Mar
17
A Coming California Reckoning
“Ignore the economic solutions that work; and instead turn to failed socialist policies dictated by ideology rather than reality. That’s the California way.” — writer at “Start Thinking Right” blog
California is a beautiful place. Traveling the length and breadth of the state, one would see mountains, desert, forests, plateaus, beaches, grape and orange orchards, ranches, etc. And the overall moderate weather…. But, despite all this, I’d never voluntarily move there. Why? Is it the threat of earthquakes, landslides, forest- and brush-fires, tsunamis, floods and droughts, etc.? Not really, though there is a connection.
My real problem with California is that decades of increasingly Leftist education and propaganda have turned California into (among other things) a haven for neo-socialist “experimentation”. As a result, the movers-n-shakers — the politicians and others with wealth and/or influence — who have firm control on the state have instituted law after law, tax after tax, and regulation after regulation, so the average citizen keeps less of his money and has less and less freedom. (This would include the LGBT and other anti-religious stuff, but I won’t be getting into that in this post.)
It seems that those in charge find it nearly impossible to institute a law or policy that actually does some good. I’m generalizing, of course, but Victor Davis Hanson recently discussed a few examples:
1) Water Storage
“During the 2011-16 California drought, politicians and experts claimed that global warming had permanently altered the climate, and that snow and rain would become increasingly rare in California. As a result, long-planned low-elevation reservoirs, designed to store water during exceptionally wet years, were considered all but useless and thus were never built.
Then, in 2016 and 2017, California received record snow and rainfall—and the windfall of millions of acre-feet of runoff was mostly let out to sea. Nothing since has been learned.
California has again been experiencing rain and cold that could approach seasonal records. The state has been soaked by some 18 trillion gallons of rain in February alone. With still no effort to expand California’s water storage capacity, millions of acre-feet of runoff are once again cascading out to sea (and may be sorely missed next year).”
2) High-speed Rail
“[T]he state’s high-speed rail project has gobbled up more than $5 billion in funds without a single foot of track laid. The total cost soared from an original $40 billion promise to a projected $77 billion.
To his credit, newly elected Gov. Gavin Newsom, fearing a budget catastrophe, canceled the statewide project while allowing a few miles of the quarter-built Central Valley “track to nowhere” to be finished.
For years, high-speed rail has drained the state budget of transportation funds that might have easily updated nightmarish stretches of the Central Valley’s Highway 99, or ensured that the nearby ossified Amtrak line became a modern two-track line.”
3) Illegal Immigrants
“California politicians vie with each other to prove their open-borders bona fides in an effort to appeal to the estimated 27 percent of Californians who were not born in the United States.
But the health, educational, and legal costs associated with massive illegal immigration are squeezing the budget. About a third of the California budget goes to the state’s Medicare program, Medi-Cal. Half the state’s births are funded by Medi-Cal, and in nearly a third of those state-funded births, the mother is an illegal immigrant.”
4) The Homeless
“California is facing a perfect storm of homelessness. Its labyrinth of zoning and building regulations discourages low-cost housing. Its generous welfare benefits, nonenforcement of vagrancy and public health laws, and moderate climate draw in the homeless.
Nearly one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients live in the state, and nearly 1 in 5 live below the poverty line.
The result is that tens of thousands of people live on the streets and sidewalks of the state’s major cities, where primeval diseases such as typhus have reappeared.
California’s progressive government seems clueless how to deal with these issues, given that solutions such as low-cost housing and strict enforcement of health codes are seen as either too expensive or politically incorrect.”
So, how has California been able to cover the costs of the above problems, along with spiraling entitlements and unwieldy pensions costs? Ironically, it’s thanks to the super-rich one-percenters. There are roughly 40 million people living in the state, but almost half of the state income tax (which can be as high as 13.3%) is paid by less than 1% of those residents — e.g., big-name athletes, Hollywood elite, high-tech execs, etc.
As Hanson points out, “a new federal tax law now caps deductions for state and local taxes at $10,000 — a radical change that promises to cost many high-earning taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.” If the IRS won’t let the super-rich deduct those huge state taxes anymore, they may start looking to relocate. If a few of them leave the state, California could be in very dire straits indeed.
I have little sympathy for those who voted for these Leftist politicians and their “progressive” policies. (Most “tolerate” some pain in exchange for other “progressive” stuff they like.) But, I am increasingly concerned for those — including two of my favorite ministries — who are conservative-minded but keep getting out-voted and have these laws et al. foisted upon them.
I know it is hard to contemplate leaving somewhere you may have lived for years, even decades. I just hope and pray they manage to relocate to friendlier (and more financially stable) territory before California’s “progress” hurts them too seriously.
