An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
The world's eighth-largest economy has just gone belly-up. ...
The immediate source of California's financial problems is a lethal combination of ideology and rules. It is deeply politically divided, and its governmental mechanisms are completely broken. Bay Area leftists stare at Orange County conservatives across an unbridgeable abyss; a large and potent group of anti-government libertarians faces off against an equally powerful group of pro-tax, proactive government liberals. ...
What happened? Why did the center fail? Why has California, a place famous for giving birth to cutting-edge ideas that changed the world, proved humiliatingly unable to manage its own affairs? Why can't California do politics as well as it does technology, biotech, movies, music and social justice movements?
Beyond the state's dysfunctional system, the short answer is the rise of the hard-right GOP. Pushed far to the right by ideologues like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and their ilk, California Republican lawmakers have staked out an absolutist line against taxes that makes governance nearly impossible. Lawmakers who believe and act on Reagan's famous line that "government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem," are walking oxymorons. Why expect anti-government Republican legislators to resolve a budget crisis when that crisis will result in their goal: the destruction of government? The floundering Governator may not be an extremist, but he remains in thrall to the members of his party who are.
But Californians themselves, of all political stripes -- or, more likely and significantly, none -- also are responsible. The fact remains that self-centered California has yet to come to terms with what it is. This is a state that was built with government programs, financed by massive federal military and aerospace spending and state funding of local projects, and yet still has not decided what it thinks about the New Deal, or government itself. Of course, those opposed to government tend to be on the right. But the fact that many leftists, chasing the chimera of perfection, disdain the world of practical politics is also damaging.
Will California be able to pull itself out of its current hole? Certainly it has done so in the past. Its history is nothing if not a tale of reversals and unexpected triumphs. It will no doubt muddle through. But in the long run, to overcome its structural problems, it must transform some of its most cherished values. Without abandoning its individualism, utopianism and radicalism, it must learn how to use them in the world -- with all the compromises that requires. Like an aging starlet, the Golden State is clinging desperately to its glorious youth. But it is past time for it to grow up. http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2009/07/02/california/index.html?source=newsletter
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: America, America...
The Democrats control spending in California, Jacek (and since 1998, have DOUBLED that state's budget !)
----
California's Silent Big Spenders
Political class refuses to explain why the state requires hysterical spending growth
Matt Welch | May 28, 2009
Say this much for the French: At least they have the couilles to come right out and argue why government needs to be bigger and more intrusive. I may not agree that the state should enforce "solidarity," or protect people from the alleged ravages of "hyper-capitalism," or promote national values to an increasingly blasé world, but at least these are concrete articulations of a positive government agenda, one that is buttressed by France's semi-legendary (if slipping) public sector productivity.
You will hear no such arguments in California, even as a surly political/journalistic class continues its bitter campaign against "small government zealots" and voters who failed to heed their wisdom this month about the necessity of approving yet another round of budget gimmicks and tax hikes. Curiously, in the face of evidence that state spending growth has outpaced population-plus-inflation growth under each of the last three governors, the people busy sounding the alarm against "annihilating" budget cuts have fallen tellingly mute when it comes to explaining just why Californians should pay more and more money for government services every year.
What, exactly, has been the return on this added investment? If spending under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger increased 6.75 percent a year during mostly good times, surely there must be, say, a 3 percent increase in the quantity or quality of...something? Crickets.
Instead of making the positive case for big government, or at least beginning to explain, let alone defend, what Sacramento does with all that money, California's political class has instead opted for a four-pronged strategy: deny, scare, attack, then call for higher taxes.
First is the denial that there is a government-growth issue in the first place. This takes some intellectual dexterity, since the facts indicate otherwise.
Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik, for example, declared this week that the notion California had a spending problem was "an infectious myth." But Hiltzik was only able to arrive at that conclusion by not categorizing bond spending as "spending," and mis-measuring a 14 percent population increase over the past decade as 30 percent. An Los Angeles Times news article—with the objective headline "California budget crisis could bring lasting economic harm"—dismissed the big-government critique in two sentences: "Businesses have long complained about big-spending government in California. But with state and local spending accounting for about one-fifth of the state's gross domestic product, California is in line with some other heavily populated, expensive-to-manage states, such as New York and Florida." Left out of that comparison (besides a more representative opposition than "businesses" who "complained") was an even bigger state than New York or Florida: Texas, where state and local spending is not "in line" with California at all.
The scare story is the easiest to tell, and sell. It requires no falsifying, no comprehensive analysis of state spending, just selected horror stories and numbers about the miserables left behind by a suddenly crippled state. "Poor would bear brunt of California budget cuts," the Los Angeles Times headlined one story. Commented the California progressive Robert Scheer, in a disbelieving TruthDig column on federal reluctance to bail out the Golden State: "Bail out the banks, but not the 500,000 poor families with children served by the CalWorks program, which will be dismantled, or the 928,000 children covered by the Healthy Families program, slated for oblivion."
Next, and most fun, comes the attack, mostly against that vanishing and largely impotent California tribe known as "Republicans." New York Times economic columnist Paul Krugman called the state GOP "the party of Rush Limbaugh," with members who "have become ever more extreme," yet with "enough seats in the Legislature to block any responsible action in the face of the fiscal crisis." Washington Post labor columnist and longtime L.A. hand Harold Meyerson said that "today's GOP state legislators," when compared to the self-styled "Neanderthal" conservatives of the 1978 tax revolt, make "the Neanderthals look like Diderot's Encyclopedists."
How is it possible to blame a spending-based budget crisis on the spending-averse minority party in an increasingly monolithic Democratic state? This is where the reeling political class actually senses an opportunity.
"The biggest obstacle of all," wrote Los Angeles Times Sacramento columnist George Skelton just after the election, "is the inane two-thirds majority vote requirement for passage of virtually any money bill—spending or taxes." That two-thirds requirement, along with a cap on property-tax increases for owners who hold onto their homes and businesses, was part of the landmark 1978 voter initiative Proposition 13.
"The truth is that real solutions to the budget crisis are obvious," Hiltzik wrote just after the election. "One: Eliminate, or at least loosen substantially, the two-thirds legislative requirement to pass a budget or raise taxes. [...] Three is the Big One: Revise Proposition 13. Prop 13 is often described as a tax-cutting measure, but that scarcely does justice to the damage it has caused."
Also singing in the Prop. 13-must-go chorus were Krugman, Meyerson, UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, the Los Angeles Times editorial board, The American Prospect's Tim Fernholz, and just about any newsroom employee you'll run into. To a man, they'll tell you that the initiative is responsible for "bringing the state to [its] knees in four decades," or in Meyerson's florid verbiage, for having "reduced the Golden State to baser metal."
But if that analysis is true, then there is a natural follow-up question that none seem to ask: Why is it that the quality of government services is going down when the prices are going up? Snap intuition suggests that taxpayer dollars are being spent less efficiently each year. The more you spend on waste, the less you can spend on those 928,000 children.
Though there are far fewer zero-sum contests in economics than most people think, the battle over taxpayer dollars is definitely one of them. Every Californian worried about service cuts should take a very close look at state-sector pension contributions and the sweetheart contracts negotiated by the public sector unions that aren't even apologetic about helping run the state's finances into the ground.
It's only a suspicion, but my guess is that the main reason pro-spending commenters and legislators don't regale us with defenses of the virtuous State is that in their hearts they know it isn't true. If Sacramento is providing boffo services, it isn't immediately evident in the places where non-welfare-recipient Californians are most likely to encounter them: On the clogged highways, in the crappy public schools, at the local DMV. If the stuff we don't normally see is being delivered with increasingly better results, that's the kind of story that might begin to persuade skeptical Californians. But that's precisely the story that the state's political class won't—or can't—tell.
Governor Palin writes: “And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled.” It’s telling that she omitted one category: Poor people, whose care is now cruelly rationed in ways the Obama administration and congressional Democrats are trying to address in health care reform. Palin brings genuine moral passion to the issue of cognitive disability. I wish she would bring that same passion to the plight of uninsured patients forced to seek substandard, delayed care, or the millions of Americans facing the dual challenge of serious illness and large medical bills. If you live in any big city, go down to your local public hospital emergency room. You will probably find people in visible discomfort or illness languishing for hours. A society that cares about human rights and dignity would not tolerate this.
Harold Pollack is a professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: America, America...
You actually want to portray U.S. health care as a tale of unrelenting woe, probably to justify a large, intrusive statist solution (but studies show that 87 % of Americans are happy with the health care they get). This myth of "horrible health care" might make socialists in Europe feel good, but it is a straw man argument.
Ron Paul talks about working as a doctor in an emergency room back in the late 1950s, which was run by a church. He said that he made $ 3, and "everyone got care". It was only when the government began to get into health care in 1965 that costs exploded and - ironically - the poor can no longer all get care.
Americans are now more afraid of national debt than lack of health care, and that is why "ObamaCare" is failing. I have pointed out on this site before that Obama's plan would just add more debt (it would "just" cost "$ 1 trillion", would ration care, and would basically destroy innovation and investment in medicine.
And try not to fool yourself: if the "capitalist" medical system in the U.S. goes down, everyone all over the world would "pay" for it in less medicines, less choices, and higher costs. (already, 30,000 Canadians each year cross the U.S. border to get care that they can't get on time in Canada. Where would they go, for instance ? ).
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: America, America...
Originally written by John Bunch on August 11, 2009 2:40 AM
studies show that 87 % of Americans are happy with the health care they get
The remaining 13% is probably the 40 million of uninsured we have been hearing about for years. That's 40 million of people in the United States, most of them Americans. Now listen to this mob:
“Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!” shouted protesters in Tampa, Florida. “Forty million illegals!” (Even though the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are specifically excluded from the health-care plan.) (http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/article1025529.ece via Harper's Weekly Review)
In other words, the protesting mob probably mistook all the US uninsured, i.e., 40 million, most of them American residents, for "illegals." I see this as an interesting Freudian slip. It's as if those who are happy with the status quo were shouting: Get rid of those 40 million uninisured because they are all illegal people, overlooking the fact that only 1/4 of them are "illegal aliens".
Just a few days ago, the no longer governor went a bit further:
Here’s what Palin said on her Facebook page Friday, in her first online comments since quitting as Alaska governor.
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
For a democracy, which depends on an informed citizenry to balance a permanent lobbying class, this is poison. And it’s one reason why town hall forums on health care, which should be sharp debates about something that affects all of us, have turned into town mauls. ...
The lies and shouts have had the effect that all crank speech has on free speech — stifling any real exchange. ...
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: America, America...
Jacek, about 20 % of the 47 million uninsured are illegal aliens. The rest are mostly younger people who chose (yes, chose) not to buy insurance. I have met some of them. Also, 50 % of the "uninsured" make over $ 50,000 per year. Many of those who are poor qualify for already-exisiting programs, but just have not signed up.
Senator Tom Coburn, one of only 2 doctors in the Senate, made the following points in a recent essay:
1. Why won't Congress enroll in ObamaCare ? Coburn asked 11 committee members on a committee in the Senate - all Democrats - how many would vote for a provision that states that federal employees - i.e., Congressmen and Senators, would also be covered by ObamaCare. Only 2 said they would support that !! This alone shows what an utter SHAM this whole thing is. They are going to vote in "universal" care for us, but there is a provision that allows them to opt themselves and their families out !! They thus know that this will be a "clunker".
2. If it will save money, why will it cost $ 1 trillion ?? If America "already pays more than any other country" for health care, why does Obama think that borrowing $ 1 trillion to pay even more for health care, is a good idea ?
3. Why the rush ? The bill in Congress is 1,000 pages long, and they are trying to rush it through. If it were a good bill, they would know it would win on its merits. But they know it is not a good bill, so they are trying to rush it through, without anyone reading it.
The true goal is NOT about health care, it is about POWER: expanding the federal government's power and getting as many people dependent on the Democratic party as possible. That is their true goal.
In the meantime, they use "smoke and mirrors" (the "cash for clunkers program", and "mobs" at town halls, to divert our attention).
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: America, America...
BTW, I am 100% convinced that there are such "death panels", for instance, in Britain. I am not necessarily a fan of Sarah Palin, but I do think she is right about this.
In addition, some information on the real health care situation in the U.S., as compared to other countries:
"In the US a coronary patient is four times as likely to receive surgical treatment as in Britain. In the US only 5% of Americans are made to wait more than four months for surgery. In Canada 27% wait four months or more and in Britain 36% wait four months or more. While the base rate of coronary disease in the US is higher than in other countries because of diet and lifestyle, the rate of survival for those diagnosed with coronary problems is much higher than in other countries because patients get the best and most appropriate treatment more quickly.
The same pattern holds true with cancer. Overall Britons and Europeans in general die at a higher rate from all forms of cancer than US citizens and the difference is dramatic in cases where early detection and treatment are important. For example, women with breast cancer in Britain have a 46% death rate as opposed to 25% in the US. Men with prostate cancer in Britain have a 57% mortality rate while in the US only 19% die and the death rate is declining rapidly because of early detection. It's the same with colon cancer. In Europe as a whole there is only a 8% survival rate, in Britain there's a 40% survival rate and in the US there's a 60% survival rate. With cancer of the esophagus only 7% survive while in the US 12% survive, although it's still one of the most deadly forms of cancer. Both long- and short-term recovery and survival rates for all forms of cancer are also significantly higher for US patients. Rationed care has limited diagnostic facilities like MRI machines and has created long wait times for specialist doctors. In fact, 40% of cancer patients in Britain never get to see a cancer specialist at all, and the National Health bureaucrats have denied basic tests like pap smears and ruled out powerful chemotherapy medicines as too expensive, all of which has cost lives. With diseases like cancer where early detection and treatment are vital, resource rationing means a lot more dead patients." - Dave Nalle
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: America, America...
Nanna, you wrote, regarding the town halls:
"The lies and shouts have had the effect that all crank speech has on free speech — stifling any real exchange. ..." [that may very well be true, although I doubt that "all real exchange" has been stifled...], however:
My comments:
a. Such shouting down of opponents, and turbulent disruption of debate has been a hallmark of left-wing debate tactics since at least 1968, and is a tactic extremely often used by liberals (particularly on college campuses and on the street). Now, when it is for once turned against liberals , they are now complaining of it. Very, very hypocritical. Seems that the can't take what they regularly dish out.
b. The people doing the shouting are conservative Democrats, not Republicans, mostly.
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: America, America...
Originally written by John Bunch on August 11, 2009 10:59 PM
They are going to vote in "universal" care for us, but there is a provision that allows them to opt themselves and their families out !!
John,
I keep thinking out loud. I have no way of knowing whether all details of ObamaCare are good or bad and how that system would work in practice. In my days, federal employees had to belong to a federal pension system which later was phased out and merged with the Social Security. So modifications are possible along the way. We are talking about a minimum of civilizational decency. I for one never use the universal healthcare system in Poland because I cannot afford the waste of time. I only use the private one and pray not to have to go to the hospital which is when I would have to use the state system. The latter is used, though, but the overwhelming majority of population who cannot afford the private system. Both system should be there for people to freely choose between.
Forums Disclaimer: The views expressed in the forums are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of the site owner and/or moderators. If the reader considers a post to cause offence, then she or he should address a complaint to the moderator of the forum concerned. The complaint should be dealt with within 24 hours, but please respect the fact that the moderator may be living in a different time zone. Use of the forums signifies your agreement with the Forum Posting Rules.
Language, Literature, Arts, Religion, Other 
TC Mobile |
Forum Settings |
Log On
Reply
Quote
Edit
Delete