Cally

It is common in the guns rights community to refer to California as "Calipornia", to spell it with a "K", or to refer to it as "the People's republic of..." It is also common in the Pacific Northwest to affect a disdain for everything California, especially those refugees who escape the state, come north fleeing it for various reasons, and then try to replicate what they fled.

It has become trite to repeat that California has the 8th largest economy in the world, especially in connection with the states current economic problems. Evidently, California is the only state in the union to try to get Uncle Sam to bail it out of it's current difficulties, as if Uncle Sam didn't have enough problems.

The L.A. Times offers up a sober analysis:

State policies work against good fiscal management

Five recommendations could help, including updating the tax structure, ending the two-thirds majority rule, reigning in initiatives, building a serious rainy day fund and getting real oversight.

By Evan Halper

May 24, 2009

Reporting from Sacramento — In this economy, every state is hurting. Unemployment is in double digits, tax receipts are taking a dive and deficits are piling up. But, once again, California seems to be in a class of its own when it comes to financial dysfunction. The problems here eclipse those elsewhere.

California has the distinction of being the only state that is constantly running out of cash. California is the only one pleading with the federal government to backstop an emergency borrowing plan. California is the only state that never completely closed its deficit from the last economic downturn -- the one that began in the beginning of the decade -- with the hangover from that neglect hobbling efforts to solve the latest crisis.

The state has become a laboratory for what not to do when it comes to managing finances. The online news journal Stateline.org, which state government wonks look to for news on the latest policy trends, recently published a guide of sorts for bureaucrats and analysts who want to keep their state from becoming another California. Rest assured, the piece advised, most states are not likely to find themselves as troubled as the Golden State any time soon.

Size is a factor. "You are talking about the eighth-largest economy in the world, so the numbers involved are just so monumental," said Sujit CanagaRetna, a senior fiscal analyst with the Council of State Governments in Atlanta. "The largeness of the problem makes it more intense."

But there is also so much more.

The oft-cited waste and abuse is a problem, but the deficit is bigger than the entire state bureaucracy.

California could fire every state employee -- including well-paid prison guards and university professors -- close every government office, stop all travel and even cease the purchase of paper clips without closing the budget gap. The government would be gone but the deficit wouldn't.

(Note that, in today's Seattle Times, the same article ran under the title "California is it's own worst enemy.")

Two paragraphs down:

The runaway spending is caused largely by an ever growing group of Californians making use of basic state services as the cost of those services escalates. Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, for example, the amount the state spends on Medi-Cal health insurance for the poor has grown more than 40%, from under $10 billion annually to more than $14.4 billion. Spending on community mental health services has nearly tripled, and the state's program that provides services for the disabled leapt from a $1.6-billion annual expense to nearly $2.4 billion.

This has happened despite efforts by the state to contain costs. Primary care doctors, for example, are paid just $26 for an office visit with a Medi-Cal patient. There is no simple way to seriously limit these healthcare costs short of eliminating the benefits for hundreds of thousands of Californians.

The same scenario holds true for prisons, where state spending jumped from $6.5 billion to nearly $10.5 billion under Schwarzenegger. The federal courts mandated much of that spending after ruling that the state's prisoners have been widely mistreated. The alternative to spending the money is releasing tens of thousands of inmates and parolees.

Meanwhile, Reason Magazine's Hit and Run has their own take. (they seem to have missed the article above):

The California Scare Campaign

Posted on May 24, 2009, 9:25am | Matt Welch

Previously on Spring Street Blues, we had told you about how California's political-journalist class was gearing up to frighten-slash-chastise Californians about the "annihilating cuts" coming their way now that petulant voters failed to heed the weary wisdom of their betters. As this article in yesterday's L.A. Times demonstrates, one primary method for this uncoordinated campaign is news articles unlabeled as opinion. ..

This is primarily a fisking of general coverage out of Cali of the situation, in the process addressing assumptions made by the media, and liberals in general, in discussing causes and solutions. For example, in replying to one cauitionary statement in the article, it says

California companies would then find it harder to attract high-value employees who might be dubious about moving to a state with sub-par schools. Here is the fundamental point behind every California budget story: The state has increased spending on K-12 education by 40 percent under Schwarzenegger (it has to; by dumb law, 40 cents on every state dollar has to go to education). The main drain on the California economy is that these massive increases in spending are producing ZERO noticeable improvements. Because the union-run school districts are infamous laboratories for inefficiency, job protection, and corruption, the state spends and spends, with nothing to show for it. Teachers unions are literally running out of other people's money, and now they warn us about "sub-par schools"? That par got done subbed a long time ago. If politicians, journalists, and other "experts" want to defend the status quo (of constant spending increases), then they need to explain why Californians need to keep throwing more and more good money after bad on a K-12 system that is showing no results.

Here in Washington "A.C." we have been subjected to the Washington Assessment of Student Learning for several years now;about the only consensus is that no one likes it, but It's The Law. (Teachers don't like it because the Teacher's Union hates the idea of any measure that might be used to point out that The Man Behind The Curtain is a lousy teacher; parents don't like it because it's unfair to rate their children, and students don't like tests.) (Besides which, when, Mrs. Drang was helping our niece with her reading, she discovered that it may have been written well, but int included factual errors.)

Plus, the gubernatorial campaign issue here in WA as regards our own economy, in which GOP Candidate Dino Rossi was warning of a deficit, and Dumbocrat incumbent Christine Gregoire said "Nothing to worry about, nothing to see, move along"..? Turns out Mr. Rossi was right.

And now we get to find out the efffect that Cap and Trade has on an economy up close and personal, as Ms Gregoire has bypassed the state legislature and put Cap & Raid Trade into effect by imperial diktat.