regulations curb timber, gas and oil, and farm production. For the most part, the rules are mandated by coastal utopians who have little idea where the gas for their imported cars comes from, or how the redwood is cut for their decks, or who grows the ingredients for their Mediterranean lunches of arugula, olive oil and pasta.
On the coast, it's politically incorrect to talk of illegal immigration. In the interior, residents see first-hand the bankrupting effects on schools, courts and health care when millions arrive illegally without English-language fluency or a high school diploma -- and send back billions of dollars in remittances to Mexico and other Latin American countries.
The drive from Fresno to Palo Alto takes three hours, but you might as well be rocketing from Earth to the moon.
California needs to be fixed. They are the 8th largest World Economy. America cannot afford to let California die. We obviously can’t afford to let them go down the road they are on. Something drastic has to be done....what is that? I wish I knew. But the bottom line is, We cannot allow them to fail!!!!
That man has talent for putting things into perspective...
The fiscally sane states will end up bailing the rat-run bankrupt states.
When the power grid fails or rotating power outages of significant length become the norm and when the available power is ten times more expensive than today, how long will the veneer of California civilization remain?
The fiscally sane states will end up bailing the rat-run bankrupt states.
Yep. But the reason will be because there is no other option. If we let them fail then the country will fail.
>> California needs to be fixed. They are the 8th largest World Economy. America cannot afford to let California die.
That’s the right kind of attitude!
‘’’ But the bottom line is, We cannot allow them to fail!!!!
Why not? Too big to fail? :)
Sums it up well for CA and Greece.
http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2012/03/15/whos_to_blame_for_california
Yep. But the reason will be because there is no other option. If we let them fail then the country will fail.
Methinks one of the earlier Federalist papers (#6 or #8) has something to say about this. Will return to it tonight.
Cheers!
Unfortunately it seems that the only way for a politician to learn anything is for him to personally fail - big time.
California's problems didn't just spring from the earth overnight. It has been building for the last 20 - 30 years that I know about. If I can see it from Florida after being stationed in California for four years it must be very obvious.
Yes, California's crash will be very painful for me at many levels. But, I see no tectonic shifts in California's direction at any time without it.
Have you ever considered that as California goes so go the rest of us?
While this not the sole reason for CA's demise it is the overwhelming reason. It is also what is facing the US at large. Unless this can be addressed and rectified CA will continue to languish and deconstruct. As mentioned CA going down is no small matter it will effect us all.
-——We cannot allow them to fail!!!!-——
Though I certainly do not want to see them fail, we are the “United States of America “ 50 sovereign states ....if they are failing “they” need to fix themselves ....
By bailing them out we only enable them to continue to fail....
When the libtards in CA do not have electricity or can no longer buy food, maybe their brains might actually engage ....
Never heard that Rhode Island is too small to fail....
And they blame it on conservatives.
We MUST allow them to fail.
That is the only way to fix California.
Tragic read. Especially coming from Victor, who has witnessed and accurately described the decline and dichotomy of his home state.
This is what they’ll do to the rest of the country if we let them.
Why not? Seems to me that allowing california to wallow in the pig sty that it is making of itself would be the absolute best thing for the country.
A lot of liberals need to learn about the real world. And living in the third world hell hole they are making of themselves would do it I think.
The only redeeming qualities I've seen from California in a long time are the presence there of Freerepublic (which could be moved to a more sane state), The navy base in San Diego and a couple of air bases. The navy base can't be moved, but everything else could be (and should be moved to lower cost sane states)
There is little America can do for California. The saying goes this way: the first generation earns the money, the second generation manages to keep it, and the third generation spends it all. California is in the fourth generation now. The money's been spent, but the lifestyle goes on. This is happening where I live, Illinois.
All the wealth built up in a low/no-tax and low/no-regulation environment has been eaten up. The principle is gone, but America didn't do that. You and I didn't vote these policies. The Welfare State is the utopian dream of the rich and ignorant (not necessarily the same).
What can America do to reign in the policies implemented at the state and local level in California? What policy should we put in place? You're right that California is critical to America, but you have now generations of people trained not to work. They've never had to strive for anything, so they don't know how. Everything has been given to them. To run against that is to lose election after election.
Here's my proposed solution. Add ten states to the union. Take the top ten urban counties and make them their own states with the remainder of the existing counties remaining as their own state. In this way you could unburden the suburbs and countryside and allow them to thrive outside the undo influence of city liberals. What do you think?
Three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves. - Andrew Carnegie
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.