http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjbPZAMked0

The state is full of liberal shit heads who believe in entitlement programs.

Should We Let California Go Bankrupt?
By Steven Malanga

A New York Times story about the budget deal that California legislators struck last week to close the state’s monstrous deficit noted that, “California is an example of what you will see across the country” as state budgets come under pressure from the declining economy.

Hardly. While many states are grappling with budget problems, none are nearly as large as California’s relative to its size––$41 billion in a state of 37 million, or $1,108 per resident. Even New York, the next most fiscally pressed state, clocks in with a mere $13 billion for 19 million residents, or $685 per capita.

There’s good reason why most states won’t fall down the fiscal black hole where California now dwells. This is a state whose politicians, public sector unions and advocacy groups have been living in a fantasy world of overspending, investment-deadening taxation and job-killing regulation. Looking out over the state’s prospects and examining the budget deal that legislators have put together (jerry-rigged as it is with revenue gimmicks and unrealistic projections), the only question is who will be begging Washington for more money sooner, the banks, the auto companies or the Terminator?

The similarities between California and the auto companies are especially striking. Neither can afford their workforce. California schools pay their employees 35 percent more on average in wages and benefits than the national average (17 percent more when adjusted for the state’s higher standard of living), a significant bite because the state funds much of local education (to the tune of $42 billion last year). Benefits are a big part of these costs. A public employee in California with 30 years of service can already retire at 55 with more than half of his salary as pension, and public-safety workers can get 90 percent of their salary at age 50.

Another budget buster is California’s spending on social services, clocking in at about 70 percent more per capita than the national average. Leading the way is state spending on cash assistance programs (that is, welfare), where the state expends nearly three times more per resident than other states. There’s a good reason for this rich budget. California’s legislature has only reluctantly embraced federal welfare reform, and for years the state has had one of the worst records in moving people from welfare to work because state law limits the ability of welfare administrators to sanction those who refuse to participate in work programs.

The rich program of social service benefits is also burdensome because of the state’s large low-wage immigrant population. As Milton Friedman observed in the mid-1990s, you can’t have porous borders and a welfare state. The incentives are all wrong. California has become a case-study in that notion. A report by economists working for the National Academy of Sciences in the mid-1990s concluded that the average native-born California household paid about $1,100 in additional taxes because of government services used by immigrants whose own taxes don’t come close to covering their cost to society. It would be very interesting to see what the numbers are today.

But California doesn’t just have a spending problem. Increasingly it also has economic and revenue problems. Even as I write this other neighboring states are running ads in local newspapers inviting California businesses to move their headquarters out of the state. That’s advertising money well spent. A poll of business executives conducted last year by Development Counsellors International, which advises companies on where to locate their facilities, tabbed California as the worst state to do business in.

There are a host of reasons why California has become toxic to business, ranging from the highest personal income tax rate in the country (small business owners are especially hard hit by PITs), to an environmental regulatory regime that has made electricity so expensive businesses simply can’t compete in California. That is one reason why even California-based businesses are expanding elsewhere, from Google, which built a server farm in Oregon, to Intel, which opened a $3 billion factory for producing microprocessors outside of Phoenix.

In the race for the exits, residents are accompanying businesses. In just one decade California made a remarkable turnabout, going from a state with one of the highest levels of net in-migration to the state with the second highest level of domestic net out-migration. Typically people either head for the exits because they are seeking more economic opportunity or because they are being driven out by high housing costs. You get a little bit of both in California because the state’s zoning regulatory schemes keep housing production artificially low and housing prices high even in a mediocre economy.

As the economist Randall O’Toole points out in his study of housing restrictions, The Planning Penalty, “Thanks to a variety of land-use restrictions, California suffers from the least affordable housing in the nation.” The planning penalty, O’Toole estimates, adds from $70,000 to $230,000 to the cost of a home in the Central Valley, $300,000 to $400,000 in Southern California, and $400,000 to $850,000 in the San Francisco Bay area because in California, 95 percent of the population lives on just 5 percent of the land. “The problem is supply, not demand,” O’Toole observes. “Austin, Atlanta and Raleigh are growing faster than California cities, yet have maintained affordable housing.”

In the last decade, people tried to solve the problem of how to afford expensive housing in California with fancy mortgage products, one reason why the state topped the nation with 523,624 foreclosures last year.

California politicians have been expert at avoiding dealing with these problems. In 2003, enraged citizens recalled Gov. Gray Davis after he announced an impending $38 billion budget deficit. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised reform but delivered only a year of it. When tax revenues spiked in the national economic recovery that started in 2004, California politicians went on another spending spree, increasing expenditures by $34 billion, or 32 percent, in just four years before revenues slumped again.

Then the California legislature wrangled for eight months over the current budget mess, forcing the government to shut down road projects and delay tax refunds because the state needed the extra cash to service its debt. While California technically can’t file for bankruptcy, a default on its debt would have shut down financing options for Sacramento and its municipalities until the state agreed to lenders’ demands that it get its fiscal house in order. At least one of the state’s municipalities, Vallejo, has already filed for bankruptcy and other cities and towns were on the brink before the budget compromise.

California’s budget problems aren’t going away this time. There is no housing boom (or bubble) about to inflate, as it did in 2004, to help burnish the state’s economy, where the unemployment rate is now 9.3 percent, or two full percentage points above the national average. The current budget is only precariously balanced with revenue projections that the state probably won’t meet, and with fiscal gimmicks. And much of the federal stimulus money is geared to spending that increases the size of programs rather than fills in current deficits.

In other words, expect the Golden State to be in desperate need of a bailout soon, one that will certainly gain a receptive ear in the White House because Washington can’t conceive of our largest state defaulting on its debt, even though the prospect has now sunk California’s bond rating lower even than Louisiana’s.

But also expect Washington to take some heat if it simply bail outs out California, especially now that we have governors like Mark Sanford of South Carolina pointing out that the federal aid to states amounts to a subsidy by citizens of fiscally responsible governments to states where legislators have chucked responsibility out the window.

Back in the 1970s, New York City was on the verge of bankruptcy and despite a famous headline (Ford to City: Drop Dead), both the feds and New York State eventually bailed out Gotham, but under strict conditions. They imposed a financial control board which required demanding cuts to services, a new, more transparent budget process and several years of budgetary oversight. Maybe what Washington should impose on California will be a national version of a financial control board to shake some sense into state legislators.

Otherwise, we can always allow the state to default on debt and let its lenders start dictating the terms of California’s budget reforms. Go ahead, California, make my day.


Link to article

You've been watching L.A. Story and The Big Lebowski haven't you?

In before the Cali Appologists.

I want to see some chart thingy's about toofus and other trivial items.  Always entertaining.

Max

Also full of a lot of normal people, who are more pissed off, then the average arfcommer.

Ca should have gone bankrupt, and had a chance to renegotiate their union, and public servant contracts.

Instead, they got ONE fucking, on his way out, R state sen to turn, and pass the largest tax increase in CA history.

You basement dwellers have no idea how much this passing sucked to the people that live here. I'd advise STFU'ing, until my tourettes clears up over this abortion of a "budget"

California's experiment with direct democracy helped get them into this hole. Your average voter is really ill equipped to decide on complex issues involving long term financial commitments by the state. But that is exactly what they do via the referendum process.



Amazing, the Framers of our federal Constitution go another one right.

Well the front fell off

CA is broke because we give every peice of shit mexican that comes hear anything and every thing for free.(Medical,housing,food,schooling) Then there nice enough to not pay taxes or give any thing back except crime and to fuck up our nehiborhoods.

This is the sad truth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.  

Enjoy your weather. I think I might go out and buy a new AR today complete with adjustable stock, bayonet lug, pistol grip and all the evil features I want. Or maybe a .50BMG?

What a condescending piece of shit.

Does it frighten anyone else how these people toss around "trillions" and "hundreds of millions" as if they were abstract concepts?

This guy's stuff is great. Listen to this stuttering fuck.

Pelosi's Double Standard on the Minimum Wage

I dated a gal who worked in the public relations department of the San Diego DAs office. She was classified as a "public safety employee". PR is a dangerous public safety job commanding a generous early retirement?? Must be nice.

She only worked there 6 years at a mid-level job, but is eligible to collect a lifetime pension when she turns 50. When I computed the cost of an immediate annuity to provide her pension, she couldn't believe it - ~$250,000.00

"Public safety" employees who put in 20 or 30 years are promised pensions worth many millions of dollars. I don't see how the state can pay for them all.

So to sum up: You got yours, so screw everyone else. If someone else in your state wants to exercise their Second Amendment right in order to own a .50, well you really don't care. Nice.



You're right. There is more to life than pistol grips. There is light regulation of business. You have that in California, right? There are also low taxes. I pay 3.07% state income tax. In CA I would be paying 9.3%. Last year I paid less than $1,300 in property taxes on my 2,500 square foot home on 1.5 acres of wooded land. I'm sure you pay less on a much larger home on a much larger piece of land. The California sales tax rate is 7.25%, and will be 8.25% in another month. Ours is 6% and has more exemptions. This afternoon I decided to shoot some guns. Like most times the mood strikes me, I just stepped to the edge of my deck and started firing. You do that at your palatial estate in the Golden State, right? But I suppose all us toothless hillbillies just don't know what we are missing out on.




And just to let you know, I've spent plenty of time in California. I telecommuted to a job in San Jose for almost eight years. Had to fly out there on a regular basis. They wanted to move me out there in 2002, but when they ran the numbers, to provide me a comparable standard of living they would have had to give me an obscene raise. Plus the traffic is a disaster. There are some gorgeous things in California. Too bad the state is populated with the second largest concentration of chest-thumping narcissists in the US.

So to reply to the video, that congressman is a fucking prick.

What the blue fuck does that have to do with anything?





I love how you blame the Feds for not taking care of the immigration problem.





If Kalifornia did not just throw money at every anchor baby that is born and pays shit tons of money for entitlement programs and assorted feel good bullshit.



 

YES!! we should let MEXIFORNIA go bankrupt!!!!!! maybe if they ever stop catering to the needs of ILLEGAL aliens and paying for them, then maybe they should get some assistance!!! but it will never happen!! what a shit-ass state!!!

There's a few areas (interior like Fresno) that aren't full of them and there's some (about 20% in L.A. and San Francisco  and 50% in San Diego and Orange County) who don't.but there's enough of them to override the non-liberals.
Some people say move and leave the mess to itself, others say don't give up the largest state in the nation because they'll just expand and you have to fight them somewhere, so might as well fight them in California. What I can say is that life for non-liberals in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles is rough already and not made easier when non-Californians automatically assume everyone from places like that are left wing loons. People in Los Angeles have to drive outside of the county (worst traffic in the nation) to buy ammo (no mail order or internet sales) and sometimes to use a range (posting human targets, 200 yard outdoor ranges, etc.) and in some cases to buy non-used guns (it's my impression most dealers in LA are pawn stores) and to buy a off lower list ar or ak receiver, it's hard to find an FFL who will tranfer ARs/Aks even though they're legal in appropriate configuration (no pistrol grip, no folding stock, no muzzle flash) That's my impression of talking with people from the times I went there to try out for commercials and casting calls.

Uh. I agree, the federal deficit is not discussed enough nor other states debts but the Califoronia Dept of Finance reports a 62 billion dollar past debt for the California and the 42 billion for the next 18 months has a budget but that's not the same as paying for it. The lower credit rating of the state and fewer bond buyers as reported by the Fresno Bee and several other California newspapers point to even more debt.

The hate is strong again today, Paul.

actually a very common liberal mindset found everywhere.

I agree with your points except spending for example (highest teacher pay in the nation and places 48th in math and english based on a liberal organizaions definition) and fastest moving to the state part, which is no longer true, see the census bureaus latests statistics. California has had more domestic outmigration than inmigration and those stats for the years California did place in the top 10 most moved to states, reflects legal immigrants and illegal immigrants but US born citizens have moved out at larger numbers than ones moving in, for over 10 years now. Stockton is listed as Forbes most miserable city by the way.

It grows on trees

Damn right, Dawn.  There are some outstanding people out there no matter what the dipshits think.  

HH

The 4xD comment reminds me a lot of the comments of people who live in upstate New York and are buriedd by the excesses of New York City.





5sub

Actually the opposit is true. The trouble with California is the non native liberals who flock here. The Governor being just one such example.

The data on that chart is orders of magnitude different than this one:  LINK

What's your source?  

The trouble with CA is similar to the trouble with NY, NJ, and other states run completely by liberals.

They attempt to legislate Eutopia except that they forget that we are humans and shit happens.  Also have to note that legislation typically has a leftist tilt as in banning "assault weapons" but telling the federal government to go to hell regarding marijuana enforcement.  The really tough issues like gay marriage they dump onto the masses and not surprisingly more traditional values and common sense win until someone legislates again or a court rules forcing the state to the left again.

You can't make laws to make a perfect place; if it was perfect you wouldn't need so many damn laws.  

Beautiful places there, lots of stuff to do, but every time I go there I am more than happy to return to ole rust belted Pittsburgh, PA where our Democrats seem to like EBRs.* Just be happy you guys have preemption vs. states like IL where any podunk town can ban whatever the fuck they want.




*Except in Philly and some stooopid unenforceable law passed in Pittsburgh in 1995/1996.

California used to be a great state.  Good job opportunities, good standard of living, good hunting-not to mention the climate and beaches.  Things started to turn back in the late '80s or early '90s-I don't know exactly when.  The demographic landscape changed drastically after I graduated from HS, and maybe that has something to do with tipping the balance of power over to the liberals who've ruined the state.  

Gun control aside (because there are other things to consider), there's a lot of reasons not to live there, and the only thing I miss about CA is Ft. Hunter Legget.  Great training and outstanding hunting.  It's not enough to make me want to live in a state that wants to tax me to oblivion to support it's own Great Society fiasco.

I first visited there in the early 1990s and while I was just a punk teenager I really liked the state and said hey, I'd like to move here.

I had an opportunity in 2001 to move there and work for a good company but after visiting the location with my wife we both decided that the higher taxes, insanely higher cost of living, traffic, and illegal immigration issue was not something we were interested in.  We've gone back there together and I've had to work in CA (Oakland, San Jose, Watts, Hayward, Fresno, Madera (sp), etc.) and found good people, conservative values, and lots to see and do.  Problem is that people vote with the $$$$$ and not necessarily by values and with the population centers being mostly leftist the state is going to be the way it is for the foreseeable future.  

Oh, and I think CA started going downhill in the 1970s based off when a lot of the more restrictive laws started coming onto the books, not from experience.

Could be, maybe I was just tone-deaf to it.  Remember, Prop 13 passed and property taxes went down to the benefit of working home owners-teachers never forgave voters for it though...

Prop 15 (to ban the further sale of new handguns) failed to pass by a 2/3 majority, and the liberals howled in protest.  I believe that was in 1982.  I remember reading the San Jose Mercury News editorial page and being very satisfied that we won that one.  I love seeing liberals wet their pants.  

There are a lot of conservatives in the state.  Even as recently as a few years back, Prop 187 passed, which would have helped deter illegal immigration, but years of liberals stacking the courts in their favor defeated the will of the people.  Gov. Gray Davis was recalled because people were fed up with his "tax and spend" liberal ways.  Arnold isn't that much of an improvement.

There is hope for CA, but I don't know what the solution is.  I have no use for CA in it's current state, so I refuse to live there.  CA has devolved into a liberal political machine.    

Counting the days until I leave...

Shitty gun laws notwithstanding, I will never afford to live in the neighborhood I grew up in. My parents can afford to live there because housing prices weren't crazy back then, and Prop 13 has kept their property taxes frozen.

Enough of this infighting! Cheese anyone?

ILLEGAL ALIENS!

   Funny as long it's from California .

DEBT IS WEALTH!!!!

This is why I can't wait to retire and leave New York.

I couldn't afford to live in the house I grew up in if my parents gave it to me.

Someone on t.v. recently claimed Obama said credit was what defined a country as wealthly. Did anyone see that? I can't recall the guy's name.