California Dying In The West

California has chosen a path of decline. From its leading role in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, to its suicidal environmental, energy, and business regulations, California has chosen to go the way of populist suicide.

As California goes, says an old cliché, so goes the nation. Oh my.

These days, the Golden State leads the nation on economic and fiscal dysfunction, from the empty homes spread across the Central Valley to the highest state budget shortfall in the nation's history. Meanwhile, its political class pioneers denial in the face of catastrophe. _WSJ

California's have begun melting all the gold and silver in the family jewelry in an attempt to make up budget deficits. That $40 Billion deficit is not going away, despite a few cosmetic spending cuts and tax increases. California's government has chosen to kill the state via irresponsible budgeting and regulation, and only an angry and disciplined citizenry can turn the tables on the death-dealing state government.

The politicians aren’t entirely to blame, although at every sign of the unsustainability of the state’s fiscal practices their reaction has been to resort to more gimmicks and borrowing. California’s voters have recourse to an initiative process they have used to make responsible budgeting as hard as possible. They passed a proposition in the late 1980s that basically locked up half of state spending for the schools, no matter what. Even in November, with fiscal disaster looming, they passed another $10 billion in bonds for high-speed rail, apparently on the theory that a state can never have enough debt.

...Schwarzenegger now governs the Michigan of the West. California has the fourth-highest state unemployment rate in the nation and is routinely ranked among the worst states in its business environment. Almost 1.5 million more nonimmigrants have left the state than moved to it during the past ten years. _Lowry

Schwarzenegger and the freespending Democratic legislature and comptroller are all hoping that the Democratic Party controlled US Federal government will come through and bail the state out. They are hoping for a return to "business as usual", fleecing the taxpayers to pay the salaries and pensions of top-heavy state and local government workers.

Why can't the Governator be more like Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal, you may ask? I suspect the answer to that question lies in the respective backgrounds, upbringings, and underlying characters of the respective governors. For a tough guy, Schwarzenegger allowed himself to be dragged down into the free-loading populist swamp far more easily than one might have thought.

California, Michigan, New York, Illinois .... The list of corrupt, zombie populist-led states stretches on, seemingly lengthening every two to four years. And now the entire US Federal Government is led by the toxic strain of zombie rot-brains. What does the future hold? Take a quick peak at the Overpaid Government Workers news aggregator blog. Understand that the misbegotten economic policies that have led to insolvency at the corporate and state levels are experiencing accelerating growth at the Federal level. The first shoe has barely begun to drop, much less the next, the next, and the next .....