California's high-benefit/high-tax model no longer works

[Jasman0717 9]

This doesn't surprise me, California is a mess. I just read an article about a teacher in L.A. put on administrative leave because of inappropriate behavior in the class room. This teacher has been getting paid 65k a year for the past 7 years for doing nothing and the courts has ordered his immediate dismissal twice now. #######

[Darnell 8,478]

Here's an interesting response from the blog ,:

Mark N. says:

Having lived for several years in Texas, I like plenty about it, but it's a fairly tricky comparison. For example, due to no zoning, homeowners' associations are much more widespread in Texas, covering entire subdivisions of many square miles. They provide something like a de facto additional layer of municipal government, complete with what is, in effect, an additional layer of property taxes, which are used to pay for some things that, in California, a municipality's or city's taxes would pay for (maintaining parks, mowing medians, etc.). Presumably these expenditures aren't counted as "government", even though they function quite similarly to those of a local government (and are similarly coercive— you have a choice of paying their taxes, or moving out of their territorial jurisdiction).

The University of Texas system is also considerably less of a burden on state finances than the University of California system, in large part because of the Permanent University Fund collected from taxes/fees/royalties on oil revenues. The mere existence of this fund may point to better planning in the past, of course. But it also points to Texas historically actually having higher taxes than California: Texas levied significant extraction taxes and fees on oil, and charged considerable royalties on oil drilling on state-owned land (which was much of the land), whereas California has never had an oil-extraction tax (an attempt to introduce one a few years ago failed).

Ya - it's all about the oil, and how well managed that permanent fund (is).

Sorry. I not know of anything similar with California.

The permanent fund also gets used for the Implementation of the Texas State Board of Education Policies.

There's some other things the permanent fund gets used (for), as well.

Oh Well.

Sorry, California - you keep taxing em, we'll keep allowing yer refugees into the State

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Washington?

yeah. I lived here 20 years ago and have returned. Cali was another choice but even with the current drop in housing prices I doubt I could buy a house down there,

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

Yours?

more like all them greenie californians that don't want offshore drilling