Posted on 03/15/2012 4:01:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
In less than 50 years they ruined my home state.
They over-taxed it, over-regulated it and bankrupted it. They strangled its vibrant economy, destroyed its education system and let its infrastructure crumble.
Who are these people who've turned the Golden State into Greece?
Not Big Business. Not the rich. Not the poor. Not millions of immigrants from Des Moines or Juarez.
"They" are the career politicians in Sacramento. Their excessive lawmaking, taxing and spending have transformed California into a European welfare state with a grim future.
It's hard for me to believe how things have deteriorated in California since the late 1960s. I can remember when Ronald Reagan was governor. We had a surplus. He actually gave money back to the people of California.
The state once was famous for having the best education system, the best business climate, the best roads and infrastructure in America. It was a growing, dynamic paradise where people came to pursue their dreams and hopes.
Now California's a wreck that people and businesses are leaving in droves. And Gov. Brown and his gang are offering us more of the same this fall -- higher income and sales taxes and a bullet train no one wants but them.
To reverse its death spiral, California needs to return to a part-time legislature and turn its career politicians into part-time citizen politicians -- which is what they are in 41 other states and what they were in California until 1967.
Today the state's 120 legislators work year-round and their $95,000 salaries are sweetened by as much as $50,000 in tax-free per diem allowances. They are the highest-paid lawmakers in the country.
Compare California to Texas and Florida. In Texas they pay legislators $600 a month and the legislature meets 140 days a year. In Florida lawmakers get $30,000 a year and meet just 60 days.
The politicians in Texas and Florida do not make politics their careers. They have to have real jobs in the real world. When they're not in Austin or Tallahassee, they must live and do business under the same laws they have written.
Part-time legislators are what the founding fathers wanted lawmakers to be. My father Ronald Reagan was a citizen politician. Politics was not a career for him. It was a service. He gave of himself.
People have repeatedly asked me to run for the U.S. Senate against Dianne Feinstein. But I think that a new job I have -- chairing the "Citizen Legislature Act" -- is better for me and the state.
California citizens are in the streets collecting signatures now to put the initiative on the fall ballot. The act would return the state to a part-time legislature. Lawmaking sessions would be cut from 230 days to 90 days. And legislators would be forced to produce on-time, balanced budgets or not get paid. What a concept.
The act also would end politics as a full-time career in California. Legislators would be paid $1,500 a month. At $18,000 a year, they'd have to find real jobs and see what it's like to live under the dumb and/or bad laws they write by the thousands in Sacramento.
The "Citizen Legislature Act," which I will work hard to see become law, would shock the systems of the politicians. They'd have to start serving the people of California, not themselves. And I bet they wouldn't be passing any new bullet train legislation.
I think the 140 day limit in Texas is too much, lol.
I think they need to do 30 days to pass a budget and 30 days to consider other legislation. Three weeks before those sessions the appropriate committee members would hold their meetings.
Kalipornia is going to have to hit rock bottom before enough of the locals who are left get a clue.
The Texas legislature meets every other year on odd-numbered years.
Michael Reagan is being politically correct here. California’s problems are not the result of “career politicians”, it is directly the result of corrosive liberal policies.
You have that right, Illegal aliens getting a pass as well.
It’s definitely worthwhile to try to save it. If you don’t, they end up moving across the nation, right next door, and vote to raise your taxes and bring their “values” with them. Californication is to be avoided.
I once loved California. It is beautiful but like Whitney Houston, who once struck me as about the most beautiful women I had ever seen, California caused its own destruction. Beautiful, full of talent and possessed of something wonderful; it’s a description for both Whitney Houston and California. Utterly destroyed and beyond hope? Well, perhaps California has a chance but I doubt it. It would be like trying to talk sense into Whitney Houston back in January. Possible but seriously unlikely. California will petition the nation for help and leftists will once again talk about “ too big to fail” and demand that the other 49 states bail it out.
The “ leaders” in about half of those states will, with a glance at their own balance sheets, agree and get behind the bail-out effort. Good bye federalism, hello feudalism.
I believe they've done that and are now drilling thru bedrock.
a distinction without a difference,
Well, SOMEBODY kept voting those politicians back into office. Again and again and again........
I remember being stationed in CA in the 60s. Great tour.
Then in the 90s went there for some temp work and not only did I have to pay state income tax, but they tried to collect CA income tax on my retirement in VA and also on my wife’s income in VA.
“California’s problems are not the result of “career politicians”, it is directly the result of corrosive liberal policies.’
Really, that is the problem with all failing governments.
You know why Kalifornia wants that hi speed rail train? It’s the only thing apparachniks are good at. Making the trains run on time.
It’s the only thing liberals can take credit for. And it is the only job that liberals should have.
Gd bless him. This is a good start.
Yup. Prop 7(the tax freeze) was a great idea except for one thing. It did not account for the stupidity of intrenched politicians. The Sac crowd just kept on spending - mortgaging CA’s future - never once cutting back or trying to contain expenditures. Classic liberal attitude... giving money away is sooooo easy when its other people’s money.
Sad thing is that aside from LA and SanFran, most of the state is conservative but you would never know it.
Excessive regulation and queer bait policies drove me out of CA in ‘87 never to return... not even to visit. Moved my parents from there in ‘89.
ML/NJ
Frankly, I think it’s too late for California. It cannot be arrested from the slide it has been put on. Best just to get out. Maybe after the collapse it will present good opportunities for cheap real estate.
This applies at the Federal level too!
They want that bullet train, or any other major project financed by combinations of public, and private investment solely for the purpose of setting that money into motion under guise of a project. Once that money is “legitimately” set into motion it is difficult to track every penny, and easy as can be to pocket a considerable amount from the rapidly moving monetary exchanges. “They” report in the end “cost overruns”. Nobody goes to jail.
It’s an old political wealth accumulation trick, and why these so-called “representatives” are so insistant upon jamming such projects down our throats.
Barring the highly unlikely act of voters coming to their senses, bailouts might serve to delay the final crash so it coincides with the rest of this once great Nation.
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