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.

[SoCal_Republican]

California Republicans need to see this as an opportunity to take back the state. If the state senate Republicans will stand their ground and refuse to agree to any tax increase (requires a 2/3rd majority) then the Democraticalisticals are going to be forced to defend their overspending every night on the news. The media will have to cover it if the state goes months without a budget. There is no way they can pin this screw-up on the Republicans. I am willing to tighten my belt here in Orange County if it means regaining Republican control of the state.

[Gophack]

You make several good points and for the record, I'm surprised that there is a conservative left in San Francisco!!! :-) ... I was born and raised on the peninsula.

I agree that the liberals in four short years undid any of the successes of 16 years of Republican control, but Pete Wilson wasn't any great leader. He increased the size of government (just not at the same rate as Davis and the DEmocrats!)

Workers compensation is a good example, though we didn't get everything we wanted or needed in 1993 when the reform package went through. It was still a hell of a lot better than what we had. Now, we are going to create another crisis just two or three years down the road ... and after Davis, the electorate will vote in Republicans to fix the problems of the Democrats, and when we get them partly fixed, get rid of us so they can have their pet projects like protect-a-rodent and cut-a-tree, go-to-prison.

I'm with you on term limits. I voted NO in 1990 and still think they are a bad idea, but the electorate loves them. They can wake up every 6-8 years and vote, then sleep while the idiots they elect push their pet projects.

I think term limits are good in a limited sense in that we got rid of some of the real bad power mongers (like Willie Brown), but the few goods don't outweigh all the bads ... like the liberals who think that the money is there for them to dole out to their special interests, and who have never run a business and don't understand economics, and are basically ideological socialists who think everyone is undertaxed and don't understand why people don't want to live in 20-floor apartments with no yards in the middle of a city.

[Gophack]

They need two votes in the Senate AND six votes in the Assembly. It's going to be hard, but I still think the Republicans will cave. I wish they wouldn't but they will.

Davis should be in prison for what he has done to our state.

[SFConservative]

I'm surprised that there is a conservative left in San Francisco!!!

There aren't many left! All three of us have our homes on the Gray Line tour: "Look, Marge, that's where the conservatives live!"

[KneelBeforeZod]

I live in California and I have 5 guns

[NormsRevenge]

The stunned look in the eyes says it all... Thanks for posting the pic.

Comparisons of Nero and Davi$ might be appropriate here. He was well-supported in this fiery economic inferno by the socialzits in the state legislature who love nothing better then spending other folks money on illegals and an educational system so obviously slanted to the left that school buses may soon be banned from making right turns on the road.

Thru all this, they hold on to their agendas , no matter how many decent citizens, taXpayers , businesses, dreams and legal residents are washed out to sea by storms of epic fiscal proportion that only serve to batter our economy and families closer to bankruptcy.

I ask you, who today, is more morally bankrupt, a pan-handling wino in the street or a unrepentant demRatic state legislator or governor of California?

[Axenolith]

Don't forget that the idiots out here ( a majority if you go by election results) vote FOR every stinking bond measure to come along on the ballot also...

[PhiKapMom]

Stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in La Mesa right off of I-8 before you get to the I-15 interchange and Qualcom stadium if you are coming in from Yuma.

BTW -- Anthony's seafood was outstanding!

[PhiKapMom]

Holiday Inn Express. By and large we had people speaking English but there was one guy (very nice BTW) that English was definitely not his first language. Only one of the people that cleaned the rooms spoke English -- the others nodded when you asked a question. I also had the same problem at Walmart until I found someone in electronics and at Albertson's.

Frankly I was shocked having lived out there for six years.

[muggs]

You are a braver woman than I am. We have vacationed in san Diego for the last 6 years. My husband does all the driving. If I had to drive out there in CA, we wouldn't get out of the airport.

[Cacique]

btt

[PhiKapMom]

Drove with my younger daughter for my oldest daughter's wedding from OK to San Diego. Lived in Yucaipa off I-10 for almost six years so basically knew where I was going as I used to drive in LA a lot and make trips down to San Diego. I love to drive but I hate to come to a deadstop on the freeways. That really bugged me.

Gotten used to driving here in OK where you can drive through OKC pretty easily even in Rush hour. Even driving in Dallas in Rush Hour cannot compare to LA at 4 in the afternoon!

Must admit though that I would hate to drive there now if I had no idea where I was going and it was new to me. Traffic has gotten much worse since we lived out there.

[Man of the Right]

Lived in L.A. from '72-'75. Went there on business regularly until this year. It's a cesspool. My sympathy to the people who live in California.

[2banana]

I live in California and I have 5 guns

Not for long...(legally)

[Hildy]

My store is about 2 miles from that Holiday Inn!

[PhiKapMom]

Really? It was a really nice hotel. Went to the mall nearest the hotel several times buying Christmas there and at the larger mall the other way from the hotel. By the time I got home I had most of Christmas bought! Wouldn't let my youngest daughter get near the trunk of my car!

[PhiKapMom]

Forgot to tell you that my daughter and her new husband live in Lakeside which is just up I-8 (which I am sure you know!).

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

Don't know how the folks out there do it

I guess it all depends on one's perspective. As a native Californian, I can tell you that I really wouldn't live anywhere else. There are a mulititude of negatives, but the positives (for me personally) far outweigh them.

I live in Carlsbad, in north San Diego County, and it is about as nice a place as I could ever want to be. And then there's our weather.............

But seriously.......people love to put down California, but most of us that live here really do love it.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Plus the governments in Texas and Florida actually allows their people to bear arms!

Imagine, the government actually allows them to bear arms! Unbelievable!

[Saundra Duffy]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (We are so screwed.)