To Quote Metallica, You Know It's Sad But True

Yup, if one wants to see the nation's largest state governance and see the disaster that it is, yes as Metallica has sung, this column by Steven Greenhut is sad but true.
In my home state, where I was born, grew up and am still living in, the left-wing Democrats have something that they have never had so much of in my 48 years on God's Green Earth.
Total control of state government.
Yup, the Dems have all constitutional elected offices. The state legislature and by now super-majorities that make the Republicans, BTW, who are they now?!-totally irrelevant.
Led by Gov. Jerry Moonbeam Brown, every single bad idea from the hard-left of the Democrat party will be voted on and thus we will endure at least three-plus years of Democrat ineptency.
So what stands out in Mr. Greenhut's column to me?
Well for one, it is his prediction number two. About the overstating the state budget projections. The reality is that according to the state controller, John Chiang (yup, a Dem), tax revenue projections are off, surprise, by 10.8% this past November. And trust me folks, this will not vastly improve which leads to Mr. Greenhut's prediction number three.
That the Democrats will tax everything that they can. What ever moves. Does not move. Alive. Dead. Everything.
And where did the first trail balloon start?
With the car tax, of course.
Well, it is officially known as the Vehicle Registration fee. Doesn't that sound a lot better than a tax?
California state senator Ted Lieu (D-San Francisco, of course) flew the trial balloon of tripling the tax. Yes tripling it. So, are little Hyundai Tucson, a 2005 one, we pay a "fee" of $122 this upcoming year. If Sen. Loon's Lieu's plan were to go into effect, that $122 would triple to $422 dollars. Four hundred and twenty-two frickin dollars! In a state where for the most part the car is a total necessity, how does this help?
It does not.
But the Democrat crack-whores in Suckramento, er Sacramento, don't seem to care. They would suggest to take public transportation. Or live closer to one's place of employment. Trust me, they think that they have all the answers.
Yet it was former governor Gray Davis wanting to increase the car tax that doomed his second term.
Imagine all those that voted for Brown, the Dems et all somehow thinking why, this is cool?
Go ahead Dems, go ahead.
And while I do worry about Mr. Greenhut's prediction number five, "reforming" the innitive process, once the slew of tax hikes occur, trust me, many of these voters will clamor to do something about it. And that will be two-fold.
Voting for something to end many of the tax hikes and getting rid of Dems in some of the few marginal districts left in the California legislature.
Mr. Greenhut is spot on about the California liberal pundits blaming the Republicans.
But, that cow will not fly.
The state Republicans are totally irrelevant in the legislative process. Only the most absolutely low-info voters will buy into it.
And this is where I quibble with Mr. Greenhut and his prediction number nine.
That the California Republican party will continue the downhill spiral.
I actually believe that this will be the absolute rock-bottom for them. Not that they will rise completely in the next statewide election. But they will make a good move in getting former state senator Jim Brulte to be the next party chairman.
Like it or not, Mr. Brulte is a former legislator. He will make a good spokesman for the party. And I think that he realizes that some of the positions on illegal immigration will have to change. Of course it is more tone than anything that keeps the party from making headway in non-White communities. Like it or not, the Republican party can not win any election statewide in the once Golden State without the votes of Hispanics and Asians. Mr. Brulte gets it. And where he will be able to succeed is when the Dems raise every tax imaginable. It is when historically voters look to the Republicans to keep them down. And I believe that Mr. Brulte can do a good job in candidate recruitment than Mr. Greenhut believes. Yes, it may be that there will be some self-financed candidates for some elections. That does not mean they are all moderate mushes as Mr. Greenhut indicates. That is where a good chairman of the state party can seek a good, conservative candidate that can win a statewide election.
Yeah, it is a tall order in California. But not insurmountable.
It will be a truly painful two years of total Democrat governance almost everywhere in California as Mr. Greenhut predicts. But it is sometimes what is needed. True Democrat governance to remind people how God-awful it can be. It is how a rejuvenated California Republican party can make a difference.
But mostly, as I started this post, it is sad but true that Democrats are ruining running everything and it will be not good for the people of this once Golden State.

California As The Fairy Tale

Of course the place where Disneyland opened way back in 1955 has been an enchanting land o' plenty.
Until about the last 30 years.
It suddenly came to me as I have been thinking about how this once Golden State is, well broken like an grim fairy tale.
And the problem is not just one political party over the other. Although one is much more at fault than the other. But both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to the problems.
The problems, plural. Because there are many.
One of the obvious economic problems very clear, my friends.
We are flat broke.
All forms of government from cities, counties, the state governments are all broke.
Last Sunday in the Left Angeles Times was an article of the plight of Stockton. It is so bad in Stockton that it may become the largest municipality to, dare I write this, declare bankruptcy. And it is a city of over 300,000.
And yes, another city has declared bankruptcy in California.
That would be Vallejo in the outer San Francisco Bay Area.
On May 7, 2008, long before the current government fiscal crisis came along, the Vallejo city council declared bankruptcy. And it only emerged last year.
County governments are in no better shape.
And the state government. Well that is interesting.
Once again the solution from the Democrat governor, Jerry Moonbeam Brown, and the Democrat-controlled state legislature is to raise taxes.
But they will not do it.
Nope, they want us to do so. And as noted in an earlier post, There could be up to three ballot initiatives in November asking us to do the legislature's and governor's dirty work.
But here is the fairy tale.
That somehow we could force the state government to allot at least 40% of the state budget for education. That is what voters voted on in 1988 in the form of Proposition 98. And that was done so that Kindergarten through 12th grade would have a guaranteed amount. Before that the state was, surprise, raiding the state budget for education to try to fund other programs.
Oh, and on almost every level, California ranks 49th out of 50 states. Probably not on per capita per pupil spending. But that is another post.
That somehow the state could offer workers unending pay and benefit hikes without the money to pay for the long term, especially state employee pensions. And because of the way other budgets are done, essentially the state helps counties and cities with their unbelievable pay and bennies package.
That somehow, we could have the most pristine coastline and think gee, we don't or should not have to pay high gas prices.
That there is just an endless stream of one percenters that we can keep taxing. And taxing. And taxing.
That regulations will not kill businesses.
That cutting off the water supply to Central California farmers to protect the Delta Smelt will not result in higher food prices.
That depending solely on a service and high-tech economy will produce good paying jobs. Having little if any manufacturing will be OK. Because we have the Silicon Valley. But now many of those high-tech entrepreneurs are beginning to get restless.
That having a higher minimum-wage than the federal government will produce a bevy of jobs. Especially summer jobs for youths.
NOT!
In fact, NOT TO ANY OF THE ABOVE!
If it is not government over reach, taxation and regulation, it is the stratification of the people that is really troubling.
Many cities that once had a strong, productive middle-class, are being replaced by yuppies and the Stuff White Liberal People Like crowd. It is better know as the SWPL crowd, but here at RVFTLC headquarters, I just add the obvious liberal to make sure all understand. Which leaves a lot of upper middle-class and poor people. One term is gentrification. It would not be a bad thing if some middle-class working people were part of the gentrification process. But the whole idea keep them out as well as the poor people. Thus what is left is something that I do not remember growing up in the Los Angeles area.
A real class structure.
Add to that the replacement of the defense industry with entertainment and the fairy tale is complete.
And while I just gave some of the facts, I want to look at solutions. California needs real leadership. Not political only but business, spiritual and yes leadership from the bottom up.
It is not Wall Street vs Main Street so much as reality vs fairy tale.
A government as big as it is in California is bound to fall under its own weight.
Regulations will eventually drive even big companies away.
High Taxes, well as I noted, if you believe that only one percent of Americans are wealthy, there are just so many to go around even here in the once Golden State. And if they are imposed on businesses, guess what? WE will enjoy paying more for products.
Gee, isn't this fairy tale fun kiddies?
No it is not.
But if we don't want to end up a basket case like Greece, the people need to rise up at the ballot box in November as a start. We can not keep voting the same dim bulbs that keep digging the ditch deeper.
What we need, and I am serious, is s 21st century Walt Disney.

Why We Are In The Mess We Are In

Living deep in Blue California is sometimes mind-numbing because of the way so many people think.
Consider this.
A group of far-left Democrats are not happy with the Democrat congressman that represents my town of Pasadena, Adam Schiff.
They made their feelings known in a protest outside Congressman Schiff's Pasadena office yesterday.
FTR, Congressman Schiff did vote for the debt-ceiling plan just passed in Congress and signed by the Dear Leader, President Obama.
But these "progressives" are not happy that Congressman Schiff voted for the plan.
For these people think that this is awful. Just awful. That there will potentially be necessary budget cuts to bring about a balance of the federal budget books.
Here is what Paul Krehbiel, an organizer of the protest had to say:

“We’re really upset our Congressional representatives, including Schiff, did not find new areas of revenue creation in this debt-ceiling agreement. We’re concerned cuts mandated by the deal will be devastating, especially to people who are already suffering.”

Get the euphemism Mr. Krehbiel uses for taxes. "Revenue creation". Ooh boy! These lefties love to use private-sector buzz terms to make it seem like they are not promoting tax hikes.
Look, when the federal government is talking "revenue creation" there are only one of two options. A slew of fees and or taxes.
I do agree that many people are hurting. The many able-bodied, mind clear Americans that have no job and or no hope for a job. There are about 5,000,000 Americans that are out of work and have given up looking for work.
Ahh, but another bright light offers a solution to that problem.
Here is Linnea Warren, 56, of Pasadena. Do you know her solution to the unemployment problem in the United States? Well, here it is:

“We didn’t get out of the Depression by cutting spending, but by creating government jobs.”

Yes, there were a lot of make-work projects under a slew of alphabet agencies, but one of the most famous or infamous known as the Works Project Administration or WPA.
Now yes, people were working creating a slew of make work projects. Many are still around today. But did it solve the problem of high unemployment?
Hell no.
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in March. 1933, the unemployment rate was a staggering 24.75%. Until 1940, unemployment never went below 14% of the workforce.
So Linnea, how did those government jobs work out? Not well at all when it took getting into a war to eventually bring the unemployment rate down.
The problem with so-called progressives is that they really have no clue as to how the private economy works.
They really believe that people making $250,000 a year in gross income is the filthy, degenerate rich. The problem with that is that could be a married couple, say a doctor and a lawyer, whose combined income meets that magic wealth figure. Never mind that the doc may be in private practice, employing office staff and or nurses. Or the same for the lawyer. Maybe that lawyer has hung their shingle rather than work for a firm. Guess what? That lawyer needs support staff. There! Many potentially long-term jobs are created.
If one looks at the WPA program so touted by the "progressives", it was at best a temporary program to alleviate long-term unemployment. It was in fact the stated aim of the WPA that it was a stop-gap until the economy recovered. Remember, unemployment never went below 14% at the height of the WPA program.
Yet people really believe that make-work government jobs is the path to prosperity.
Before the Great Depression, there was a depression in 1920-21. Yet the solution was not massive government, but tax cuts and lessening the government's role in the private economy. In fact, at the beginning of the 1920-21 depression, unemployment was at 5.2% of the workforce. By the height of the depression, it was at either 8.7% or 11.7%. By 1923 during the Roaring 20s, unemployment was at either 4.8% or 2.4%. In fact, supply-side economics worked. The tax rate was lowered and expanded and the government had more money coming in. And during this period, there were time when there was no federal budget deficits and the surplus money was going to pay off the national debt.
Another aspect is the entitlement culture that "progressive" policies have made.
Take this protester, Suzanne O’Shea, 50, of Altadena. She was there for her mom. Her mom, according to her, relies totally on her social security check and Medicaid for her healthcare. From Miss O'Shea's mouth:

“She’ll have issues if these government social programs are cut as will millions of American seniors. It’s unfortunate to take money from government programs in this kind of an economy.”

I would like to ask a question to Miss O'Shea. What is she doing to help her mother out? Does she help with her mom's foodstuffs? Does she help with any of her mom's basic bills like the electric and gas? If the intrepid reporter asked those questions, there might have been a little clarity.
I am not heartless. There are people in our society that do need a hand up, not a hand out. But what "progressive" government has done is taken family responsibility out of the picture. Parents helping children. Children helping their parents. Neighbor helping neighbor. In this case, the mom is given a false sense of security with government assistance. The daughter thinks that the government should provide the money and healthcare for her mom. It is a mindset.
With this mindset, that the government can solve all, it is why we are in the mess we are in. Economically, socially, politically and yes, spiritually.
And there is no short-term fix for any of it. And it will be fraught with painful choices. But I am an optimist. I think that this is a time to restore our nation to a time of helping each other out and self-reliance. Other wise, this mess continues.