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| Economy |
| It's time California got over itself |
| 2009-08-10 |
| Way to go, California. While the Golden State stumbled its way through the opposite of the "Summer of Love" (Californians were anything but turned on when they tuned in to Sacramento), their misery didn't go unnoticed. "California's budget woes a cautionary tale," surmised "CBS Evening News." "From the tarnished Golden State, lessons for Washington," intoned the Washington Post. And this, from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "California's problems emblematic of nation's." Indeed, in the aftermath of a protracted budget stalemate and ugly spending cuts - and the likely prospect of more such bad political theater - the rest of America should consider itself warned. That begins with the concept of a government whose eyes are too big for its stomach. Lesson one: For decades now, California governors and legislators of all political stripes have thrown caution - and fiscal sanity - to the wind. Even under Gov. Ronald Reagan, patron saint of conservative spendthrifts, California's state budget grew by more than 120 percent, and 130 percent under Gov. Pat Brown in the eight years before Reagan. The bill finally came due on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's watch. Will his successor be any different? Lesson two: Experience counts. Back in 1991, the last time Sacramento encountered a budget crisis of similar proportion, then-Gov. Pete Wilson and then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown could bank on a combined half-century of officeholding wisdom. Their budget fix was smart and sensible. The key players in this year's budget mess - Schwarzenegger, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg - together don't have a decade's worth of leadership experience. No wonder the budget negotiations had so many fits and starts. Lesson three: Given a chance to drive, gas-and-brake voters eventually will send a state into a ditch. At various time in recent years, thanks to the initiative process, California's electorate has approved higher taxes, rejected higher taxes, refused to reward lawmakers by easing term limits, yet rarely, if ever, tossed incumbents out of office even though the Legislature wallows in record disapproval. It's the sort of mixed signals - wide interpretations of mandates and little fear of accountability - that give extremists on both sides an excuse to be selfishly ultrapartisan. There's one other moral to California's story, but it's for our eyes only. The message: If California wants to get out of the woods, maybe it's time California got over itself. For too long, the Golden State - and by this I'd include both its elected officials and the people who put them in office - has failed to cope with the present, hasn't adequately planned for the future, and has obsessed far too much over its gilded past. Because we're a nation-state, with one-eighth the nation's population and a world-class economy, the assumption is California is "special." Granted, we have qualities many other states lack: Silicon Valley's instant wealth, Hollywood's instant celebrity. But in many other respects, we're no different than the rest of America. At least 38 other states have imposed budget cuts that severely impact vulnerable citizens, according to the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Nationwide, 14 states are facing 2010 budget gaps that exceed 20 percent of their gross domestic product. California was one of eight states that had an unemployment rate of more than 11 percent in June. As for California's famously failed political system, there are worse places to live. Try the banana republic that is New York, where Republicans seized the state Senate in a bloodless coup - and the governor, comptroller and junior U.S. senator all weren't elected to their current jobs. Or you can cross over into New Jersey, where three mayors and two state lawmakers were arrested in an FBI sting that began with an investigation into the black-market sale of fake Gucci handbags and human kidneys. Still, this won't stop politicians, especially those seeking office in 2010, from evoking the concept of a "California Dream" and returning the Golden State to its past glory. There's nothing wrong with optimism - it's what brought most Californians here in the first place. But there's a fine line between the politics of hope and hopeless pipe dreams. And that's what the talk of reinventing the California of 50 years ago is: a pipe dream. In 1960 - Pat Brown's second year as governor and the same year the state's Master Plan for Higher Education was introduced and the California Aqueduct begun - the Golden State consisted of a mere 15.7 million residents. Fifty years later, we have twice the population and an even greater exponential of problems. In Washington, President John F. Kennedy spoke of a "New Frontier." But in California, Brown referred to California as a "last frontier." That concept - the Golden State as a land still to be settled - as well as the feasibility of free college tuition and spanking new highways and frontiers, is about as outdated in this day and age as PT-109 tie clips and touch football on the White House lawn. From the eternal optimist who governs this state to the true believers determined to once again reinvent our economy, California is a state buoyed by hopeful determination. But in building the better tomorrow, maybe it's time we put our ego in check - and, at long last, let go of the past. |
| Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC |
| #5 the opposite of the "Summer of Love" -"this ain't the summer of love" Blue Oyster Cult |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2009-08-10 22:14 |
| #4 ..Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid... And remember they appoint committee chairmen and dole out staff authorizations, mostly to their own 'old guard' cronies. There is no old guard if there are term limits. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-08-10 18:45 |
| #3 The fact that Willie had a good grip on the short 'n curlies of most of the Legislature might have helped, too. |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-08-10 16:49 |
| #2 Experience counts. Back in 1991, the last time Sacramento encountered a budget crisis of similar proportion, then-Gov. Pete Wilson and then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown could bank on a combined half-century of officeholding wisdom. The benefits of term limits might be debatable but when a ballot proposition called for limiting the terms of state legislators I voted for it for the sole reason of getting rid of Willie Brown. And, as I mentioned once before, it is extremely difficult to unseat an incumbent because all the campaign contributions from unions and other special interests go to the incumbent. Then you get unknown, underfunded opponents crying in the wilderness about why they should be elected and nobody hears them. Think about it on a national level: if you had a chance to vote for a constitutional amendment to limit terms for the Senate and House of Representatives, would you consider the experience of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid as reasons to vote against it or would you leap at the chance to get rid of them? Throw out Lesson two. The only experience these people need is that of the voters spanking their butts and telling them NOT to raise taxes. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2009-08-10 15:29 |
| #1 Ah, come on, admit it. Your vision is Michigan, that model workers paradise. /sarc off |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-08-10 15:01 |