Be Glad that you don't live in California.(Most OUTSTANDING article!)

Pittsburgh Tribune Review ^ | 29 December 2002 | Peter A. Brown

[vannrox]

They should be.

California's mess is a capital political crime that more than just tarnishes the Golden State.

The Sacramento gang has created a fiscal mess more than 20 times worse than anything Congress could manufacture.

California's budget deficit works out to more than $1,000 per resident and makes New York City look fiscally responsible.

California's deficit is 20 percent of state spending and a third of its operating budget. If every state worker were fired, California would still be at least $10 billion in the red.

[Liz]

To err is human. To really screw things up, it takes a politician.

[kellynla]

Happy New Year! I have moved the business and incorporated in NV. House hunting as we speak. If you guys decide to move to NV let me know. Semper Fi

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Beautiful propert!!!

Sadly, we live in a rural area that is close enough to Sacramento to have people wanting to buy and commute. In the meantime it is running up our real-estate prices on average 21percent a YEAR!!!! What you can buy for 170 thousand is CRAPPOLA these days.

That fact, along with increased taxes (which will have to happen now that the GRAY Davis LIES are coming out) is going to not only ruin real estate, but commerce. Business is going to leave in DROVES when they start getting hit with the "cure" for California's economic crisis. TAXES!! I predict that we will soon have the HIGHEST taxation in the Nation,... not only on individuals and their real estate,..but on business!

It's gotten crazy around here. The roads aren't built to accomodate the influx of families..and we will soon follow suit with traffic congestion and all the ills of a large city.

Four more years..and we are out of here!!

[537 Votes]

Rather ominous to think that only thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan was governor of California. Let's see, Reagan left the White House in 1989, add thirty years . . . 2019. So that may be the timetable for where the nation is headed.

Of course, we can always learn from California, we always have.

[hot august night]

Same thing happened to me this morning, over here in Manahattan. I stopped at McDonald's for breakfast (which I rarely do), and wanted an egg, cheese and bacon bicuit, but wanted to substitute Canadian bacon for the standard kind. I had to explain to the Mexican girl behind the counter three times what I wanted, and how to put it together...and had to say each word s-l-o-wly as if I was giving directions to a total idiot. Her comprehension was that poor. And her attitude wasn't any better.

After she finally got that message, then she automatically bagged my breakfast to go, when I specifically previously said it was to stay. Lastly, the doofus charged me for a hash brown and had tossed it in the bag. I told her I did not order a hash brown, and wanted it taken out of the bag, and naturally wanted to be reimbursed for the extra charge. The girl talked in Spanish to her manager before her manager handed her a calculator. It turns out the doofus was so stupid she couldn't even figure out how much to reimburse me for the hash brown (she calculated about twenty-measly cents, which severely underpaid me, but at that point I didn't care anymore). This girl has been working there for months, so it wasn't like she was a new employee, by the way. After all that frustration, I didn't even feel like eating the lousy sandwich.

[hot august night]

Manahattan=Manhattan.

[EggsAckley]

Fortunately, we bought this property in 1970, when it was still affordable, actually CHEAP. I would never BUY anything west of Modesto at this point. And also fortunately, the property is free and clear. Still don't think I'll leave it, though. Having a huge generator installed soon, to run the whole house, so at least I can get around THAT facet of Grey-Out Davis's follies.

Just looked at your profile page. You people are amazing; makes me proud to post to you. True Americans!!

[hot august night]

I'm still so angry over this I can't see straight!

bicuit=biscuit.

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Wow.. Thanks!! It "WAS TRULY" our honor!!

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

The sadest thing is seeing all the good then Gov. Reagan did, being destroyed. California could have stayed a wonderful place. Like you said.. as goes California, so goes the nation.

Lets pray this time it isn't true!! Little late for California for a while..(Until Californians wake up and elect Republicans back into the majority and into the Leadership here!). But God willing, the nation is watching the mess Davis and the Democrats are wreaking on California!!

[EggsAckley]

LOL! I KNOW the feeling.

We had a liquor store that sold here in this little village, populated by the wealthiest people in the county. The two brothers were Iranian, I think. When you would have your selections rung up, they would purposely short change you. For instance, if your purchase was $3.50, and you gave them a five, they would give you back a dollar bill and NO CHANGE! You could say, hey you owe me fifty cents, and they would chatter, "no no no, eet's juust a few pennies, eeets not much." And they WOULDN'T give you the fifty cents. They got away with it for about a year until the local boycott of the store caught up with them. They were going broke, and were forced to sell. It's now owned by a very sweet Hindi man who KNOWS how to treat customers.

[Gophack]

You shopped at Safeway. That explains it all.

I shop at Bel Air. I pay a little more, but I've never had to strain to understand what anyone was telling me.

:-)

[SFConservative]

Looks like the article was posted in its entirety - Admin Moderator may want to fix this if the Orlando Sentinel does indeed permit only excerpts to be posted.

[Pagey]

Nowhere in the article does it state that DumbocRATs control the California Legislature and Governorship,and it is they, who have created this (possibly)35 Billion $$$ Deficit that may happen in the next 18 months. (Oh,it's a Florida newspaper, just leave out the convenient facts, O.K.?)

[EggsAckley]

Until Californians wake up and elect Republicans back into the majority and into the Leadership here

I for one don't see that happening as long as there is rampant illegal immigration. In my county, whites are the minority, and Mexicans are the majority. For the most part, any of them who vote, vote Democrat (of course.)

[Incorrigible]

[Steel Wolf]

The Terminator - Coming soon to a captiol near you! Go Arnold Go!

[Steel Wolf]

The Terminator - Coming soon to a captiol near you! Go Arnold Go!

[SFConservative]

Democrat control of the governorship and legislature is exactly what caused this mess. There was a nearly $10B surplus when Davis came in. Now we are looking at a $36B deficit, plus $10-12B deficits for the next 3 fiscal years!

These crooks undid in no time at all the reforms that Pete Wilson fought for and achieved in several areas. An example is worker's compensation - Wilson led a three-year battle to scale that back to reasonable levels and succeeded. The democrat crooks have removed all those restraints and it's back worse than ever. No significant business in its right mind will relocate to or expand in California.

The article seems to imply that Texas and Florida rely on sales taxes unlike California. However, California does have a sales tax of 7.25% plus county add-ons in most locations - one of the highest rates around.

While I'm correcting impressions, let me also correct an error in the article. It says that the Federal deficit of $150-200B is 1 percent of the budget - that of course should be 10%. But California's deficit is 35% of its budget, so still 3.5 times the federal shortfall, and California is not fighting a war on terror.

Lastly, I think we owe a lot of this problem to term limits. We have a bunch of novice, incompetent, economics-illiterate state legislators who in 6 years typically are gone to other government bodies or back to where they came from. They feel no long-term accountability to the state as a whole, just a need to feed bennies to the morons who elected them. Any other states that are contemplating term limits should pay attention to the California mess.