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Jerry Roberts: Is California an ‘Ungovernable’ State?
Jerry Roberts — journalist, author Calbuzz co-founder and host of Real Talk on the Santa Barbara Channels — spoke about the state of California politics last week to a packed Channel City Club luncheon at Fess Parker’s DoubleTree Resort. Here is the text of his remarks.
Introduction
Thank you very much, Lou.
What an honor to be introduced by my hero, Lou Cannon, which in the political writer business is like a ballplayer being introduced by Willie Mays or, since he’s a Dodger fan, Sandy Koufax.
Lou is a good friend and an extraordinary journalist. He honors Santa Barbara with his contributions to our community, with his work and his wisdom, and I salute him.
It’s a great privilege to be back speaking to the Channel City Club.
The last time I addressed the club was back in 2003, and I must admit I’m approaching this talk with some degree of trepidation.
At that time, Arnold Schwarzenegger was about to be elected governor of California and I had just been appointed publisher of a daily newspaper in Santa Barbara. Now it might be just coincidental, but things pretty quickly went downhill for both of us immediately after that speech.
I’m going to talk today about the current state of affairs in Sacramento, and since I’m focusing on politics, I want to begin by defining my terms.
Etymologically, the word “politics” has two roots: “Poli,” from the Greek, meaning the “many” and “tics” — meaning “blood sucking parasites.”
Actually that definition is not all that far from how the public views state politicians these days.
Among voters who re-elected Schwarzenegger just three years ago, only 25 percent now approve of his job performance which, ironically, is almost the same rating that former Gov. Gray Davis received shortly before he was recalled in 2003. And that figure looks fantastic compared to public opinion about our Legislature, which has only a 9 percent approval rating — right down there with lawyers, investment bankers and, of course, journalists.
When Arnold became governor he said he would work for free and not accept his $175,000 salary, so it’s fair to say that he’s been worth every penny.
Actually, I’ve heard confidentially that Schwarzenegger has finally found a way to close the state’s budget deficit. I can’t disclose the whole plan, but the bottom line is that Ventura County is now part of China.
This year, of course, we have an exciting campaign to replace Schwarzenegger, and the candidates have some great ideas for dealing with the state’s deficit.
Jerry Brown has promised that if elected he’ll give up the state limousine and drive a Saturn, which is of course where he thinks the cars are made.
Republican Meg Whitman, who started a famous online auction company, is proposing to sell California on eBay.
And there’s even a proposal on the November ballot to legalize marijuana and tax the sales, which if nothing else would help Caltrans fill all the potholes.
Where We Are
In all seriousness, the shameful spectacles of Sacramento in recent years have revealed widespread dysfunction of California state government, which has become a matter of national and even global notice.
The Economist magazine recently ran a long article on the state’s problems called “The Ungovernable State,” a headline which is the point of departure for my talk today.
I want to discuss a kind of perfect storm of political forces that have converged in Sacramento to create conditions of continuing crisis and a nexus of seemingly intractable gridlock. But I also want to touch on how this dysfunctional atmosphere has paradoxically energized a new push for political and economic reform in California.
California has serious, fundamental problems involving education, water, infrastructure and more, but they all begin with the grim reality of its badly out-of-whack budget.
The numbers change almost hourly in Sacramento but, as you know, the governor and the Legislature are currently facing a $21 billion deficit, about $6 billion in the current fiscal year and another $15 billion in red ink for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
This situation would be bad enough if the state was looking at just a one-year problem, but the legislative analyst has reported that California faces similar $20 billion shortfalls each year for the next five years.
As a practical matter, what does this mean?
Schwarzenegger’s latest budget plan would make statewide cuts in K-12 schools, which in Santa Barbara translate into curtailment of small class-size programs and a $320 per pupil per year reduction in state aid to education.
It means substantial reductions in law-enforcement supervision and oversight of recently paroled felons.
It means reductions in a host of local government services because the state has seized — excuse me, borrowed — $2 billion from cities and counties to help plug the gap in the state budget.
It means that thousands of academically eligible students will be blocked from enrolling at UCSB and other state higher education institutions.
It means cuts in grants for low-income senior citizens and people with disabilities — about 18,000 in Santa Barbara County alone — to meet basic living expenses.
And all this coming just a year after the Legislature and governor not only cut the budget substantially but also enacted the largest state tax increase in history, on income, retail sales and vehicle fees to name just three.
There are two basic factors underlying the deficit.
The first is the recession that has hit California harder than almost any other state and, in the process, reduced tax revenues to roughly the same level as 1999 when adjusted for inflation.
The second driver is more pernicious — a long-term structural deficit in which the state for much of the last decade has defied the laws of arithmetic by spending more in its general fund than our tax structure generated, covering the difference with borrowing.
Beginning with Gov. Davis’ last budget back in 2002, the problem has usually been papered over both with short-term borrowing, as well as $15 billion in 30-year bonds sold — not to finance capital projects but to cover annual operating expenses. These bonds are in addition to more than $70 billion in public works bonds approved in the same period, making interest payments the fastest-growing item in the budget.
As the governor likes to say, the day of reckoning has come; California’s broken political system has helped sink our credit rating to 50th among states, making it problematic for the state to continue its borrowing spree.
As a political matter, the annual struggle to pass a budget is currently focused almost exclusively on reducing expenditures.
The one substantial proposal to raise revenue is the governor’s effort to resurrect the Tranquillon Ridge oil project, off the coast from Vandenberg Air Force Base, which would bring in an estimated $1.8 billion in royalties during the 15-year life of a state lease.
But for the most part, the debate in Sacramento is all about cuts.
Journalists aren’t generally very good with math and when they write about “cuts” they’ve been known to just echo what their sources in government say; when you break it down, the “cuts” turn out to mean an agency is getting less of an increase from last year than they expected or asked for.
However, for the 2010-11 budget year, the governor has proposed general fund spending of about $83 billion. This compares to $66 billion a decade ago. In inflation adjusted dollars, according to the governor’s Department of Finance, his proposed budget represents about about 10 percent less spending than a decade ago.
How Did We Get Here?
To understand how we got to this point, we need to look at a half-dozen key political factors.
The first is gerrymandering.
The once-a-decade process of drawing political maps based on the new census has grown increasingly partisan and polarized. To some extent it has always been thus, but in recent decades it’s become essentially an incumbent protection effort of crafting districts are either safe Democrat or safe Republican.
In that political context, general elections are seldom competitive and have become increasingly devalued. The key electoral contest in most districts is now the party primary; because primaries attract the most loyal partisan voters, they become contests over who is the most liberal Democrat or the most conservative Republican.
The result has been growing ideological polarization in Sacramento as moderates and centrists have become endangered species.
A second important development came in 1990, when voters approved term limits for state office holders, a change that has had big unintended consequences.
Term limits didn’t get rid of career politicians — it just changed the arc of their careers. Instead of spending 20 or more years in the Assembly or state Senate, many elected officials began to position themselves for the next office the instant they arrived in Sacramento, knowing they would term out in six years in the Assembly and eight in the senate, but without the political need to be accountable for the long-term impacts of their actions.
After moving from one legislative house to the other, they then begin to position themselves for statewide office.
Exhibit A is Bill Lockyer, the state treasurer and exactly the kind of career politician term limits was supposed to thwart.
Lockyer had already served 17 years in the Legislature when term limits passed; since then he’s termed out in the Senate then jumped from being attorney general to treasurer. He’s now served 36 years in Sacramento, more than half of it under term limits.
Another unintended consequence was to remove institutional memory from the Legislature, making lobbyists, not legislators, the repositories of public policy expertise. That lobbyists also happen to be extremely helpful in raising campaign contributions adds an overlay of soft corruption to the process.
A third important factor began with the passage of Proposition 13, the 1978 property tax cut.
In addition to its delivery of property tax relief and stabilization of annual tax increases, the measure had several other important effects.
Then-Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democrat-dominated Legislature, who had campaigned fiercely against Prop. 13, were legally charged to implement it. In doing so they took two actions that set the stage for what has followed.
First they totally realigned — “tangled” would be a more accurate verb — the relationship between state and local governments by shifting control of remaining property tax revenue to Sacramento.
In so doing they transformed California’s political landscape, moving power and responsibility for health, welfare and schools from city councils, boards of supervisors and school boards to the Legislature.
They also used more than $5 billion of state surplus money to “bail out” local governments from the impact of Prop. 13. That is to say, the state enabled local governments to maintain levels of spending and services they were then engaged in. To one extent or another, the state has been doing the same thing every year since.
Prop. 13 also ushered in a three-decade era of ballot-box budgeting.
The list of initiative measures passed by state voters that locked in spending is long — from approval of “three strikes” measures and bonds that expanded the prisons budget to Proposition 98, which set a floor on education funding, and many other measures setting aside money for programs from mental health benefits to medical care for poor kids.
Many of these initiatives were worthy programs. But taken together they hamstrung elected policymakers, taking more and more dollars, and thus power, out of the hands of the Legislature and governor, and setting up a Byzantine budget process that defies understanding.
Another key element shaping the mess in Sacramento is California’s boom-and-bust taxation system, which results in huge annual shifts in tax collections.
When economic times are good, money pours in and there’s no incentive — in fact, term limits creates a perverse disincentive — for long-term financial planning; the dollars get spent as fast as they come in.
During the dot-com boom, for example, general fund spending increased 35 percent in just two years, from fiscal 1998 to fiscal 2000; when the boom crashed, spending was flat for a couple of years, but then the real estate bonanza was on, and spending again skyrocketed — more than 25 percent in the two-year period from fiscal 2004 to ‘06.
This was the period when California’s public pensions exploded, after Gov. Davis negotiated a sweetheart deal with the powerful state corrections officers lobby. It was an unprecedented expansion of pension benefits that mushroomed to public employees across the state and has led today to an unfunded pension and health care liability of at least $60 billion.
As they say in Louisiana, laissez les bons temps rouler.
The sixth and final big factor in shaping California’s unique political calculus is the two-thirds vote requirements the state has both for passing a budget and for new taxes. The budget requirement has been in the Constitution since the New Deal; the tax restriction since Prop. 13.
California is one of three states — the other two are Arkansas and Rhode Island — requiring a two-thirds vote to pass a budget, and one of about a dozen that requires a super-majority for tax hikes. We are the only state that has it for both.
Back in the long-lost days when there was a political center in Sacramento, it was possible to find the middle ground required by a two-thirds vote. But in the polarized politics of 2010, there is no center, which effectively hands a veto over fiscal matters to the minority party.
All these factors came together in 2003 in a political tsunami that ended with the recall of Gray Davis. Gov. Schwarzenegger came in assuring us he would “blow up boxes” and be immune to these political pressures.
Alas, the structure was greater than the man. Arnold learned that playing a governor was a lot easier than governing, and his administration has fallen to the same forces as Davis.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Amid all this doom and gloom, however, there is a glimmer of hope. The state’s desperate situation has energized a number of efforts to push for reforms aimed at repairing our broken government.
The first of these is Proposition 11, which voters narrowly approved in November 2008. This would take the power of legislators to draw their own districts, a conflict of interest for the ages, and give it to an independent commission beginning with the census of 2010.
The importance of this reform cannot be overstated and it’s instructive to note that even before this panel gets off the ground, legislative leaders from both parties are preparing a separate measure to undo Proposition 11.
In June, voters will decide on Proposition 14, a constitutional amendment to create a series of open primaries. This would change the current partisan system so that a general election contest would be between the two highest vote getters in the primary, regardless of party.
Supporters, led by Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, believe it will discourage ideological extremism and encourage moderation, as politicians appeal to voters in the center rather than right or left.
The November ballot will also most likely include one or more initiatives to dump the two-thirds requirement for budget votes and perhaps for taxes as well, plus possible measures to roll back pension benefits for newly hired public employees, as well as the aforementioned initiative to legalize and tax marijuana.
One major push for reform has come from a group called California Forward, which is backed by a collection of blue chip non-profit organizations including the Haas, Hewlett, Irvine and Packard foundations.
The ideologically diverse group tried and failed to qualify a ballot measure and is now working in the Legislature to reach agreement on a package of reform proposals, including two-year budgeting, performance management measures, a sunset review of government codes, a rainy-day reserve fund and a “pay-go” requirement for new legislation or initiatives to identify sources of funding or cuts.
The most radical and dramatic reform push was led by the corporate members of the Bay Area Council. They were pushing a plan to convene a state constitutional convention, the first since 1879. It’s worth noting that the state Constitution, which has been amended hundreds of times, is longer than that of India, and five times as long as the U.S. Constitution.
The proposal was to wipe the slate clean and to begin anew organizing the structure of governance in the state. Tellingly, the effort was abandoned when the very companies that are members of the council failed to provide sufficient funding for a campaign; apparently they felt that the status quo served their interests better.
Looking Ahead
All of this will make for an intriguing campaign season in 2010, which will feature a lively battle to replace Schwarzenegger.
The Democratic candidate will be Attorney General and former Gov. Brown while on the Republican side, two wealthy Silicon Valley success stories, Whitman and Steve Poizner, are wooing GOP voters.
That race has been shaped so far by Whitman’s extraordinary spending, which has already broken all records for a campaign for governor, more than two months before the primary.
Amid a treacherous political landscape, candidates will face some skepticism about whether California is in fact governable, and therefore whether it really matters who replaces Arnold.
Voters must hope that the severe political distress now afflicting Sacramento will set the stage for an important and future-oriented campaign to be fought over how the candidates define change in seeking the best ways and means of reforming state government.
As The Economist put it in its story on California, the ungovernable state:
“A good outcome is no longer possible,” it ominously said of our current budget woes. “One way or the other, Californians will have to begin discussing how to fix their broken state.”
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
— Click here for more information on the Channel City Club.
Comments
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» on 04.04.10 @ 08:41 AM
California is ungovernable because its economy is collapsing and the middle class is fleeing. Here’s a chart from today’s SF Chronicle showing the loss in Bay Area manufacturing jobs since 1990. Even the Chronicle seems to understand that just raising taxes won’t solve California’s problems.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2010/04/04/BU491CO3TD.DTL&o=2
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» on 04.04.10 @ 10:20 AM
Excellent presentation, and right on the money. The underlying problem with California is it’s relentless desire to strive for democracy rather than what was intended - a representative democracy. A trend we are seeing in our federal system and highlighted specifically with the passage of the 17th Amendment. Significant difference. These proposals are a definite attempt to get back to a government that works. Daniel Petry
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» on 04.04.10 @ 01:13 PM
The unions who control our worthless paid off leaders in Californai, have destroyed this once great state. Pelosi, Boxer, Fienstein, Capps, Nava, Wolf, Farr, Carbajal, All should be put in jail for excepting union bribes or pay offs from unions. They are just puppets -Vote the shills out..
California is bankrupt..Over staffed, over paid Government losers, who couldn’t make it in the real world—Not the sharpest pencils in the box..
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» on 04.04.10 @ 02:20 PM
There is a leadeship crisis in Sacramento. Why did the governor allow the budget crisis to happen in the first place?
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» on 04.04.10 @ 04:15 PM
So the legislature does not exist? The underlying problem with California is it’s relentless desire to strive for democracy rather than what was intended - a representative democracy.
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» on 04.04.10 @ 07:08 PM
Our state and Washington are one and the same. How can we prosper if spending is out of control. Frankly, the liberal left wing servants lost their way. It would surprise me if they used their own check-books would they make the same decisions. All politions think, from day one how they will be reelected and start fund raising. They must repay every debt owed to donors who made it possible to win. The people are secondary. Common sense is out and votes along party lines is primarily achieved. They all need to be kicked out along with their counterparts in Washington. Every state during prosperity can’t wait to offer more perks, raises, and endless spending.Do they have savings accounts? After they are elected their judgement shifts off course. Nobody trusts these guys. They get us by the short hairs, ignore their responsibilities, are swayed by unions and special interest groups. Will they ever get it right? For now they don’t deserve my vote.
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» on 04.04.10 @ 07:35 PM
Strange… the California Legislature is part of the problem, but Daniel Petry wants to increase its power, by giving the Legislature power to appoint US Senators through repeal of the 17th amendment.
The 17th amendment was a reaction to corruption and dysfunctionality in the State Legislatures. Before the 17th amendment, corporations and wealthy folks were able to buy US Senate seats. Seems like a terrible idea to go back to that awful pre-17th amendment system.
The US Founders made lots of mistakes, including most prominently, African American Slavery. No need for following all their ideas.
As for Roberts’ terrific articles, for sure, pension benefits for all State and Local Government employees need to be reduced. I think having better apportionment would mean we could eliminate term limits.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 06:34 AM
As usual you are wrong. The 17th was a progressive application to drive the nation from a representative democracy closer to a democracy. Our founders knew that a democracy never works but that in a democracy the electorate was easier to control. They needed to remove this particular check and balance. For example now you are seeing the progressives call for elections of federal judges, Supreme Ciurt. Thus would cap off their attack on representative government. It was no surprise that their boy recently attacked them during his childish rant in the SOTU.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 07:27 AM
Hey, publius with a small p, I’m still waiting for an answer to my last question. “Did you serve in the U.S. military?”
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» on 04.05.10 @ 08:22 AM
The answer to Roberts’ headline question is: yes, California [under its current political structure] is an ungovernable state. And when I read (yesterday’s LA Times) that a survey of independent voters indicated strong support from that group for both Boxer (far far left) and Whitman (center or mildly right) I have to conclude that the Independents, on whom the elections depend for a decision, are schizophrenic and the state will remain ungovernable.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 08:37 AM
John, I am an Independent, one of those dratted 21% of voters that tend to vote more on issues and less along party lines. I agree, with our recent about-face on Obama, the group might be schizophrenic…or they might have fallen for the hype and are now left dealing with the reality. At any rate, I liked this article because it does a great job outlining some of why we have issues. As a 10 year resident, it FEELS at times like California was bombing along on a nice prosperous road so it could dream utopic dreams like big pensions, education reform, the UCal system, water for the biggest agricultural producing region in the country, and other big goals. Bad economy + policies that are too hostile to profitable business + overarching liberalism = state disaster. The good news is…I think we can overcome this, but the reforms will be major, and not along party lines. Right now, we could send Mother Theresa to Sacramento, and the outcome would be bad. The system, the process, is completely broken. Many of the suggestions outlined here would help A LOT, as would restricting that ballot initiative process where a couple of us scribble something on a napkin, get thousands of signatures to back it, and then place it in front of voters who neither understand it, nor will bother to do the research. That’s not a true democracy. If we can turn this around, the rest of the country will eventually follow, so be careful, California. The reforms we put in place may end up being adopted by Washington…if they work. I hope they do, and I hope all of us roll up our sleeves and get to work on this. Too much is at stake…
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» on 04.05.10 @ 10:41 AM
downtownres, I agree with much of what you say. I’ve been here 13 years and watched CA go downhill most of that time, at least since the market crash of 1999-2000.
I think that Prop 13 has done much (albeit not enough) to restrict state government spending and rather than eliminate Prop 13, I propose the following two simple modifications:
1. eliminate the provision that allows the tax basis of a home to be passed on the heirs. I’ve read that CA is alone in doing that. Most states give senior citizens a property tax break but reset the tax basis when that homeowner dies - the heirs get a new tax basis. On my street I am aware of a 10-fold difference in property tax between two adjacent homes - one home was purchased recently, the other was inherited from Mommy. I do not consider it fair taxation for the heirs of homeowners to be supported in a lifestyle they may not otherwise afford by undertaxing them and overtaxing others.
2. eliminate the application of Prop 13 to business property. My business leases space in a building on which the taxes thanks to Prop 13 are about 1/3 of what they should be, but of course my lease reflects todays market rents. This is plain and simple a gift to business property owners.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 11:02 AM
Downtownres, I’ve lived here all my life with the exception of a few years back east and abroad. I can tell you our state’s demise began a long time ago, like 40 years ago. Just like nationally, we here decided that we were a growing powerful economy that could take on more entitlements, welfare and regulatory costs. What we did not realize is the enormous dead weight of these ideas and the fragility of market economies under siege by government. The result has been the conversion of a mighty and powerful producer economy capable of producing more wealth than it consumed to a retirement/service economy that consumes more wealth than it produces. You are right, that philosophy was exported to the rest of the nation and our trade balance has suffered dramatically at the national level. It is that reason primarily, that I dropped out of the liberal/progressive camp and became a conservative. Gee maybe there is something to learning from past mistakes that the liberal/progressive camp seems to consistently ignore.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 05:02 PM
Hey AN50, I haven’t totally made the conversion yet to conservatism, but it has its more appealing days, I must say. Truthfully, it feels to me like neither liberalism nor conservatism has the answer, just part of it. Same with Dems and Repubs - they each have some good answers on certain issues, but to buy the whole package (required) is just too off-putting to land me in either of those camps. It seems lately I am reading comparisons between California (in death spiral) and Texas (rebounding nicely) in major publications. Since Texas was my last home state, I am particularly interested, but don’t always agree with the comparisons. Nevertheless, I do see Texas making some strides I wish we’d make:
1. Really great public schools, financed by property taxes
2. First-rate smooth blacktop highways (financed by gas taxes)
3. A large immigration population that somehow isn’t bringing them down to their knees. They are the largest border state.
4. A booming economy due to low taxes and major friendliness to businesses seeking to locate there, lower housing cost for employees, and lower salaries for workers.
5. A building permit process that looks like it takes all of 45 minutes.
They definitely have some environmental issues associated with 4 and 5 above, such as Houston passing Los Angeles for worst air quality. But I’d love to have good schools for our kids, decent highways, and a booming economy. Is that so wrong? Texans don’t pay personal income taxes, aren’t in a financial mess, and somehow have better schools and roads than we do.
They are also a seriously red state, and are #2 behind AK in land mass, and CA in population. But for #2, they’re kicking butt, and I would love for my state (CA) to be doing at least as well. We’ve got UCal! We’ve got the San Joaquim valley! We’ve got WINE! We’ve got Hollywood (good and bad) and the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial genius. How can we convince our state to take the reigns off the great economic engines and let them bring prosperity?? How can we get our state to stop protecting the three toad sprocket or delta smelt at the expense of our entire farming industry? How can we get our state to realize that we can offer education and training, but not handouts to get our populace fully competitive? California is the dream-state for a reason - it leads everyone else, if our little social experiments prove successful. But if we fail…the country will follow Texas’ lead, and maybe that is good in some things, but certainly not in all things…
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» on 04.05.10 @ 05:13 PM
Huh? Direct election of US Senators is representative democracy… you vote for representatives and they represent you.
Selection of Senators by State Legislatures, which is how it was before the 17th amendment, just makes it easier for corruption.
Would anyone rather have their US Senators elected by the California Assembly/Senate, than by popular vote?
I doubt it. The California Assembly/Senate is dysfunctional as it is. Why give them and their controllers (the SEIU, the Prison Guards, etc) even more power? I think Daniel Petry is off on a destructive tangent with this `Repeal the 17th Amendment’ idea.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 06:42 PM
You have to excuse me I just had to look after my bloody forehead as a result of hitting my head against the floor. My god how this country is suffering because civics is no longer taught. It’s hopeless for some to understand that the founders gave citizens representation through the House of Representatives and the States, who created thefederal government, representation through the Senate. I guess you want all the corruption located in the shining city. Daniel Petry.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 07:23 PM
Hey, publius with a small p, I’m still waiting for an answer to my last question. “Did you serve in the U.S. military?”
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» on 04.05.10 @ 07:39 PM
Well, you can save yourself the bloody forehead, Daniel. Civics has taught me (as well as the States which ratified the 17th Amendment in a manner completely consistent with the US Constitution) that selection of US Senators by State Legislatures was corrupt and not representative of anyone except big money interests.
Do you really want SEIU and the Prison Guards Union to select the next US Senators from California? Somehow I doubt it.
Hooray for the 17th Amendment. Hooray for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments too, the results of the US Government’s great victory over terrorists. Now the 16th Amendment, that one you can keep.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 08:30 PM
Yes. I’d rather adhere to the Founders framework rather than the progressives agenda even if it means SEIU and your Prison Guards decide on Boxer and Pelosi. So yea I do.
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» on 04.05.10 @ 10:07 PM
Do you want to return to the Founders Framework concerning human slavery as well?
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» on 04.05.10 @ 10:43 PM
Remember//////////
Most the people who want even bigger government and rely on welfare or government jobs for survival, cant make it in the real world—They depend on us for their food and shelter, and think they cant survive without us..very dule tools in the shed..
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» on 04.07.10 @ 02:20 PM
publius with a small p I want my free health care NOW! I’m asking you since you pushed this so hard and you seem to be tied into the free stuff system. Now I want my free stuff NOW! I want my free Obama Care. I want my free Obama Care.
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» on 04.09.10 @ 01:11 PM
Better start saving your money, Californians. Each of you are on the hook for an as yet unknown amount to pay off the $500,000,000,000 (that’s a half trillion, or 500 billion dollars) in state pension obligations (growing every day our legislature does nothing about it). And if you live in SB county, you’re each on the hook for your share of the $500,000,000 (that’s 500 million dollars) also growing everyday our Board of Supervisors continue to do nothing.
Is California ungovernable? No, California is not ungovernable. It is being governed as I write by unprincipled legislators elected and controlled by greedy labor unions for the financial benefit of both groups, but not for the benefit of the voters and taxpayers. As long as the people keep electing professional politicians who have no regard for the peoples’ money to office, the downward spiral will continue and your children and grandchildren will be saddled with the enormous debts that the California voters, by their foolish voting decisions, created. Financial responsibility is no fun, but it’s real, even though not recognized by the clear majority of California voters.
And when the bills come due, I and others who understand the longer term effects of some of the most incredibly stupid government (bought and paid for by greedy Labor) decisions ever made, will be in low tax states saying ‘I told you so’, leaving the rest with an even bigger share of the bill.
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