Like an aging beauty queen now gone to seed, California is just a sloppy mess of a state. Once the place where most of America wanted to be, California now sits alone at the end of the bar trying to cage drinks from unsuspecting newcomers and not meeting with much success. U-Hauls once headed into the Golden State now roll toward the exits taking with them the middle class and many who aspire to it. With a deficit in the billions of dollars California boasts a governor who welcomes anyone, legal or otherwise, to his dysfunctional domain by promising them all they desire except, of course, well paying jobs. Money is NO object. California hasn't bothered to honestly balance a budget in years and shows no inclination to address either the out of whack and bloated pension deficit or the broken and dead broke medical and welfare programs that epitomise this fiscal fix.
A state that once was home to the best schools in the nation; also the finest highways, standard of living, and weather now can only promote a salubrious clime. Schools graduate illiterate and undisciplined misfits in spite of spending record sums of tax dollars on education. Gone are the days of California promise and prosperity as it takes title to the dubious distinction of being home to the highest percentage of citizens living in poverty. Ever greater taxes imposed by a government overwhelmingly controlled by the democrats for the past several years has hastened the exodus of the middle class. Increasingly California is a state of primarily the very rich and the very poor. The "progressives" (liberals) have cleverly cultivated the device of emotional appeal to a poorly informed and disinterested electorate in order to secure and maintain their power in Sacramento. The promise of "bread and circuses" to purchase the votes of the needy and ignorant--a concept not unfamiliar in Washington, D.C.-- continues to reap rewards for the politicians of Lotus Land. Of course even wealthy liberals will eventually come to their senses if they actually keep their money in the state.
Running out out of other people's money has always been the bane of the socialist construct of central planning. You can only run a tab for so long.
Having spent slightly more than half of my 66 years in California I am now in the final month of my stay. I sincerely wish that one day common sense and responsible government will return to the place that the rest of the country once looked to as the paragon of the American dream. People younger than I with character and intelligence can still steer this largest and one time richest of all states out of the ditch of fiscal despair but time is running out. Starting next month I'll be rooting for a California comeback from 1500 miles away knowing that if California fails it's merely a preview of what's ahead for the rest of the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment