Posted on 06/27/2009 7:18:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- In just a few weeks time, California hits the wall.
And Americans should take a good, long look at the fiscal and social wreck of the Golden Land, because California is at a place to which all of America is heading.
In May, when five fund-raising proposals were put on the ballot, Gov. Schwarzenegger pleaded with the overtaxed Californians not to make their state "the poster child for dysfunction."
As The Economist writes, "On May 18th, they did exactly that."
Arnold went to the White House for U.S. loan guarantees for new state bonds. But with the president's approval rating wilting because of a belief he is spending too much, the Obama-ites slammed the door.
In Sacramento, a Republican blocking force is resisting any new tax revenue. And with the state under a constitutional mandate to balance its budget, yet facing a $24 billion deficit this July, a chainsaw is about to be taken to state government.
Some 38,000 of 168,000 state prisoners may be released. As Barack Obama is pushing universal health insurance, California will cut Medi-Cal for the poor. Education will be slashed, resulting in a shortened school year, thousands of laid-off teachers, school closings and an end to summer programs in a system that has plummeted from the nation's best to one of its worst, as measured by dropout rates and academic achievement.
The 10 campuses of the University of California face cuts that may result in 50,000 fewer students and 5,000 fewer teachers.
What makes her fiscal crisis relevant to us all is not only that California is our most populous state, with one in eight Americans living there, but California has a gross domestic product larger than Canada's.
Moreover, the demography of California today is the demography of America tomorrow, just as the social and fiscal policies of California in the last decade mirror those of the U.S. government today.
One-third of all U.S. wage-earners today have been amnestied from paying U.S. income taxes, as the top 1 percent haul fully 40 percent of that huge load. So, too, in California, the well-to-do and the wealthy are hammered, which is why many have quietly closed their businesses, packed and gone back over the mountains whence their fathers came.
Under George W. Bush and Obama, the U.S. government has undertaken huge new responsibilities: No Child Left Behind, Medicare prescription drug benefits, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the takeovers of banks and auto companies, bailouts without end and national health insurance.
California, too, spent lavishly in the fat years and issued bonds when state revenues did not cover the costs, bringing its once-sterling credit rating down to the nation's lowest. So, too, U.S. Treasury bonds, T-bills and the American dollar are now increasingly suspect.
Demographically, California is where America will be in 2040.
White folks, who are leaving California as they did in the millions in the 1990s, are below half the population. Hispanics, their numbers surging due to legal and illegal immigration, are well over a third of the population. The African-American share of California's population is also falling, as the Asian share is rising, again from immigration.
Los Angeles, which is what most large American cities will look like, is the most diverse city on earth. Has diversity been a strength?
In the prisons and jails, and among the scores of thousands in street gangs and the underclass, a black-brown civil war is underway.
In October 2006, the Financial Times reported the findings of the famed author of "Bowling Alone" on what diversity has wrought:
"A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University's Robert Putnam, one of the world's most influential political scientists. His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone -- from their next-door neighbor to the mayor."
"In the presence of diversity, we hunker down," said Putnam. "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us."
"Professor Putnam," said the Financial Times, "found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, 'the most diverse human habitation in human history.'"
Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan carried California nine times. But the state is now a fiefdom of liberalism. John McCain's share of the vote was smaller than Barry Goldwater's. California today believes in Big Government, open borders, diversity, multiculturalism and the politics of compassion. But what liberalism has wrought in California, its native-born are fleeing.
Still, where California is at, America is headed.
Californians who are running away from the communities and towns in which they were raised have Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Utah and Nevada to head to. But when all of America arrives at where California is at today, where do the Americans run to?
I am sure that funding for services for illegals and all other forms of welfare will be increased.
Truth in advertising requires that this be modified to reflect "apparent Americans" because of the massive count of illegal Mexicans.
All of these cuts are designed to make people scream to have their taxes raised. Cuts with real meaning like denying illegals emergency room care except for life threatening care and then shipment back home, are poo-pooed by Arnold as unnecessary, eliminating the CA version of the EPA would be another winning money saver and repealing any spending that has been authorized for global warming efforts should be a priority but none of these things will be done until people make it plain they will brook no more tax and spending increases.
It is far more important to the politicians to retain power than to take care of the citizens interest(and that doesn't mean socialism!). Down with democrats, up with conservatives, bring back the golden state and throw all the traitorous communist out of office!
>>throw all the traitorous communist out of office!<<
Starting with htat damn RINO pig-in-a-poke Ahnold!
They will stop running. They will turn and fight in a massive bloodletting the likes of which Americans have never seen on their own soil.
We need to stand and fight. We need to drive the illegals out..no amnestity..never. The state is not graduating kids because they have no motivation to finish school. Cultural thing.
If the welfare and health care went away..so would they.
If we stopped giving out money for kids..the births would stop. We are writing the checks to support people we don’t want here.
Here's the absolute 100% truth: There is more oil in that state than you can imagine. It seeps up through the sand on the beach in places like Santa Barbara. You get it all over your feet if you walk barefoot on the beach in certain areas. California could magically make its deficit disappear in an instant if they suddenly decided to drill.
But no, it makes more sense to release the 38,000 prisoners who are in the state illegally anyway that the tax payers will continue to pay for when they get out of jail.
The defeat of 1a was the turning point for CA. For the first time the usual human shields of cops, firefighters and teachers couldn’t save the day for the unions. The unions are the cause of 90% of the state’s budget problems.
Hey, what’s the problem. Works for Sen. Boxer and Sen. Slimestein.
My Favorite beach was in Summerlin, just south of Santa Barbara and remember well having to scrub the tar off my feet.
Yes, the entire US is sliding hellbent toward becoming a socialist train wreck like California. In it's heyday Californians used to brag their state was leading the way for the entire US. In the past I was never quite sure that was true, but I believe it now.
The saddest part of our decline toward Californiated Obamulism is that it will be only a way stop on our plumet to the true bottom of the barrel. To get an idea of where we are really headed, look at Detroit Michigan, Gary Indiana, Newark New Jersey, Atlanta Georgia, etc.
But the ultimate reality will probably be worse than that. Even those places would be much worse today but for massive federal subsidies every year. In a few years when there is almost no productivity left in the US, and the businesses and people producing the tax money that now supports these socialist paradises are idle, out of work or moved to other countries the massive federal support will dry up.
Then we will see how much empathy our black Muslim master can muster for whites, conservatives and others who do not drink the Kool-Aid. Rest assured it won't be much.
Send this to all constituents in Bono Mack’s district - she thinks “Cap ‘n Tax” will be the silver bullet for all the probs in Palm Sprgs. I think she’s been in a switcheroo mode lately - just like her step daughter/son, Chastity/Chaz, ooooof!
Hey, it won’t be long, as soon as all the illegals starve to death, we should be able to vote conservatives in. Besides, my county, and the surrounding ones, vote in conservatives all the time, our rep in the house(federal), Dan lungren(ok but he is conservative compared to dems)voted against the cap and tax us silly bill. We voted in Prop 8, we voted out all their BS propositions back in May, things are swinging back to the right. Hopefully they will change significantly before the state totally collapses.
We certainly have our work cut out for us.
Nevertheless, the picture is not entirely bleak. For instance, the overwhelming defeat of Propositions 1A through E in California gives me reason to be cautiously optimistic. Likewise, the passage of Proposition 8 was a good sign.
It has taken us 80 years to get into the mess we're in. No doubt it will take 80 more to reverse the damage. We need to get busy.
Hey, liberalism has much worse in store.
America may be headed towards the California train wreck, but California is headed towards being the next Michigan.
Republic of Texas? Not there yet, but what event might make it happen? Maybe the collapse of California and/or New York? Registration or confiscation of handguns? US Treasury bond auction failure? EPA regulating all water on farms and ranches?
A conservative estimate is that there are more than 3 million illegals there. I think there are at least twice as many. And that isn't counting the former illegals that were amnestied in our two most recent amnesty experiments. The 1986 amnesty netted 1.6 million illegals in California alone.
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