The ungovernable state

As California ceases to function like a sensible state, a new constitution looks both necessary and likely

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Most of us California receive Medicare at age 65 and full social security retirement at age 67. The typical California state employee receives both their retirement medical benefit and pension at age 52 (15 years earlier than the rest of us). If we increase all California state employee retirement dates to age 67 (same as the rest of us) then we could use the savings to make this fiscal mess go away without raising taxes and without cutting any state services.


With public employee union members en mass sleeping on overtime, trading shifts to get overtime, and counting vacation into overtime with already outrageous salaries and enormous benefits (firefighters retire on $100,000 per year) while doing otherwise minimum wage jobs or jobs that accomplish absolutely nothing, Californians would be crazy to vote for higher taxes. Additionally, Californians are filling their prisons with people at $45,000 / year plus thousands of dollars in health care costs for offenses like possession of tiny amounts of drugs, receiving stolen property, petty theft, and possession of a firearm. There's nobody in government who will fix this, so hopefully Californians will at least vote no to starve the beast on May 19. Higher taxes? That's nuts.


I have lived in California for 6 years, originally from Texas.
Californians are drowning in taxes and fees from the state, local and city governments. Those of us here that do work pay the tab for all who don't. I am a Democrat...lifelong, but the Democrats are ruining the state of California. Sacramento politicians are bought and paid for by special interest groups, mostly the unions. The unions run the state and everyone in it. State workers get 100% of their income in pensions, and they want more. The schools are a disgrace. The graduation rate is about 40%, but education gets about 48% of the total budget of California, and they want more. The prison system is a joke, they are not much more than dorm rooms for murderers, gang members, rapists, and thieves. We have the death penalty but we never use it. The prison unions want more money. The streets in California are not safe to walk in broad daylight. The illegals are bankrupting the coffers, they pay no taxes because they get theirs in cash and then we take care of all their needs medically, give them free education, subsidize their housing and they repay us by not learning English and marching in the streets waving Mexican flags demanding to be allowed to live here. To be in LA is basically like living in Mexico City.
Between the unions, government workers, illegals, voter apathy and Sacramento politicians overspending we the working people of California are screwed....Advice to the rest of the country....don't do as California has done, because then you will be screwed.


What has happened to the Economist? Used to be its writing was so fresh, but now so much of it seems mired in lazy, New York Time-style liberalism.

The Economist would like us to believe that "everybody" is to blame for California's budget woes, including the wack job right wingers in Orange County and the selfish people who hacked away at Property Taxes via Prop 13.

Wrong. Taxes in California are the highest in the country, tax rates are the most progressive in the country, and a plurality of Orange County voters vote for Democrats, not Republicans. Give me 10 minutes and I'll point out a dozen errors of similar laziness.

Wake up and smell the coffee, Economist. The problem with California is not gridlock, but that it is, instead, a 1-party state. The Democrats have run this state lock, stock and barrell for a long, long time and -lo and behold- state government spending has absolutely exploded. Now any effort to contol spending is described as a nasty "cut".

Since about 70% of Californians pay no state income tax, and the remaining 30% are already taxed to the nines, let's see, uh ... yeah, that's it let's raise taxes on that 30% still higher. Is it against the law to move to a neighboring state?

Message to the Economist: if we wanted a whiny NPR-style take on contemporary American politics, we'd listen to NPR (or watch ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, or CNN). Sometimes things are screwed up because the Republicans have been in charge and have really done a bad job. Sometimes things are screwed up because the Democrats have been in change and done a really bad job. In California, the Democrats have been in charge and done a really bad job. There, that wasn't so hard to say, was it?


I can't leave peterwolf's comments unchallenged. Yes, the Democrats have themselves to blame in some areas but the Republicans (both state and national) deserve equal or greater blame for California's woes. Remember, it wasn't all that long ago that California was a solidly Republican state and it was during this time that voters passed Proposition 13. Prop 13, although it did do some good by preventing older citizens from being taxed out of their homes, did hamstring local property tax collection, which puts more of the onus on state taxes to make up the difference. Republicans continually resist any attempt to modify the more extreme aspects of Prop 13 while the state's infrastructure rots. The second issue is continued legal and illegal immigration. The state's population has nearly doubled since I was a child and during that time the population went from being 80 percent American-born to an increasing majority of non-native born residents, many of whom are here illegally. While I have no beef with immigration in general, California has been swamped and the costs that go along with supporting a largely undereducated and service-dependent population is astronomical. However, who did nothing to staunch the flow during the 1970s and 1980s when it could have been brought under control; you guessed it, the Republican growers who depend on cheap ag labor, developers who depend on cheap labor as well as the growth that leads to demand for their product, and many other low-wage sectors. As a consequence, I have watched my home state transformed from a largely first world, technologically advanced, and well-educated state into a largely third world, low-skilled, and ill-educated place. That is accomplished and a lot of our new residents do contribute to the state. The question that needs to be asked is if we want the lower-skilled residents to become a permanent underclass or do we want to make sure that education and other benefits exist to ensure that California does not evolve into a complete basket case. California is the most beautiful and amazing place in the world. I would not trade living here for all of the "benefits" of living in a flat, hot, over-developed, undertaxed, and overrepublicanized state like Texas thank you very much.


The laws need to be changed so we have less prisoners and prisons. Legalize marijuana.


You complain of too much democracy but we all have suffered from that each occasion our Party loses out to the other e g at the moment I have no President representing me. The real issue for California, and USA, is too much Government and insufficient liberty.
It would be good for the nation if California fails financially. They can then ask themselves whether they require such a large bureaucracy and so many laws. Take education, where the results of their public school system is uneducated and unprepared young people, and you will find a the highest average teacher salary in the USA ($70,000) and tenure arrangements which make it impossible to sack a teacher however bad after 3 years service. I favor high teacher salaries, but not job security for life at taxpayer expense. I am a retired teacher!


Simply recognize that California is a---SANCTUARY STATE---and by removing millions of illegal immigrants and their families will assist on balancing the budget. So vote---NO--on all propositions as you are supporting parasite businesses that hire illegal cheap labor. Taxpayers are unknowingly paying billions of dollars in State benefits to underwrite education, health care, housing and other benefits. Learn more at NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIALWATCH.


As an immigrant myself, I hate to say it but Britannicus is right. California is too kind to illegals and those that help illegals. The state is a gateway, immigrants come, gain some semblence of legitimacy and then move onto other states. Unfortunately for California, they have to pay for the weeding out of the immigrant population through prisons, crowded schools and crumbling infastructure. The other states benefit from the more employable and motivated immigrants coming their way.


California has too many laws that lock up too many people for too many years.

The unreasonably long sentences, unjustified parole denials, replacing mental hospitals with prison time, and the broken, overwhelmed parole system is ruining salvageable lives, not keeping us safer, and is bankrupting the state.

Many who never voted before the last election made the effort to vote for President Obama. We all need to pay attention to the issues and vote in every election.


Katie10, do you have any credible sources for your statistics? I don't mean some partisan group's website. I just did a brief search on some of them, such as:

"2/3s of all births in Los Angeles county are to illegals are
paid for by Medical(taxpayers)"

and found them to be bogus. In 2001, under 2/3 of live births were from Hispanic mothers. That would mean 100% of those Hispanic mothers were illegal immigrants. Not very likely.


The staff of the Economist must have limited their "research" on this opinion piece, I hesitate to call it an article, to left-wing politicians. It’s pathetic.

Let me set you straight on a few things...

1) if we hadn't had a 2/3rds vote rule for budget items the state would have gone bankrupt 10-15 years ago.

2) when Prop. 13, the limit on property taxes went into effect, local property taxes, due to rampant inflation in housing prices brought on by enviroNazi restrictions on housing supply, had, in the LA Basin, reached such levels where retired people were faced with paying a yearly property tax in excess of what they'd paid for their homes a few decades before.

3) the left in the state have assured their dominance in state politics by creating a vastly bloated civil service in what amounts to protected employment upon which they can depend to keep them in power. This is not an unusual tactic for the left. I saw it when I lived in Sweden and I hear something similar keeps the Labour Party in power in the UK.

What's going to have to happen now is that we are going to have to make serious cuts in the size of our civil service at both state and local levels, something that has needed doing for several decades. We're also going to have to cut way back on some of the totally insane "social services" that we overfund.

To give you a taste for this last, less than 100 yards from where I live, we had a drug dealer that was so into using her own inventory that she'd managed to ruin her health. Rather than put her in jail, social services got her declared disabled. She had careworkers coming into her drug den daily to clean it up and cook her meals. Her landlord was prohibited from evicting her by social services. She carried on selling drugs in spite of everything.

She's still be there except that she made the mistake of ODing on a Friday after her careworker left and, by the time the careworker returned on Monday, was too far gone for the intensive care unit to bring her back.

That's California. It's time for change!

Start doing your homework, Economist!


One of the biggest problems of Californai and US is greed. It is everywhere; Bernie Madoff, the chairperson of NASDAQ operated a Ponzi game for more than 20 years. The huge bonus paid to the captains of our financial institutions make you cry. The corruptions of our politicians reported on newspaper. The incompetent cabinet members of Bush administration are reported now a day.

Here is an example; the San Francisco – Oakland Bridge was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. To replace eastern half of the bridge, after the design and budget approved in 1997 - it was 1.1billion. But, by 2001, the price tag more than double to 2.6 billion. It doubles again to 5.1 billion in 2004. It was increased again to estimated 8.6 billion in 2007. The completion date is also delayed again and again, the latest completion is 2013. It was reported on the newspaper that the steel for the bridge is imported from China and when it arrived to the port of Oakland, two unions are fighting to unload the steal, so the ship just stay there unloaded and construction of bridge was delayed yet one more time.

California politicians, just like the politicians in Washington D.C. are bought by special interest groups, PAC, and unions. Lots of them are corrupted...

The best job in the state of California is work for the state and city government. You get 3% per year of retirement per one year worked for some cities as reported on newspaper. After 20 years, you could retire with 60% of regular income, and they want more.

The high school graduation rate is less than half in Los Angels, but education gets half of total budget in California, and they want more. Ever time I visit school; I do not understand what they are talking about in their offices, lots of empty desk with few old ladies, too old to make complete sentences.

The prison system is complete chaos; over crowded rooms for prostitutes, drunker, murderers, gang members, rapists, thieves, and innocent traffic violators.


The streets in California are not safe to walk in broad daylight, when I called police department that I heard a noise in my backyard in midnight, policeman said may be it was a cat or a dog, they refused to check it out. But, they are very happy to give you parking tickets, speeding tickets....

The illegals are getting free medical care, free education, subsidize housing, food stamps. They are helping us to bankrupt California too; they pay no taxes because most of them accept only cash, and then send the money overseas. In most parts of LA basically is like living in some of the countries south of the boarder. The illegals also want more money every time they have a chance.

Almost everybody wants more money, very few people willing to pay; the taxes are very high in California already. Sacramento politicians overspend every year, keep on borrowing, play some Ponzi games, and smoking mirrors. The poor, honest working stiffs get screwed.

There are too many lawyers, accountants, salesperson, and bullshxt artists in California. Greed, Ponzi games, gets something for nothing, every body wants more money and the honest soul got screwed and it is getting worse every day.


What is disturbing to me is that we have to read this type of analysis in a British magazine. The US and California media is so horrendously incompetent that it would be impossible to get this type of analysis in California. So kudos to The Economist.

The fact is that California liberals have run the state into the ground. 30 years of incompetent rule at the state and local level. The only line that California liberals can spout is that everything is Bush's fault.

If you look at the growth of the public service sector, and their wages, that is one culprit of the budget mess.

The California education system is a joke. It has been run by liberals for 30 years, and it has gotten the funding despite what lies they spew, yet if you look at the scores, the actual product that the liberals produce is utter crapola.

Further, 1/4 of the school children in the California school system aren't even American. The liberals and the Latino lobbies have installed an de facto open borders system in California that is entrenched. Most immigrants are on public assistance and sucking the social welfare system dry. California would be at full employment and wouldn't have the budget problems if the illegals were not a factor. It costs close to $40 billion a year for education, welfare and the criminal justice problems of the illegals. And they don't even pay taxes.

The liberals would rather call you a Bush supporter or a racist instead of dealing with the problems they created with their incompetence and supplication to foreign criminals who shouldn't even be here to begin with.

cali love

You all can mock California but its the about last place in the US still making things the rest of the world wants to buy - which is pretty important in a global economy. The rest of world wants google, hollywood, ipods, iphones. It doesn't want nascar and country western, you'd have to pay them to take it.

Texas is like the saudi arabia of the US - rich from oil and natural resources and full of fundamentalists trying to ram their beliefs down everyone elses throats. Any technology industry texas has is totally a result of government pork barrel spending.

California has generated innovative companies like google, apple, pixar, and cisco and many many more. Texas has brought us enron, a bunch of corrupt oil barons, and the worst president in United States history. texas corporations like enron stole over $20 billion from California in the fraudulent energy crisis of 2001, aided and abetted by Cheney and the other criminals in the bush administration. but like true crime bosses the smug texas tycoons mock the people they steal from.

Now the texas governor talks about seceding. let them - good riddance. at least this secessionist talk reveals the fraudulence of their patriotism.

Salty Dog

I am a second generation California native. I live in a physically beautiful state. Unfortunately, from an economic view, the local and state governments have not kept pace with the private sector. The cost of doing business (due to taxes and regulations) forced most large and small companies during the burst of the ".com's". It simply became too expensive.

Additionally, defined benefit pension programs have been eliminated at most corporations, yet the California employee unions have not recognized this. City managers, fire chiefs, and other personnel are retiring at age 50, on more than the governor's salary in retirement earnings with paid health care benefits. Government retirees then move to another municipality, and start the process all over. The largest single growing employer in the state is the government.

We have re-engineered business, it is time to re-engineer government. There is no amount of politics, nor any voter passed measure, that will fix the financial problems our state faces. Due to pressure from government special interests, the legislature is out of touch with what's really needed to fix California. Deep, penetrating cuts and re-engineering of the way our infrastrucure is supported in California.



There is a reason California has all of these agencies that Massachusetts and other states don't: It's not like other states. Take the federal EPA. It clearly hasn't worked in the interest of Californians. Neither has the federal Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior, and any number of others.

We receive 75 cents for every dollar we send to Washington--more than enough to resolve our budget crisis--in order to fund inland states with atrocious records on how that money is spent. They needn't worry themselves over deficits, though, because so many of their larger needs are met by federal dollars, while we're more often left to fend for ourselves.

By all means, let's gear up for a Constitutional Convention--there's more than enough to fix. But let's keep a new federal arrangement on the table, too. Californians don't need the added problem of non-Californians making decisions for us.


California has 'got what it deserved' over these last 30 years of decline and it's a shame. No, it's not the immigrants who have created the problem either (although they may now be a part of it).
Since Haight-Ashbury and the riots in Watts in the '60's, it should have been obvious that something was going off-the-rails in what was once the "Golden State". The electoral system is a shambles but you can be grateful that the Republican minority in your legislative brances of government have stopped the Democrats from taxing and spending you into oblivion the way our governments have. And where is it that I am referring to? Toronto, Ontaxio, Canada.
If you really want to come and see for yourselves what your future might look like (if you don't reverse the decline) come up to Toronto and pay $8.25 for a pack of smokes; $60.00 for a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and $4.00 for a (US) gallon of gasoline!!!! Try doing that WITHOUT tax-deductible mortgages and a WITH 46% income tax rate that KICKS IN at $100,000. THIS IS WHAT SOCIALISM LOOKS LIKE and don't believe all the guff you're fed by the left-wing press (both yours and ours) about the second-rate, single-source healthcare system that Canadians 'enjoy'. It's BULLS**T!
California's maliase is a function of its left-wing politics - nothing less, nothing more. You're following Taxachussetts and Ontaxio into the gutter and driving jobs OUT of the state with too much government and too high taxes. Ronald Reagan was right; "If you give the rascals the money, they will spend it". Howard Jarvis's Prop 13 was an inspiration in that it deprived your politicians of the means to piss it all away. Don't lose sight of that reality!!!
Government not only isn't the solution - it's the problem! Public sector unions need to be broken just like the UAW which, having brought Detroit to its knees is now itself being destroyed - a delicious irony! The California State Teachers Union is a perfect case in point; They have earned a "F" in teaching (the stats bear this assertion out) and so should suffer the same fate as the Air Traffic Controllers - all of whom Reagan FIRED!!! Ditto for Firefighters who retire on $100,000 a year and Cops who receive $2.1 MILLION!!!
If government were the solution then the Soviet Union would have been the wealthiest country on earth rather than the failed state it became. Since then the Russians have moved to a flat-tax system (of 13%) and the Kremlin's coffers are overflowing with funds because people can't be bothered to cheat to avoid paying at that moderate rate.
California deserves better then the dysfunctional government it's getting but, not until you rise up and say; "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any longer".
Remember, the state is NOT your master, it's your servant and those who work for the state ARE your servants. As taxpayers, you pay their wages and you set the rules by which they work for you, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!!!
Britain never worked better than after the "Thatcher Revolution". America never worked better than after the "Reagan Revolution" California needs it's own 'revolution' in order to snap out of it and return to those ways that made the state great in the first place. Socialism and more government will only ensure that California eventually does fall into the ocean and it won't be because of an earthquake - it will be because you followed others down the road to ruin and should have known better.


Folks, Let's face it. We can sum up all the failures in this state to one principal cause: 35 years of Democratic control of the State Assembly and legislature. Any Republican governor is largely powerless to change anything against this overwhelming opposition. Our extreme anti-business climate, our excessive taxation, our hugely expensive kooky 70's style social programs, our rock bottom credit rating, ALL can be squarely laid at the feet of the Democrats. Countless articles in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, etc. ALL point to these factors as THE cause of this disaster.
Let's look at Texas. It has NONE of these problems and yet delivers all the services that California delivers. How do they do this? Answer: Little if any Democratic control.
Mark my words: When the country pulls out of the recession it will be states like Texas that take off while California sinks. We have no other choice. This state has to make a 180 degree change of direction. Where we are now is exactly where New York City ended up in the 80's. Bankrupt and begging at Washington's door. The laughing stock of the world.



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