Patriots for Freedom

California’s Fiscal Woes

Low-taxed Texans are much better off.

An op-ed in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times:

…. California’s interlocking directorate of government employee unions, issue activists, careerists and campaign contributors has become increasingly aggressive and adept at using rhetoric extolling public benefits for all to deliver targeted advantages to itself. As a result, the political reality of the high-benefit/high-tax model is that its public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good. Instead, the beneficiaries are the providers of the public services, and certain favored or connected constituencies, rather than the general population.

The recession will eventually end, and California’s finances will get better. Given its powerful systemic bias against efficient and effective public services, however, the question is whether the state will ever get well. California’s public sector has pinned its hopes for avoiding fundamental reform on increased federal aid to replace dollars the state’s fed-up taxpayers refuse to surrender. In other words, residents in the other 49 states — the new 49ers? — would enjoy the privilege of paying California’s taxes. Their one consolation will be not having to endure its lousy public services….

(Source.)

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“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments’ programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth. ” (Reagan)

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