How to Fix a Downward-Spiraling California

Hello Gauchos! I’m Blaise Vanderhorst, your friendly neighborhood Political Guru. Every Thursday I’ll be here, dispensing wisdom and injecting my premium blend of opinions and facts into your brains. I do it because I love you.

I’d like to share a bit of personal information before I get down to business, since this is my first column. I’m a third-year history major, and I’ll soon add a Religious Studies double-major. I picked the title of “Political Guru” for multiple reasons. First of all, I wanted to be able to comment on the world of politics and offer my unique perspective to the UCSB students and staff. Secondly, as “guru” is, at least in its original usage, a religious term, and offers me the option of commenting on religious issues as well. Finally, it just sounds cool.

Well then, now that introductions and initial explanations are out of the way, let us get down to business: There is a lot going wrong in the world. I could write a book about all the different things: Iraq, Afghanistan, the world economic crisis, the “Stimulus Package” currently before the Senate, corporate execs lighting cigars with burning Monet paintings on their gold-plated, billion-dollar private jets…but the California budget crisis is what I’d like to tackle first.

The state of California is in a financial meltdown, and with the level of outright incompetence our leaders have displayed these past few years, and the severity of the situation their misgovernment has created for us, people ought to be out in the streets, screaming for the blood of Arnold and the state legislature. We’re one of the highest taxed states in the nation. We have the highest income tax, the highest sales tax, the highest gas tax, and the highest cigarette tax. We have one of the highest business taxes in the union and the highest west of the Rockies. Our government has doubled in spending over the last decade, and the five years Der Governator has been in office have seen a 40 percent increase in spending. Now, if the population of our state had increased by that same percentage, or if inflation had gone up by that much, it would be understandable. But that is not the case.

So now with our unemployment in the double digits and virtually every business that hasn’t closed taking in lower income, the crooks in Washington want to raise taxes. That’s the “word on the street” as they say, and you didn’t hear it from me, but they say that the Republicans in the legislature may agree to tax hikes if they get a budget cap. Of course, if they manage to get a two-thirds Democrat majority in the legislature, or get the Republicans to fold with forecasts of another “financial Armageddon,” then that budget cap would have been all for not, and we’d still have higher taxes.

But there are two other components to our budget crisis, and they’re tied into irresponsible spending. The two elephants in the room, as it were, are illegal immigration and the unions. Now, I’m going to make a lot of enemies saying this in my first post, but if we want to solve the mess we’re in we have to acknowledge our problems. Illegal immigration costs our state an estimated 10.5 billion a year (yes, billion, no joke). Our teachers–despite our state’s having low test scores, static enrollment, and having one of the highest drop-out rates in the nation,–are the highest-paid in the nation. But, you can bet that Schwarzenegger and the “Big Five” discussing their dirty deals in smoke-filled back rooms in Sacramento are not even considering reviewing the union contracts of state employees, or doing anything about the unmitigated flood of illegal immigrants crowding our hospitals, schools, and prisons.

So, what are my solutions? Cut spending down to 1998 levels, adjusted for inflation. Then, I’d tell the unions to come to the table and renegotiate their ridiculously generous contracts. I’d adjust all the state taxes so that California was in the top 25 lowest-taxed states rather than in the top ten highest-taxed. And I’d tell law enforcement to crack down on illegal immigration, declaring “sanctuary cities” a violation of federal law, and deploy the state’s National Guard to guard the border. It’d probably all cost less than $10.5 billion, and would definitely attract businesses back to California. But, alas, the sensible solutions are rarely the ones governments choose.

[Editor's note: Blaise is not lying: This blog will usually be up on Thursdays. This was late due to an error on my part. Apologies.]

3 Responses to “How to Fix a Downward-Spiraling California”

1. dsforz says:

   February 6, 2009 at 11:35 am

   you stated Washington wants to raise taxes, you meant Sacramento I hope. IF you renegotiate taxes you will just increase the budget gap. California is the perfect example on how high taxes do not squelch business, considering that if we were our own country we would be the eighth richest in the world.

   You stated the problem is that our population has not kept up with out spending, but our population is the problem. Until last year we were by far the fastest growing state, and do not have the infrastructure to support it, leading to deterioration in our roads, schools and overbooked hospitals. Our large number of uninsured creates a massive strain on our hospitals, and our incarceration rate is through the roof, with so many in prison that the federal government needs to keep an eyeful watch to make sure we are not abusing our prisoners (the same government that felt Guantanamo was ok)

   While our other taxes are high, thanks to prop 13 our property taxes are low. Los Angeles is the only city in the top 50 cities with highest property taxes.

   As for Shwarzenneger being in bed with the unions, he is anything but. The entire special election he held in 2005 was to throw the unions out of politics altogether. While we have the highest drop out rates, California’s students also compose the majority of the top Universities in the United States. I can’t speak for the rest of California, but for Los Angeles, the major problem is not the teachers, but poor administration from LAUSD (which is being run by a retired navy admiral who did such a poor job that they had to hire an understudy to do his job) While starting pay in LAUSD is the highest in California, it is the 40th lowest in terms of gradual pay, giving LAUSD teachers little incentive to stay in the district for long, creating high turnover or good teachers moving to other districts. The crowded schools make for a harsh environment for teaching (I went to a school of 5000 with a freshmen class of 1500, 600-700 graduated).
2. Political Guru says:

   February 7, 2009 at 4:12 pm

   dsforz, you say that we would be the 8th richest nation in the world if California were an independent nation. Well, that might have been the case a decade ago, and maybe about 5 years ago we’d be 10th, but now we’d be 14th-heck, we may have dropped further since I last heard that calculation. The point is, we’ve been going down. We’re losing people, and losing businesses. Owning a business in California is like owning a business on State Street: too damn expensive. Businesses are leaving the state, and that’s hurting us.
3. dsforz says:

   February 7, 2009 at 11:05 pm

   your absolutely right. I was wrong. Were 7th, not eighth

   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/14/BAC915AB6Q.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

   we were 8th in 2006
   http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/12/business/NA-GEN-US-California-No.-8-Economy.php

   Everyone’s loosing businesses, that’s because the value of everything, especially property, was hyper inflated. As it falls rapidly, those who purchased anything in 2006-2007 are being hurt.