Great Article: California's "Dysfunctional" Democracy

[Dave Schwartz]

This is a very interesting article discussing "direct democracy," based loosely upon the model of Switzerland.


Economist Magazine (http://www.economist.com/node/18563638?story_id=18563638&CFID=163608057&CFTOKEN=30862607)

The people's will
California is an experiment in extreme democracy gone wrong, says Andreas Kluth. But reform could make it a model for others

Instead, California is now called a “dysfunctional”, “ungovernable” and even “failed” state. When Mr Brown began his first stint as governor, California had an AAA credit rating, the best there is. Today its rating is A-, the worst among all 50 states and not much better than “junk”. The boss of JPMorgan Chase, America’s second-largest bank, last year told investors that he was more worried about California’s solvency than Greece’s. For three years and counting, California has been mired in a budget crisis. At its nadir, the state was paying its bills in IOUs instead of cash

[delayjf]

The article has a point, but it ignores the harm done to CA's economy by state / local governments

[BlueShoe]

As one who has lived in California since the age of six and seen the "California Dream" cast aside and ground into the dust, wish that I could be more hopeful about its future, but cannot. California may be likened to a runaway train that no power on earth can stop or prevent from jumping the tracks in a horrible crash. The pivotal event may have been the recent 2010 elections. While most of the rest of the nation voted to reject and roll back Marxism, California voted to embrace it. Older white, conservative, self supporting voters are now outnumbered and outvoted by those with entitlement mindsets and leftist ideology. Tens of thousands of them have left the state, taking their jobs, businesses, and wealth with them. This trend will not reverse, it will only accelerate, the demographics are very clear. With some exceptions, in a few years the only primary blocs in California will be wealthy liberals, public employees and their unions, illegal aliens and their supporters, those on public assistance, and working poor of all races that cannot escape the state. Welcome to the "Peoples Socialist Republic of Mexifornia".

[delayjf]

A lot of responses to this article point to Prop 13. Sounds lilke the author seems to think CA has a revenue problem. I think alot of politicians are hopeing for a federal bail out - don't think that will happen with this congress.

[Stevecsd]

Having lived in California for over 50 years I can tell you the State of California does not have a revenue problem. It has severe spending-itis. Prop. 13, which capped property taxes at 1% for all homeowners of record as of 1978, is not the cause of any revenue drops. Within 5 years after the implementation of Prop. 13 most counties in Calif were getting more in property tax revenue than prior to Prop. 13. That is because the proposition was written that if you sell your house the new property owner has to pay the current rates, within some range, which is higher than 1%. The politicians and bureaucrats try to hide those facts.

California has a severe spending problem. Most county & city governments are way underwater in funding their lavish public employee pension plans. In San Diego, where I had live until 4 years ago, they voted in increasing their county employee pensions by 25-30% around 2004-2005, with no increase in payments into the fund. Some employees can double dip (get 2 county paid pensions) and many can spike their pensions with overtime, instead of it being based on non-overtime base pay. The estimate for the state is it has about $500 BILLION in unfunded pension obligations. Liberal Democrat lawmakers for years have piled on non-critical spending. The most recent boondoggle is the “high speed” trains. They plan to spend $30 billion just to get it started, but it will cost 2-3 times that much by the time they are done. Just think of the BIG DIG in Boston for a comparison. If they think they are going to pay for a statewide “bullet” train for $30 billion I’ve got a great Golden Gate Bridge I can sell them for real cheap!

The real problem is that too many people in California want OPM, other people’s money, to pay for their pet projects. When you get a bunch of spineless politicians who only want to pander to their constituency by sucking money out of other people’s wallets this is what you end up with.

[DJofSD]

Stevecsd, the DROP program I thought was dropped.

[Hanover1]

After reading all this, I feel like I just looked at a snapshot of America at large......

[JustRalph]

Stevecsd, the DROP program I thought was dropped.


still going on in Ohio. Ends after this year.