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Accounting for California's suicide
Jewish World Review ^ | March 5, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 03/05/2009 5:44:47 AM PST by reaganaut1

What went wrong in California?

...

California managed to achieve all at once the nation's highest sales and income tax rates — and yet also the largest annual state deficit. So far under Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure, state spending grew 34.9 percent, well beyond inflation and population that increased only 21.5 percent. And yet the governor often prevented the state Legislature from spending even more it didn't have.

The budgets of Medi-Cal, the state-run health program for the poor, are out of control. Prison costs increased about 50 percent in less than a decade, and now claim almost 10 percent of state spending — almost as much as higher education.

The state is in its third year of drought. Billions of dollars of agricultural production are threatened by water cut-offs. Yet California hasn't build a major dam or canal in years.

...

More than half a million aliens are caught each year trying to enter California's southern border illegally. Some estimates put illegal alien state residents at 3 million, a population that may cost the state's taxpayers more than $13 billion per year for services.

California has the worst credit rating in the nation. It has the fourth highest unemployment rate and the second highest home foreclosure rate, thanks to enormously inflated prices due in part to complicated building regulations, high labor costs, and often Byzantine land-use restrictions. California's net state-to-state migration loss was higher than every other state.

...

But less discussed is the common culprit: a weird sort of utopian mindset. Perhaps because have-it-all Californians live in such a rich natural landscape and inherited so much from their ancestors, they have convinced themselves that perpetual bounty is now their birthright — not something that can be lost in a generation of complacency.

(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: California
KEYWORDS: aliens; calbudget; vdh; victordavishanson
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Let's expand the policies that have worked so well in California to the whole country!
1 posted on 03/05/2009 5:44:48 AM PST by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

That seems to be the approach we are taking.


2 posted on 03/05/2009 5:46:55 AM PST by ontap (Just another backstabbing conservative)
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To: reaganaut1
Let's expand the policies that have worked so well in California to the whole country!

Obama is doing his best.

3 posted on 03/05/2009 5:47:04 AM PST by MEGoody (Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
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To: reaganaut1

But, but, but, Californian’s are so enlightened...


4 posted on 03/05/2009 5:47:29 AM PST by areukiddingme1 (areukiddingme1 is a synonym for a Retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer and tired of liberal BS.)
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To: reaganaut1

—posted five minutes ago—great minds, etc.,—

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2199751/posts


5 posted on 03/05/2009 5:47:54 AM PST by rellimpank (--don't believe anything the MSM tells you about firearms or explosives--NRA Benefactor)
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Jack Cashill wrote an entire book on the subject...

Mark


6 posted on 03/05/2009 5:49:59 AM PST by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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To: reaganaut1
Schwarzenegger's a big girly man who couldn't take the pressure from his liberal hollywood buddies or from his liberal wife (whip craking sound...).

He truly is a Kennedy....but think Rose or Caroline and not JFK who was more conservative than most current republicans.

7 posted on 03/05/2009 5:53:13 AM PST by Vaquero ( "an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: reaganaut1

California and Massachusetts are models for what The One is trying to do to the entire country.


8 posted on 03/05/2009 5:54:15 AM PST by pabianice
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To: reaganaut1
They say that things are tried out in California before the rest of the country. Let's see, we have a welfare state that welcomes illegal invaders, taxes the hell out of the productive people so much that they leave or stop producing, overseen by a celebrity with zero governing experience.

Yeah, I think the country's ready for that.

9 posted on 03/05/2009 5:55:37 AM PST by hunter112 (SHRUG - Stop Hussein's Radical Utopian Gameplan!)
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To: reaganaut1

“What went wrong in CA?”

LIBERALISM


10 posted on 03/05/2009 5:56:39 AM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: areukiddingme1

“But, but, but, Californian’s are so enlightened?”

and Virginians are soooooooooooooo much brighter...stick to what you know...working for the government & playing basketball. LOL


11 posted on 03/05/2009 6:00:10 AM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: kellynla
Socialism. Higher taxes, spending and onerous regulations. No one wants to move to California. Its just not worth putting down roots there. I'm glad I left a few years ago.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

12 posted on 03/05/2009 6:00:40 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

I lived in California (SF) for six months. If you like a series of brown hills each adorned with a single tree, you may like the scenery. Unfortunately the people are absolutely nuts. Hanson hits it right. They think they are the center of the universe. As much as I hate to see anyone hurting, all I can say is sometimes Karma sucks.


13 posted on 03/05/2009 6:09:20 AM PST by mort56 (He who would sacrifice freedom for security deserves neither. - Ben Franklin)
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To: goldstategop

Well, we’re gonna “stay & fight”...
Marines never liked showing the enemy our backside. BIG SMILE


14 posted on 03/05/2009 6:17:14 AM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: reaganaut1

If it were just conservatives leaving California, I wouldn’t care, but the damned liberals leave the cesspool they created and then proceed to institute the very same damned policies that screwed up California in their new state!

It is the same with liberals everywhere. They aren’t satisfied with soiling their own nests and making the people in their circle miserable. NO! They won’t be happy until EVERYONE is equally miserable!


15 posted on 03/05/2009 6:23:48 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. Margret Thatcher)
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To: reaganaut1

Medical pays Planned parenthood $500 per abortion in their state. Way to grow your tax base.


16 posted on 03/05/2009 6:24:58 AM PST by Missouri gal
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To: Blood of Tyrants

We, in the Southeast have exactly the same problem. The New York, New Jersey set move down South to take advantage of the lower property costs, the lower taxes and the decrease in government interference. They then proceed to elect people that want to raise taxes, increase regulations and institute the exact same type of problems that they just left.

Thanks a lot damn yankees!


17 posted on 03/05/2009 6:36:49 AM PST by Bob Buchholz
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To: reaganaut1

My beloved California has become a kleptocracy run by state employee’s and teachers’ unions, who pull the strings on their puppets in the legislature. In 2005, Arno tried to break their hold on the state through the initiative process. He was broken, instead. Sadly, I see no hope. I expect all business to be driven out of the state; we will become a pauper dependent on alms from the federal government.


18 posted on 03/05/2009 7:01:46 AM PST by stop_fascism
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To: reaganaut1
Good article. What jumped out at me were these two paragraphs, which IMO, describes a good part of the citizenry today. Too many forget that we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before.

In other words, the present generation enjoyed quite a head start on their lives through the work and investment of often forgotten predecessors.
and
Perhaps because have-it-all Californians live in such a rich natural landscape and inherited so much from their ancestors, they have convinced themselves that perpetual bounty is now their birthright — not something that can be lost in a generation of complacency.

19 posted on 03/05/2009 7:22:31 AM PST by Oatka ("A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." –Bertrand de Jouvenel)
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To: kellynla

“But, but, but, Californian’s are so enlightened?”

Let me re-phrase my statement;

“But, but, but, the Liberal/Elite Californian’s are so enlightened.”

I forget we still have folks like you out there dug in their fighting positions holding the line.

“We’re surrounded. That simplifies the problem.”
- Attributed to Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, USMC


20 posted on 03/05/2009 9:23:44 AM PST by areukiddingme1 (areukiddingme1 is a synonym for a Retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer and tired of liberal BS.)
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