[BRIGADE] PJB: California, Here We Come!
Published: Fri, 06/26/09
By Patrick J. Buchanan
June 26, 2009
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- In just a few weeks time, California hits
the wall.
And Americans should take a good, long look at the fiscal and
social wreck of the Golden Land, because California is at a place
to which all of America is heading.
In May, when five fund-raising proposals were put on the ballot,
Gov. Schwarzenegger pleaded with the overtaxed Californians not to
make their state "the poster child for dysfunction."
As The Economist writes, "On May 18th, they did exactly that."
Arnold went to the White House for U.S. loan guarantees for new
state bonds. But with the president's approval rating wilting
because of a belief he is spending too much, the Obama-ites slammed
the door.
In Sacramento, a Republican blocking force is resisting any new tax
revenue. And with the state under a constitutional mandate to
balance its budget, yet facing a $24 billion deficit this July, a
chainsaw is about to be taken to state government.
Some 38,000 of 168,000 state prisoners may be released. As Barack
Obama is pushing universal health insurance, California will cut
Medi-Cal for the poor. Education will be slashed, resulting in a
shortened school year, thousands of laid-off teachers, school
closings and an end to summer programs in a system that has
plummeted from the nation's best to one of its worst, as measured
by dropout rates and academic achievement.
The 10 campuses of the University of California face cuts that may
result in 50,000 fewer students and 5,000 fewer teachers.
What makes her fiscal crisis relevant to us all is not only that
California is our most populous state, with one in eight Americans
living there, but California has a gross domestic product larger
than Canada's.
Moreover, the demography of California today is the demography of
America tomorrow, just as the social and fiscal policies of
California in the last decade mirror those of the U.S. government
today.
One-third of all U.S. wage-earners today have been amnestied from
paying U.S. income taxes, as the top 1 percent haul fully 40
percent of that huge load. So, too, in California, the well-to-do
and the wealthy are hammered, which is why many have quietly closed
their businesses, packed and gone back over the mountains whence
their fathers came.
Under George W. Bush and Obama, the U.S. government has undertaken
huge new responsibilities: No Child Left Behind, Medicare
prescription drug benefits, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
takeovers of banks and auto companies, bailouts without end and
national health insurance.
California, too, spent lavishly in the fat years and issued bonds
when state revenues did not cover the costs, bringing its
once-sterling credit rating down to the nation's lowest. So, too,
U.S. Treasury bonds, T-bills and the American dollar are now
increasingly suspect.
Demographically, California is where America will be in 2040.
White folks, who are leaving California as they did in the millions
in the 1990s, are below half the population. Hispanics, their
numbers surging due to legal and illegal immigration, are well over
a third of the population. The African-American share of
California's population is also falling, as the Asian share is
rising, again from immigration.
Los Angeles, which is what most large American cities will look
like, is the most diverse city on earth. Has diversity been a
strength?
In the prisons and jails, and among the scores of thousands in
street gangs and the underclass, a black-brown civil war is
underway.
In October 2006, the Financial Times reported the findings of the
famed author of "Bowling Alone" on what diversity has wrought:
"A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has
been revealed in research by Harvard University's Robert Putnam,
one of the world's most influential political scientists. His
research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less
likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone -- from their next-door
neighbor to the mayor."
"In the presence of diversity, we hunker down," said Putnam. "We
act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been
imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not
like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look
like us."
"Professor Putnam," said the Financial Times, "found trust was
lowest in Los Angeles, 'the most diverse human habitation in human
history.'"
Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan carried California nine times. But
the state is now a fiefdom of liberalism. John McCain's share of
the vote was smaller than Barry Goldwater's. California today
believes in Big Government, open borders, diversity,
multiculturalism and the politics of compassion. But what
liberalism has wrought in California, its native-born are fleeing.
Still, where California is at, America is headed.
Californians who are running away from the communities and towns in
which they were raised have Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Utah and
Nevada to head to. But when all of America arrives at where
California is at today, where do the Americans run to?
SOURCE: http://www.buchanan.org