This was sent to RiteOn by MA Guest Editor A.M.
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And we here in the Commonwealth of Mass, commonly called
THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF MASSACHUSETTS thought we had it bad......Plus not to
mention Calif BEST in the nation state retirement system.......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 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, 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, will cut Medi-Cal for the poor. Education
will be slashed, resulting in a shortened school year, thousands laid-off
teachers, school closings and an end to summer programs in a system that has
plummeted from the nation’s 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 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 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, 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?
