Will California Be Our First Failed State?
Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?
California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory.
But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush. The crisis is so deep that Professor Kenneth Starr, who has written an acclaimed history of the state, recently declared: “California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/california-failing-state-debt
People are leaving this state, my home state, at record numbers, businesses bailing out every day. A school, system that was already #47 out of 50, has made drastic cuts in education in billions of dollars. Unemployment here is at a record pace, and agriculture is failing. We are large enough economically to be a member of G8 and we are going bankrupt.
Their solution? Higher taxes, IOU’s, big lay-offs of state employees, a “green” business plan for the future and more of the disastrous liberal social engineering programs that have driven us into the poor house. They don’t give a damn about the will of the people, they disregard the law, they are killing agriculture, driving business out with high taxes, high personal income taxes and a housing industry that is seeing 25% of mortgages fall behind.
The liberals are in charge here and they are killing California and I don’t see anything to indicate they are seeing the light.
