California, Leading the Nation Once Again
From a column in today's Wall Street Journal by my Hoover Institution colleagues Michael Boskin and John Cogan:
California's rising standards of living and outstanding public schools and universities once attracted millions seeking upward economic mobility. But then something went radically wrong as California legislatures and governors built a welfare state on high tax rates, liberal entitlement benefits, and excessive regulation. The results, though predictable, are nonetheless striking. From the mid-1980s to 2005, California's population grew by 10 million, while Medicaid recipients soared by seven million; tax filers paying income taxes rose by just 150,000; and the prison population swelled by 115,000.
California's economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially underperforms. The unemployment rate, at 10.9%, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island. With 12% of America's population, California has one third of the nation's welfare recipients.
Twelve percent of the nation's population--but a third of the nation's welfare recipients. Once again, the Golden State leads the nation. Only this time, it's over a cliff.
Attempting to console myself, I recall that, during the one year I lived in New York City, during the administration of Mayor David Dinkins, everyone with whom I talked--co-workers, neighbors in the apartment building, people I'd run into at the diner--spoke incessantly about the ungovernability of the city. Things in New York would only get worse. They had to. There was no way out. A couple of years later Rudy Giuliani succeeded Dinkins--and began the transformation of the city.
It if could happen in New York, it can happen in the Golden State.
Can't it?
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Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Troy Senik, Ed.: I face a similar calculation every time I leave California for Tennessee. The cost of living in Los Angeles is approximately 50 percent higher than Nashville. At a certain point the math trumps the emotional attachment.
Edited 20 minutes ago
20 minutes ago
Why is everyone dedicated to torturing me today?
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
LowcountryJoe
Peter Robinson
Where'd you go, Joe? And is there a vacant lot next to yours? · 27 minutes ago
You would not likely want to go 'slummin' to be my actual neighbor, given your sucess. But in a general sense, I bet you'd really like some of the properties and surroundings of Milton, Georgia -- where I'm at now. I also spent five years in Summerville, SC...the Isle of Palms (25 minutes down the road) is a posh coastal town you'd probably enjoy. · 41 minutes ago
Milton and Summerville sound like heaven. (We'll leave the posh stuff to Rob Long. Rob's ambition, as he keeps telling me, is to retire to Beaufort, S.C.)
Feb '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
1. California is really worse than Greece, because it is too big to fail. California cannot go bankrupt in the same sense as a company or even a municpality. (Article 9 of the Bankruptcy Code does not extend to states.) California can only threaten to default on its debt and try to negotiate a composition among its creditors. That would dramatically increase the cost of government financing for other states, so we could never let that happen. So the Federal government will intervene to keep all of the bondholders whole, and tax better managed states to bail out California.
2. California illustrates how hard it is to structure an effective government, and how wise the draftmen of the Federal constitution were. So far as I can tell, California has not had a functioning legislature for over a decade, and the initiative process has led to a host of contradictory mandates. How can anyone hope its government will improve? Why should it, if they are confident that the worst case is a Federal bailout?
Jun '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
For what it's worth - as heard on NPR's California Report this morning - there may be up to three different tax measures on the November ballot. Gov. Brown's measure would raise taxes temporarily on the wealthy plus have a sales tax for all. A rival one would raise taxes on the top 1%. The third one would raise income tax for everyone with the revenue going to K-12 education.
Nov '10
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Of course the elephant in the room that few conservatives want to acknowledge is the inundation of California with a Latin American culture - this has sunk California more than anything else. I know libertarians will respond with "look at Texas" - to which I respond, let's talk in another decade or twenty years.
Apr '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Your comments will certainly make some wince and think it racist but the key word is culture. Most people immigrating from Latin American nations are more comfortable with the idea of strong government subjugation for security sake and not as comfortable with individualism. With the move for less cultural assimilation of immigrants in recent decades (I wonder who's idea that was?) this growing population has strengthened the leftist's hold in California. And let's not forget the effect that Clinton's Motor-Voter Bill has had on voter fraud--Has anyone heard from Bob Dornan lately.
An interesting note on the California v. Texas comparison: California was essentially founded by Republicans and became a Democrat state where the reverse is true of Texas.
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Peter -- having lived in both places, my sense is that a lot of what got "turned around" in New York had to do with lawlessness -- things that were supposed to happen but didn't, or things that weren't supposed to happen but did. A powerful government can almost always "fix" lawlessness. New York remains hugely dysfunctional and unpleasant in a lot of ways, propped up economically only by the concentration of the financial industry there, which pumps emormous amounts of money into the city, and which nearly everyone, left or right, is determined to protect (see: Schumer, D-Wall Street).California's problems, however, are mainly problems of the laws themselves. Without fundamentally different attitudes on the part of a clear majority of the population, I do not see a solution. Only a real crisis is likely to effect change in enough people's attitudes; continued slow decay will not do it.The more I follow "developments" in The Golden State, the less I miss the place. I'd invite you to consider Chicago -- which for now is a very fine place to live -- but I fear we're really only a decade or two behind California.
Mar '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
I was born there. I miss the California of my youth, the place of hopeful dreams that was affordable to live in, elected Republicans, and had a wide-open future. I don't miss the reality of California now, where half the state is de-facto sovereign Mexican territory, dirty, cramped, and expensive, and even the Anglo kids look and act like third world tribesmen with tattoos and drugs. California's pockets of paradise are increasingly becoming armed forts against the hostile reality outside their gates. Cal has become a dystopia with sunshine. I've told my wife that if the great earthquake came tomorrow and the state fell into the sea, taking Hollywood, San Francisco, and Sacramento with it, the nation would be instantly better off.
Mar '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
The problem is that almost all large cities are run by Democrats, and they're trying to re-make those places in California's image as fast as they can. The difference between a place like Nashville and a Los Angeles is that Nashville is tempered by being surrounded by a heavily conservative state, which limits the mischief that can be done. California as a whole is just as bad off as LA. This is why I think states like Virginia and North Carolina... which are trending blue... are eventually headed to ruin too. The conservatives are slowly but surely being pushed out or overwhelmed by liberals moving into the state. The irony is that they bring the same destructive policies with them that spawned the rotten states they're fleeing from.
Apr '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Douglas, I don't think it is just a coincidence that today's California follows a migration of people from the Northeast California Dreaming in the 60's, 70's, and 80's.
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
That is true, but Nashville also has a political culture that's distinct from other urban centers. Even in the city, the trend is towards Blue Dog Democrats. Nashville's longtime congressman is Jim Cooper, who sparred with the Clintons over Hillarycare. The former mayor was Phil Bredesen, a conservative Democrat who went on to become Governor and get the state's Medicaid system, which was actually hemorrhaging money due to the excesses of the previous Republican governor, back on sound financial footing. So as big cities go, Nashville is fairly conservative. In Tennessee, the model you're describing applies much more to Memphis, which is a sewer of political corruption and cronyism.
Douglas
The problem is that almost all large cities are run by Democrats, and they're trying to re-make those places in California's image as fast as they can. The difference between a place like Nashville and a Los Angeles is that Nashville is tempered by being surrounded by a heavily conservative state, which limits the mischief that can be done. 31 minutes ago
Aug '10
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Buck up Peter!
¡Y tú tambien Troy!
It is 72 degrees with a fresh sea breeze, my Squishy Blue Nephew's frosh baseball game starts in an hour, and by the grace of God I kept the wolf from the door for another month. I am having a hard time working up a last-chopper-off-the-embassy-roof vibe out of all this.
Dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness, count your blessings and never leave blue water.
May '10
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Would Mexico take it back? Or is it too dysfunctional even for them?
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Squish does have a point. Awful politics and economics aside, we still have this:
Squishy Blue RINO: Buck up Peter!
¡Y tú tambien Troy!
It is 72 degrees with a fresh sea breeze, my Squishy Blue Nephew's frosh baseball game starts in an hour, and by the grace of God I kept the wolf from the door for another month. I am having a hard time working up a last-chopper-off-the-embassy-roof vibe out of all this.
Dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness, count your blessings and never leave blue water. · 27 minutes ago
Dec '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Rudy Giuliani was a rare bird indeed as The Mayor- fearless, terribly intelligent and aggressively unapologetic for taking shots at the debilitating policies of the NYC City Council and borough presidents. I'm not sure they make 'em like that anymore.
California voters appear to be held hostage by the state legislature and the NLRB, rejecting the opportunity to elect two talented businesspeople- Fiorina and Whitman- who were certainly qualified to tackle the fiscal mess created in Sacramento.
California is still perceived by many tourists as a very special place; a 'wonderland' indeed. The crime is that the state's natural beauty and topographical advantages are being squandered and abused by poor (non-existent) immigration policy and destructive entitlement spending.
Jan '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
In regards to the 150,000 increase in those who paid income tax; is that the CA state income tax? Is the revenue change proportional to the 150,000 figure?
If that 150,000 is just the CA state income tax, did those rascals just increase the minimum needed to owe income tax while raising the sales or property tax rates? That 150k seems to be odd statistic but California is an odd place.
Aug '10
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Troy Senik, Ed.: Squish does have a point. Awful politics and economics aside, we still have this:
Squishy Blue RINO: Buck up Peter!
¡Y tú tambien Troy!
It is 72 degrees with a fresh sea breeze, my Squishy Blue Nephew's frosh baseball game starts in an hour, and by the grace of God I kept the wolf from the door for another month. I am having a hard time working up a last-chopper-off-the-embassy-roof vibe out of all this.
Dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness, count your blessings and never leave blue water. · 27 minutes ago
3 hours ago
Ain't none of that in Brentwood, Franklin neither.
Feb '11
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
There is no place on earth I'd rather live, and I prefer to fight instead of surrender. No offense to the rest of the country...
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Don't get ahead of yourself, Squish. Nashville may not have the Pacific, but it does quite well for itself:
Squishy Blue RINO
Ain't none of that in Brentwood, Franklin neither. · 3 hours ago
Aug '10
Re: California, Leading the Nation Once Again
Well played.