Three states form the base of Democratic political power in the United States: California, New York and Illinois. All three states are locked in an accelerating economic, demographic and social decline; all three hope that they can stave off looming disaster at home by exporting the policies that have ruined them to the rest of the country. Mary Williams Walsh, a talented reporter who is doing much to sustain the luster of the New York Times brand these days, has a must-read piece on the mess that is Illinois, and it is a compelling description of the misery and ruin that well-intentioned liberals combined with aggressive public sector labor unions inflict on the poor they ostensibly want to serve. Reporting on a bipartisan task force report on Illinoisâ grotesquely mismanaged finances, Walsh tells it like it is. As Walsh summarizes the findings of the task force co-chaired by Paul Volcker and Richard Ravitch: --- Illinois has the lowest credit rating of the 50 states and has Americaâs second-biggest public debt per capita, $9,624, including state and local borrowing. Only New York Stateâs debt is bigger, at $13,840 per capita. But Illinois has not been able to use much of the borrowed money to keep its roads, bridges and schools in good working order, because years of shoddy fiscal practices have taken a heavy toll, the report said. --- This of course is President Obamaâs home state; one wishes that he spent more time on the campaign trail describing his horror and remorse at what decades of bad government have done. Apparently, the subject holds no interest for him: no lessons to be learned here about where blue governance ultimately leads.... Blue politicians speak eloquently and often sincerely about their desire to help the poor. They speak beautifully about the need for better education as a ticket to better lives. They speak intelligently about the contributions a well managed, well organized government can make to the common good. But these beautiful sentiments have less and less to do with the actual policies they pursue. Readers of Via Meadia can see a pattern here. We have âpeace movementsâ incapable of advancing the cause of peace; environmentalists whose political ineptitude damages the causes they most hope to serve; and we have a form of blue state liberalism that blights the lives of exactly the people it wants to help most. American liberalism today is in an advanced stage of intellectual decline. Cynical and short sighted interests wrap themselves in the increasingly tattered mantles of sacred ideas. Liberals are right to feel that social justice matters, that the poor should have greater opportunity and that government in a democratic society cannot remain indifferent to the existence of great social evils. But where liberals in America have the freest handâin states like New York, California and Illinoisâwe see incontrovertible evidence that the policies they choose donât have the consequences they predict. California by now should surely be an educational, environmental and social utopia. New York should be a wonder of glorious liberal governance. Illinois should be known far and wide as the state that works. Whatâs interesting about the governance failures of these states is how comprehensive they are. Other than politicians, union officials and Wall Street investment banks, nobody really benefits from the choices Illinois has made. As the Volker-Ravitch report tells us, even the public sector unions, the architects of many of the stateâs most destructive policies, are going to get shafted as a result of the bad policies theyâve supported. Theyâve created a state that simply wonât be able to honor its promises to the workers the unions represent.... The French say that behind every great fortune lies a great crime. But it is also true to say that behind every great failure lies a great blunder. Late 20th century American liberalism is wrong about the way the world works. It doesnât understand cause and effect very well. It cannot feed itself. Given full power it cannot design and implement policies that advance the causes it honors. Modern American liberalism can only win Pyrrhic victories, because liberals in power take steps that advance their decline.... ...it is more than troubling that President Obama seems so unwilling to reflect on the rich experience of liberal failure in his home state. A term or two as governor of Illinois, wrestling with the consequences of liberal decadence for the constituencies he cares most about, might have prepared him for a genuinely historic role. As it is, he is running for re-election as the torchbearer-in-chief of an ideology that has long passed its prime..... More http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/10/25/news-from-obamas-home-state/
In Arnold's memoir, Total Recall, he gives his opinion on the political state of California. He says that the reason the state is ungovernable is mostly due to gerrymandering. The districts are divided up in such a way that extremists win elections and get sent to Sacremento. Now, personally I'm not so sure that is the major issue, but that's what he says after two terms as governor. Joel Kotkin is a demographer that wrote an essay on California, you can google him and find it, (I read it in the WSJ op/ed section months ago), and he says California is becoming a state for the very rich and the very poor, and it will be too difficult for anyone else to prosper there.
Here's a bit of good news for Californians: http://news.yahoo.com/jerry-brown-tax-hike-suddenly-ropes-does-time-234215917.html Jerry Brown's tax hike, Prop 30, is looking like it will go down in flames. He has been selling it as a temporary, (7 years), income tax hike on the rich. He makes no mention that it also raises state sales tax. He also stands there with a straight face and tells you that the revenues from the Prop 30 tax hike goes to fund k-12 education. Is says right in the Proposition that the funds can be used for other budget items. My absentee ballot sits right here, with column after column of things to vote on. The only one that I'm enthusiastic about is a big fat no on Prop 30.
Here in NY, the other day I turned in a set of plates at DMV on a car I won't be using. DMV charged me one dollar for a receipt, how gay. I laughed when the woman said that'll be one dollar.
You do know Cuomo is proposing medicare funds to pay people to go to the Dr. I'll find the article. Here's how it works, (briefly) if you act "like an adult you get free money."
The Cuomo administration is launching an experimental âincentiveâ program that will use $2 million in taxpayer funding next year to provide Medicaid recipients up to $250 in cash bonuses to take better care of themselves â by getting regular medical checkups, properly filling their prescriptions and better monitoring their blood pressure and weight. Some Medicaid recipients will even be rewarded with free lottery tickets, according to the plan submitted to the federal government
What i find humorous about places like California is that when the shit hits the fan, the fight isnt even going to come down to "1% vs. 99%" The rich will leave and figure their own way out, as they always do, and the people left squabbling for the money will be the public sector "academics" and the "poor." When the shit hits the fan and every self respecting business person has left california, Lets see just how generous these liberals are when given a choice betweem them(the academics) and the poor, vs handing out some other rich guys money, with no consequence to the bureaucrats making the decisions. When it comes down to a decision where its either bureaucrats pensions, or poor peoples welfare, all of a sudden bureaucrats are going to become far less sympathetic.
Great article about the California train wreck ------------------------------- http://www.newgeography.com/content...phic,+and+political+commentary+about+places%2 The Export Business in California (People and Jobs) California is growing only because there are more births than deaths and the state had a net large influx of international immigration over the past decade. At the same time, the state has been hemorrhaging residents. Between 2000 and 2009, a net 1.5 million Californians left for other states. Only New York lost more of its residents (1.6 million). California's loss was greater than the population of its second largest municipality, San Diego. More Californians moved away than lived in 12 states at the beginning of the decade. Among the net 6.3 million interstate domestic migrants in the nation, nearly one-quarter fled California for somewhere else.
Word on the street, on population loss in NY. Pensioners move out and spend the retirement bucks anywhere but NY. Incoming are generally poor people looking for services. When Florida kicks you off the welfare rolls or aid for the homeless runs out, bad bing bada boom, single mothers with retarded children take a bus to New York and are well taken care of.