California’s Five Wannabes

Mr. Schrag's latest screed is a good example of why politics in Sacramento is so dis-functional. Instead of trying to find the truth in the Leibovich article, he mocks both the writer and each of the subjects. In recent years, Schrag has become increasingly bitter. That's very sad because he once was an open-minded person with real insight into the predicaments of modern society. Finally, his memory is not serving him well regarding Propistion 13 and the factors that constituted the ethos of that period. In fact, there was a long and hard fought battle to get property tax relief that got all the way to the state Senate but foundered just short of the necessary two thirds vote. There is much to say about government, schools and taxation in California. But to get anywhere it requires a degree of empathy and engagement with opposing perspectives that no longer seems congenial to Mr. Schrag.

Note from the Editor: We are in the process of checking as to whether that was actually posted by Attorney General Jerry Brown.

*** Note from the Editor: We have confirmed that the comment to Mr. Schrag's article was actually posted by Attorney General Jerry Brown.

I wish Sen. Diane Feinstein would realize that her constituents in California need affordable health care now more than ever. I guess she has been in Washington D.C. too long. Check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVQTu1n0yK0

Mr. Schrag's latest screed is a good example of why politics in Sacramento is so dis-functional. Instead of trying to find the truth in the Leibovich article, he mocks both the writer and each of the subjects.

The strange thing is that all three of my children had resolved this type of dysfunction by the end of their second year. It's called learning how to deal with reality, and perhaps it's time our elected representatives learned to do that.

Instead of continuing to demagogue - reading their own propaganda about class-warfare and Republicans inhumanity to - well, just about everyone - perhaps the majority party ought to just pretend the opposition doesn't exist and look at what's left.

What's left is a state that's in a death spiral. What's left is a state that businesses are fleeing (and in the post NAFTA and internet era, that's easier than ever) and that the middle class is fleeing, leaving the very rich (who whatever you may think about them personally, are adept at finding ways to avoid paying excessive taxes - if only by buying a condo in Laughlin, NV that becomes their new voting address) and the low income - a low income that increasingly feels entitled because they have sold their votes for decades to a party who had promised them that they could have nirvana paid for by the corporations and the rich, if only they'd vote democratic.

Even without the republicans in the picture, this model of social structure is demonstrably unsustainable. Yes, it can last a few more years - devouring capital laboriously built up in previous decades, but that's really just a sham. By honest accounting rules, California is deeply in the red already - not $26.3 billion, but closer to four times that. Unfunded pension liabilities are part of that:
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_12772192
but there are other things as well - the residue of decades of one-time fixes and kicking the can down the road.

Were California a business, creditors would shut it down. Were it a publicly traded business, the SEC would halt trading on it. Were it a bank, the regulators would close it - and the bank governors would likely be facing jail time.

As long as the republicans are there to blame things on, the dems seem reluctant to deal with this reality, but reality it is.

The dream that California can somehow be a perpetual motion machine - that it can pull itself up by its own bootstraps - that the laws of economics that have always applied everywhere else somehow don't apply here - is only that - a dream.

It's time for the dems to wake up and face facts. We can't afford state pensions that allow people to retire at age 48 at 90% of full pay. We will not succeed if we drive away the businesses and the industrious people that we need to provide a tax base. While you may be able to buy votes cheaply by making people increasingly dependent on government, these aren't the people that will ever be able to fund that government. Once their dependency is fostered, however, you WILL need to find a revenue source to feed it.

California is a beautiful state - but natural beauty and wonderful weather in the end aren't enough.

The problem here isn't the repubs - absent the repubs it's still a friggin disaster this year, but more than that it is a LONG TERM DEATH SPIRAL.

Think past the next election, why dontcha? What are you going to do to halt the death spiral?

I wish Sen. Diane Feinstein would realize that her constituents in California need affordable health care now more than ever.

I'd like to see a return to gasoline at $29.9 a gallon too. How do you suggest I do that?

Do you think if Diane Feinstein and Congress passed a law to that effect and President Obama signed it, that that would happen?

What makes you think that healthcare at a level currently practiced CAN be affordable?

I'm a baby-boomer. When my generation hit elementary schools there weren't enough classrooms. We had to use portable classrooms and double-shift.

The schools weren't really at fault - they had never had that many students before. They had five years from the time the kids started to be born - five years in which all of society was still recovering form the sacrifices of WWII, to get the classrooms ready, and society proved incapable of doing that. They were fortunate just to get the teachers trained. It was better in junior high school - but only marginally so. By ninth grade I was actually in a new junior high school. There were massive construction projects on my high school while I as in it, and several new ones in the process of being built when I graduated - but as a leading edge baby-boomer I saw only a few improvements before I went off to college.

The point of all this is that I'm 61. I am ONLY NOW entering the demographic that actually uses A LOT of medical care. Up until this time my biggest use of the medical care system was the broken arm I got screwing around on that swingset in the backyard of a friend's house in second grade, and that only took one overnight in the hospital and a little gauze and plaster.

I can tell you right now, history is going to repeat itself. The hospital facilities that are needed for the graying of the baby-boomers are not yet constructed. Same for the long term care facilities.

My demographic, which for the last 40 years have been big payers into the healthcare system (and the government) are about to become bigtime users of the healthcare system and bigtime beneficiaries of government transfer funds.

Now eventually - in thirty years or so - most of us will have died off and the situation stabilized. By then we may even have a surplus of such facilities. But for the immediate future, healthcare is going to be in great demand and short supply - not a condition known to make commodities cheaper.

If you have some brilliant plan for how it can be made cheaper, please enlighten the rest of us. We'd be glad to hear it.

As usual, the New York Times piece is more style than substance- as evidence by their choice of the picture of Gavin Newsom to promote it. Never has the epithet "empty suit" been more, well, suitable.

And Meg "The Empress" Whitman's many, many deficiencies as a candidate will become exposed soon enough. Then the world, and Californians, will indeed see that "The Empress" has no clothes.

Jerry Brown? Why does anyone seriously think that anyone will vote for him? I'm a lifelong Democrat and wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot hanging chad.

That leaves us with Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner. Mr. Campbell is certainly a thoughtful person with some interesting ideas. However, he does not seem to have any direct experience in job creation or educational reform.

Your next governor of California? The only candidate with all the qualifications we need, right now: Steve Poizner.

As usual, the New York Times piece is more style than substance- as evidence by their choice of the picture of Gavin Newsom to promote it. Never has the epithet "empty suit" been more, well, suitable.

And Meg "The Empress" Whitman's many, many deficiencies as a candidate will become exposed soon enough. Then the world, and Californians, will indeed see that "The Empress" has no clothes.

Jerry Brown? Why does anyone seriously think that anyone will vote for him? I'm a lifelong Democrat and wouldn't touch him with a 10 foot hanging chad.

That leaves us with Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner. Mr. Campbell is certainly a thoughtful person with some interesting ideas. However, he does not seem to have any direct experience in job creation or educational reform.

Your next governor of California? The only candidate with all the qualifications we need, right now: Steve Poizner.

Just wanted to say, "Well said George". You get it!

P.S. George Hanshaw for Governor!

Hanshaw, like so many others, you're confusing "California" with California's deeply dysfunctional government. The problem with California's government is the 2/3rds requirement in the legislature to pass a budget and to pass any tax increase and the long time severe abuse of the initiative and recall provisions by well-funded special interests -- whether they be property owners or unions or airheaded nincompoops.

Those problems are structural; they will not go away until and unless the constitution of California is reformed. That may or may not happen soon.

The economic catastrophe California is facing is not due to those structural problems, but the longer the Republicans and Governor Stogie keep saying "No!" to every compromise they're offered, the worse that economic catastrophe is going to get.

Already their stubborn blockheadedness has cost the people of California billions of dollars, and they seem quite prepared for the costs to skyrocket. It is their refusal to compromise that is costing the people of California millions of dollars every day. It is not the Democrats' "model" that's doing that. They are not correcting any of the problems with California's goverment by their refusal; they can't.

All they can do is cost you and me more. And that's what they're doing.

California is in economic peril for other reasons altogther. Start with excess and greed at the top and go from there.

I love the threats by California's wealthy that they'll "leave" if they don't get their way. Well good! GO! Now! The sooner they're gone, the better. They don't want to pay for a decent society. So what good are they anyway?

Hanshaw, like so many others, you're confusing "California" with California's deeply dysfunctional government.
No, in point of fact, I am making no such conceptual mistake.

The problem with California's government is the 2/3rds requirement in the legislature to pass a budget and to pass any tax increase and the long time severe abuse of the initiative and recall provisions by well-funded special interests -- whether they be property owners or unions or airheaded nincompoops. A 67% requirement is not insurmountable. The ability to filibuster gives the federal government a functional 60% Senate requirement for the enactment of ANY bill, including appropriations and authorizations measures.
And to actually WIN any of those recall or initiative measures you still need a majority of the voters on your side. By your rationale the perfect form of government would no doubt be a dictatorship - with you as the dictator or at least an aristochracy of people who share your values. As appealing as that must be to you, it is unlikely to work any better for you than it did for Marie Antoinette.

Those problems are structural; they will not go away until and unless the constitution of California is reformed. That may or may not happen soon.
Au contraire, most of your problems are ideological and political. You have created a subset of political slaves - a multitude of voters whose votes can be purchased cheaply with someone else's money, and to create them you have engendered dependency in people who - under other circumstances - would have been far more economically productive. You have also created a political army of public unionists, again largely funded by someone elses money, who are enormously expensive, but allow you to insure your ideology is promulgated by the state.
Your difficulty is that the 'someone else's money' is running out, as those someone else's disappear. Your ideological problem is one of cognitive dissonance - your beliefs are internally contradictory - such as the belief we can dissuade people from smoking by taxing smoking but somehow taxing income won't dissuade people or corporations from generating taxable income. Or believing that increasing CalGrants WILL lead to an increase in poor people graduating from college but that somehow increasing welfare benefits WON'T lead to an increase in people on welfare.

The economic catastrophe California is facing is not due to those structural problems, If that's the case, why are you claiming it is? You ought to at least be consistent within a single posting. Now THAT is cognitive dissonance!

but the longer the Republicans and Governor Stogie keep saying "No!" to every compromise they're offered, the worse that economic catastrophe is going to get. Compromises only improve things if the compromise is in the right direction. There is nothing sacred about compromising. If you need to turn the ship 40 degrees to port to keep from hitting the rocks, turning it 20 degrees might make no appreciable difference. It's difficult to say that the Governator hasn't compromised in the wrong direction. Hopefully he has at last learned the futility of such compromises.

But again, by demagoguing the issue about repubs, you choose to avoid acknowledging that the state pension funding is actuarially unsound, and the damage to the state being done by anti-business and class warfare tactics, among other problems. You may DESIRE the revenue that comes with employment while HATING and punishing the corporations that provide it, but you won't get it that way. You may claim that the repubs are the 'enemy of the people' and even execute all of them like Pol Pot did with the people he disagreed with, but even such Draconian action doesn't change reality. It didn't for him, and it won't for you.

A state where the people work for the state government and there is minimal or no private enterprise just doesn't work - it didn't for the USSR, it didn't for China, and it won't work for you.

Already their stubborn blockheadedness has cost the people of California billions of dollars, and they seem quite prepared for the costs to skyrocket. It is their refusal to compromise that is costing the people of California millions of dollars every day. Assuming that the more appropriate compromise isn't for the dems to the Governator's position. If you look at it objectively, it's STILL half smoke and mirrors and budgetary gimmicks and STILL pushes half of the problem into next year (that will likely be no better).

If either the governor's or the dems position had to meet accepted standards of accounting, about $15 billion of their "savings" would be considered totally fraudulent. A real company would be slashing stuff across the board right now - they'd have no other option.

Start with excess and greed at the top and go from there.
Are you truly THAT ignorant of California history? It was FOUNDED on greed - the quest for El Dorado by the Conquistadores - the Gold Rush at Sutter's Mill - the Robber Barons and Merchant Princes - California survived all that - prospered even - because it rewarded industry rather than punishing it. It's the 'you can have it all and the evil rich people and corporations will pay for it' mentality that got us in this situation, and it's likely to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I love the threats by California's wealthy that they'll "leave" if they don't get their way.
THEIR way? Who are you trying to kid? Look at top income tax rates by state:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/228.html
California is less punishing to the wealthy than Hawaii - that's it though.

Well good! GO! Now! The sooner they're gone, the better.
To a considerable extent, it looks like you are going to get your wish.

They don't want to pay for a decent society. I'm not sure what you mean by a 'decent' society, but if you are talking about just paying taxes, the guy with an annual income of $2 million dollars is paying roughly $190,000.
How much are you paying?
For extra credit ... when the guy making $2 million moves to Nevada where there is no state income tax, who are you going to get to pay the $190,000 you just lost?

So what good are they anyway?
Where does THAT sort of talk stop? What good are the poor? What good are the illegals? What good are the sick? What good are the Jews? What good are the blacks?

You're a sick puppy, Morris1 - do you realize that?

Hanshaw, you live in an ideological wilderness, a sere and dry desert of mystification and hobgoblins. All those armies of slaves out to get you! Pensioners living high!

What a pathetic, miserable existence.

At least there's this: Republicans have nothing to do with your misery! Yay!

"Brown for Governor: Because the historians are all wrong."

As slogans go, it seems a bit too defensive, doesn't it, Jerry? How about this instead: "Jerry Brown: Still thin-skinned after all these years––and not afraid to flaunt it."

"Brown for Governor: Because the historians are all wrong."

As slogans go, it seems a bit too defensive, doesn't it, Jerry? How about this instead: "Jerry Brown: Still thin-skinned after all these years––and not afraid to flaunt it."

"Brown for Governor: Because the historians are all wrong."

As slogans go, it seems a bit too defensive, doesn't it, Jerry? How about this instead: "Jerry Brown: Still thin-skinned after all these years––and not afraid to flaunt it."

Hanshaw, you live in an ideological wilderness, a sere and dry desert of mystification and hobgoblins. All those armies of slaves out to get you! Pensioners living high!
What a pathetic, miserable existence.

And you, sir, are now reduced to ad hominem attacks because you lack a viable argument based upon reason.

In fact, my existence is pretty good. My wife and I together made over $250K a year before we retired. Had California taxes been a little less punitive, I might have kept at work a little longer - putting another $25K annually into the state coffers. But between a 'progressive' federal income tax and a 'progressive' state income tax, my marginal rate was getting pretty steep so we made a purely economic decision - why bother to work? You see, I HAVE one of those government pensions - not as lucrative as what they are handing out today certainly, but not all that bad. My only apparent income now is the interest and capital gains on my investments (not including of course my 403b, my wife's 401k, and our two IRAs - we haven't started to tap them yet). So actually, my state and federal income taxes are quite reasonable currently.

But please don't feel sorry for my "pathetic, miserable existence," because we are actually doing well. While my income is certainly reduced, my taxes are greatly reduced, and my need for income is a lot less now that I'm not working. Besides, the house is paid off, all three cars are paid off, the hangar is paid off, the airplane is paid off - in fact my tax payments on real estate and personal property are my only payments, and my pension easily covers them - without even tapping the investment income.

Right now my wife and I are doing just fine - but that doesn't stop me from being objective enough to see that current state tax, wage, benefit, and entitlement policies are simply unsustainable.

So right now my wife and I are doing volunteer work to keep the cobwebs from accumulating in our brains, we contribute to various local charities and support our local schools - it's not like we are some paranoid skinheads in Boise or something, and in fact most of my 'progressive' friends think I'm nice enough - merely misguided. And in truth, that's precisely what I think of most of them.

But the thing is Che Pasa, there is an external reality. You can pretend that there isn't - pretend it's all the fault of the evil wealthy or the evil republicans or the Jews or the gypsies of the Catholics or the Protestants - but I've lived long enough to be able to tell you with some reasonable certainty that reality always wins over ideology. If you live long enough, you'll understand that too.

Kudos to Mark Paul, "Mark Paul," and "Che Pasa" for telling what "the historians" have to say.

I always wondered what happened in California. Thanks for informing me ... :)

That's a little joke.

Nicholas, what's wrong with Newsome? I think he has the potential to be a decent governor. Also, it is ridiculous to say that Poizner has more experience in job creation and education reform than Campbell does. Poizner does not have substantial experience in job creation and unimpressive experience in education reform. Campbell has unbeatable experience in job creation, and although he has not directly dealt in education reform, he has displayed extensive knowledge of that issue. Also, Poizner is one of those hard-line anti-tax freaks who have been stalling budget agreements and wrecking our state. How could you even consider voting for him?

Armies of slaves, Hanshaw! They're comin to git yer stuff, Hanshaw! Run, Hanshaw! Hide!!!

You might call that "ad hominum". But if you hadn't made so many really stupid claims about California and Californians (ie: "political slaves", "executing Republicans," "no private enterprise," "punishing taxation," "dictatorship," "Pol Pot" and on and on and on) I wouldn't be calling you out for the folly you display.

Hanshaw, you don't have arguments, you have talking points from old John Birch Society brochures. Apparently they drilled into your brain when you were too young to know any better, and now you're stuck.

It would be so much better for you and for California if you could get out of that pathetic, irrational mindset and could approach California's present and future productively. Instead, you want to defend the worst of the past and pretend what's wrong is right.

Shrag at least acknowledges the people who are being hurt the most by the failure of our dysfunctional government. And it isn't you, Hanshaw. It isn't you.

very well said che'pasa, george the guy that has 2 million does not pay 190,000 in taxes because of all the tax loopholes, we are luckey to see a dime from him, go on the tax website some and read there articles, all those rich folk dont pay taxes it is the poor people like us that pay the taxes.

well george now I know why you defend arnie so much you guys are the ones with all the money go ahead and write a check for the 26.3 billion and get the budget squared away!!!!After I pay my bills at the 1st of the month I try to figure out how to save my 83.00 of my pay check,do I buy food for the month or starve and invest it with all the corrupt bankers????? What should I do ?? Oh by the way I used to have more but the gov took my 15%!!!!!gee I wonder how you would like it if the gov took 15% of your 250,000?????

Shrag at least acknowledges the people who are being hurt the most by the failure of our dysfunctional government. And it isn't you, Hanshaw. It isn't you.

Absolutely correct. It isn't me - because I spent my life doing things that left me capable of avoiding being hurt. It IS the most vulnerable that get hurt - who in hell do you think always gets hurt? It is ALWAYS the most vulnerable.

That's ALL THE MORE REASON that the actions of the democrats in pushing ideology instead of dealing with reality are reprehensible. Because when the system FAILS the most vulnerable will be the collateral damage.

george the guy that has 2 million does not pay 190,000 in taxes

I never implied that the guy with $2 million DOES pay $190,000 in taxes. I stated that a guy with a taxable income of $2 million a year pays $190,000 in taxes a year. That is simply the assessment rate.

And many DO avoid paying anything, by claiming residence in Nevada or somewhere else. That's one of the problems with punitive taxation - it becomes cheaper to avoid paying anything than it does to pay a more reasonable amount.

For $190,000 a rich person can buy a condo in Laughlin and vote there. Living in California is optional for rich people. You abuse them and they will leave. They may be back on weekends or even during the week. They'll still save money. For $190,000 they can afford a hell of a lot of plane trips between Laughlin and LAX.

well george now I know why you defend arnie so much you guys are the ones with all the money go ahead and write a check for the 26.3 billion and get the budget squared away!
$26.3 billion is a little more than I have in petty cash right now, but even if it wasn't, why should I?

You see, I came up from blue collar roots - worked hard - made good decisions. I COULD have used drugs - committed crimes - gambled my money away, or just blew it all on high living - but I didn't. I was a respectable citizen, obeyed the law, paid my taxes (as opposed to most of Obama's cabinet). What moral authority do you have to tell me what to do? What claim do you have on wealth that I have earned by the sweat of my brow? None, that's what.

gee I wonder how you would like it if the gov took 15% of your 250,000?????
You're shitting me, right? I would have LOVED IT if the government had taken ONLY 15%.

Social Security and Medicare ALONE was 15.3%(self-employed).

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10022.html

Then California took almost 9.3% on top of that.
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/catxrate_exmpt07.shtml

Then the feds took almost 35%.
http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm

Could you possibly BE more ignorant?

I would have been overjoyed if the government would have only taken 15% of my money - that would have been friggin wonderful.

Armies of slaves, Hanshaw! They're comin to git yer stuff, Hanshaw! Run, Hanshaw! Hide!!!

You might call that "ad hominum".

I take it you are ignorant of the meaning of the phrase ad hominem

go to this web page and you can read the definition of ad hominem:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ad%20hominem

Then at least you won't be ignorant.

Your comment above is NOT an ad hominem argument, merely a stupid and childish taunt.

And in case you don't understand THOSE words, ignorance is curable by study. Stupid, unfortunately, is too often permanent.

I don't know that it's fair to burden Brown's legacy with anti-government sentiment, which certainly can not be argued was or is contained within the golden state's borders. Prop 13 was the product of our initiative process coupled with the ant-tax sentiment pervasive everywhere.

As I recall, Brown's first act as governor was to halt all of the building projects in the state, regardless of their worthiness. Your opinion on the intelligence of this decision might differ, especially for any of us caught in Sacramento's notorious traffic jams (he halted a freeway from Madison and I-80 to downtown that was so close to completion they'd already planted the oleanders), or wondered why an elevated I-280 stopped, mid-air, less than a mile from it's bay bridge destination, but you can't argue it happened at the beginning of his tenure as governor in response to an anti-tax, anti-government sentiment that already existed.

I recall well how my parents reacted when the county tax assessor showed up at our front door to discuss how a patio they'd covered with a fiberglass roof for shade was discovered by aerial photos and would now increase their home's square footage for tax assessment purposes. It was living with that kind of financial uncertainty, that feeling that they lacked the power to control the impact of fluid taxation, that brought about prop 13's massive success. Years later, it might not seem like such a good idea to vote for a proposition that said, "this is how much you will pay in taxes, period, as long as you own your home," but I assure you it seemed like a good idea at the time, it was security, and nothing Jerry Brown could have said or done would have changed the outcome of that election.

I support re-governating Jerry Brown. If he doesn't choose to run, I'm writing him in. Just imagining Brown and Whitman in a debate makes my liberal mouth water. He'll insult her intelligence and probably her looks in Latin, then Japanese, and by the end of the debate he'll have convinced her she plagiarized the idea for ebay from his thesis on the religious anthropology of sea turtles. I rarely understand more than a few words he says, but I somehow feel safer knowing a man more intelligent than me is in charge. And when Whitman starts in about how prop 8 is right because her faith says so ... well no Republican on the planet knows scripture, or the reason why it can't be suffused into a secular constitution, better than Brown.

Hey George, I'm on your side! I think you mis-read my post.

Walter-Your kidding right? You really want Moonbeam back? He has no opinion of his own. He goes where the wind blows and always have. Where have you been?

Hey George, I'm on your side! I think you mis-read my post.

Walter-Your kidding right? You really want Moonbeam back? He has no opinion of his own. He goes where the wind blows and always has. Where have you been?

Hey George, I'm on your side! I think you mis-read my post.

Actually, I read the comment BELOW your name and thought it was yours. The posting style for this site is very different from another one I post on, and I made what in biology we call a frame-shift error.

You have my sincere apologies.

No, I'm not kidding. Heck yeah, I want him back. No opinion of his own? His opinions are entirely his own, in fact, I'm not even sure anyone else understands them but him. Crazy times call for crazy politicians, and if you really want to punish the special interests and legislators in Sacramento today, I say there's no better way then to send Brown back in, '73 Plymouth Fury and all! My vote is locked in for A.G. Moonbeam.

Che,

Arguing for a repeal of the 2/3 rule is saying an increase in taxes is further justified after state spending has increased some 45% over the past 5 years with no parallel increase in revenue from a robust economy.

So, did you put a little into YOUR tax return to the state last tax season? Or do you just want everyone else to do so?

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