California,... here we go.

[Danno 1,228]

Is there any reason to believe we as a nation will not, state by state, become what California is now becoming>?

California, Here We Come!

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?

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32465

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

It's a game that gets played out every few years or so. The controller will start writing IOU's next month. They spent last month spending all the money left from last year so that they have their hands out this year. The quarterly salestaxes are due at the end of July for the end of the second quarter, and that will get them through to September.

[scandal 951]

It's a game that gets played out every few years or so. The controller will start writing IOU's next month. They spent last month spending all the money left from last year so that they have their hands out this year. The quarterly salestaxes are due at the end of July for the end of the second quarter, and that will get them through to September.

I remember living in CA during the Gray Davis days. We had power brownouts, PG&E was forking over money by the truckload to Enron, prison unions and teachers were threatening walkouts, the budget was in tatters after the dot com bust.... seemed like end of days then too.

It always seems like end of days there, because the legislative process in Sacramento is entirely dysfunctional. It's a state ruled by ballot propositions, not legislation hammered out in committee. Don't like the law? Put it on a ballot for referendum. Don't like the governor? Put it on the ballot to repeal him. Weird way to run a state, if you ask me. I bugged out of there, much happier with how things are run in Springfield IL. Here the voters have no say whatsoever. We just sit by and watch them make up the rules and steal our money from us. That's how a state SHOULD be run!

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

The Republican blocking force is the crippling issue. I watched an hour long special on it on 60 minutes I think of the way California was going. It was something that was instituted a long time ago which no other state has and basically put this voting minority in power to prevent spending and increased taxation. There is a narrow margin to over turn it which is virtually impossible. It's the very few wealthy protecting themselves while so many have to go without. It's disgusting.

[dalegg 143]

The Republican blocking force is the crippling issue. I watched an hour long special on it on 60 minutes I think of the way California was going. It was something that was instituted a long time ago which no other state has and basically put this voting minority in power to prevent spending and increased taxation. There is a narrow margin to over turn it which is virtually impossible. It's the very few wealthy protecting themselves while so many have to go without. It's disgusting.

There's something people that keep on saying "The Republicans are to blame" just keep on wanting to forget happened, but no matter how you try, you cannot avoid that it actually did.

That would be the special elections. 2/3rd. TWO THIRDS. I'll say it again> TWO THIRDS of Californians- the voters, the people, turned down higher taxes. Most Californians if you hadn't paid attention to the last election are NOT Republicans.

So the glaring conclusion that you have to make here is that those dirty Californian Republicans actually did what the people of California want. That does suck for a minority of people who believe they know what is best for the majority, but when people elect politicians to represent them, the funny thing is they actually like them to represent them.

This IS a national phenomenom too. Have you seen the polls on Healthcare? 72% want a Government plan but only 43% support it if they have to pay only $500 a year for it! $500 a year! I am a Republican and I wouldn't even oppose that.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

I wish I could find the news package I watched on it. It was the most current with recent events. It's been within a month because I watched it while I was here in Egypt. So it's either on the BBC World News, Al-Jazerra English, or Bloomberg. I searched all of them for "California in Crisis" but they don't have it up. I don't think they archive their broadcasts online like Frontline or 60 minutes does or it's too early. Lots of clips on Youtube but none of them are it.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The Republican blocking force is the crippling issue. I watched an hour long special on it on 60 minutes I think of the way California was going. It was something that was instituted a long time ago which no other state has and basically put this voting minority in power to prevent spending and increased taxation. There is a narrow margin to over turn it which is virtually impossible. It's the very few wealthy protecting themselves while so many have to go without. It's disgusting.

Spot on, sister.

[Peikko 1,575]

The OPED is just another excuse to peddle that nasty 'diversity is dangerous, the white man is becoming extinct' line of drivel. Grow up.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

The OPED is just another excuse to peddle that nasty 'diversity is dangerous, the white man is becoming extinct' line of drivel. Grow up.

Actually, I'd say gated communities, usually occupied by white people with their signs on their lawns that say "armed response", does far more damage to "trust" between neighbors than diversity. I sometimes find Bel Air a more threatening place to travel through the Compton because everyone looks at you like you don't belong and they are one step away from calling the cops, and I say this as 30something professional white woman.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The OPED is just another excuse to peddle that nasty 'diversity is dangerous, the white man is becoming extinct' line of drivel. Grow up.

Actually, I'd say gated communities, usually occupied by white people with their signs on their lawns that say "armed response", does far more damage to "trust" between neighbors than diversity. I sometimes find Bel Air a more threatening place to travel through the Compton because everyone looks at you like you don't belong and they are one step away from calling the cops, and I say this as 30something professional white woman.

Yep. There's a book called, Fortress L.A., that talks about that very thing. I saw something similar in Cebu, PI - although far more extreme. There's an area in Cebu named Beverly Hills and a 20 foot fall with barbwire that separates it from the little shacks right on the opposite side of the street. Apparently, the people living in Beverly Hills over there just happen to work harder than the ones living in the shacks.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Is there any reason to believe we as a nation will not, state by state, become what California is now becoming>?

California, Here We Come!

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.

Blah, blah, blah Obama is killing the country...

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.

Blah, blah, blah ethnic diversity killing the country...

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?

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32465

The top 1% are hammered... All the way to the bank!

"In 2006, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 39.9 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 22.1 percent of adjusted gross income, both of which are significantly higher than 2004 when the top 1 percent earned 19 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) and paid 36.9 percent of federal individual income taxes. In 1990, those figures were 14 percent and 25.1 percent, respectively."

http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/23392.html

Cry me a river, this is one seriously slanted article...

[scandal 951]

Cry me a river, this is one seriously slanted article...

You just noticed?

Just par for the course for Danno's postings

[alienlovechild 75]

There's something people that keep on saying "The Republicans are to blame" just keep on wanting to forget happened, but no matter how you try, you cannot avoid that it actually did.

California hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate for over 20 years. Blaming the GOP is as credible as the Iranian leadership blaming foreign powers, which haven't been in Iran for 30 years, for all the current protests in Iran.

[Danno 1,228]

There's something people that keep on saying "The Republicans are to blame" just keep on wanting to forget happened, but no matter how you try, you cannot avoid that it actually did.

California hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate for over 20 years. Blaming the GOP is as credible as the Iranian leadership blaming foreign powers, which haven't been in Iran for 30 years, for all the current protests in Iran.

It's actually quite funny and telling (of things to come) when California.. yes, CALIFORNIA... is blaming the collapse on Republicans.

Kinda gives us a peek at how the obama economy will be spun.

[Danno 1,228]

The OPED is just another excuse to peddle that nasty 'diversity is dangerous, the white man is becoming extinct' line of drivel. Grow up.

Actually, I'd say gated communities, usually occupied by white people with their signs on their lawns that say "armed response", does far more damage to "trust" between neighbors than diversity. I sometimes find Bel Air a more threatening place to travel through the Compton because everyone looks at you like you don't belong and they are one step away from calling the cops, and I say this as 30something professional white woman.

If your rich folk are anything like my rich folk.... you never even see the home owner outside... and God forbid actually working in the yard.

Which makes me wonder.... how is it you know those "Armed response" signs belong to whites?

And what does it say that when the most diverse city in the world would have citizens who feel the need for such signs. (I've never seen yard-signs like that anyplace I have lived.)