So Goes California, So Goes the Nation

California voters just put four rounds in the tax propositions yesterday. As they should have.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had this to say:

“I respect the will of the people who are frustrated with the dysfunction in our budget system,” Mr Schwarzenegger said in a statement from Washington, conceding defeat. “In order to prevent a fiscal disaster, Democrats and Republicans must collaborate and work together to address this shortfall.”

California has become a preview of where America is going under Obama. An insane political class has decided that you can spend your way out of debt. But California can’t borrow money anymore. They destroyed their credit, their bonds are poorly rated and they can’t print money like the Obama administration has.

There’s an old saying that says, “So goes California goes the nation.” As the world’s eighth largest economy, and one of the world’s richest, California is in many respects a microcosm of the US. It has geographical and population diversity. It has major industries and corporations. But many are in decline thanks to its punitive taxes and regulations. Many of its progressive policy ideas tend to spread to other states and eventually the nation.

The excessive regulations and taxes have driven many businesses and successful people from the state, just as the US polices are driving out corporations and manufacturing jobs. And that has led to a decline in tax revenues, the very thing the government needs to survive.

We’re witnessing what years of those progressive policies have wrought and its not pretty sight. The State, like the Federal Government is awash in debt and had to keep borrowing to meet its obligations. Now its credit is virtually worthless and people have stopped buying their bonds. The Federal Government is on the same track under Obama, with a projected 18 trillion dollar debt in the next 10 years.

Democrats everywhere should look to California and see the nation’s future writ large in stark detail. They should witness how ineffectual and toxic their policies are in the long term. If they’re smart they’ll start voting against Obama’s many frivolous bills before it’s too late. Of course, knowing them they’re likely to bail out California which will be another nightmare for the state. Taking money from the Obama administration is like borrowing from the mob. Once you do business with them, they think they own you. Ask the auto and banking industries.

The best and only real solution to California’s (and the nation’s) budget problems is to make real cuts. All the special interest programs that aren’t absolutely necessary need to go. They also need to seriously look at pay freezes, cutting hours and even laying off people in government jobs.

These ideas are heresy to Statists because they need to show that government jobs are invulnerable.

But we live in hard times and that means the Governator has to make some hard choices.

Well, not that hard. There are a lot of wasteful, pointless and inane things that the state spends money on. It’s time Arnold busted out the red pen and started terminating every pork project in the budget, then look at which jobs can go, which departments are not necessary.

When you have too many expenses the answer is either go out and make more money or cut the expenses. Since they can’t do the former, they must do the latter.

While I no longer live in the state, I’m a native Californian. In fact, I can trace my family back five generations on my mom’s side. They were some of the first settlers in Sonoma County, where I was born. I love my home state but I haven’t lived there since 1996. I left in disgust as I watched the state government completely trash the place.

Now the state is going broke and their predictable answer is to try to raise taxes. Not make cuts in stupid programs, which they have a mountain of. No. They want to compete with New York for the highest taxes in the land.

As a result, thousands of millionaires have fled the state in this decade. No surprise. Who likes being mugged by greedy bureaucrats who spend billions on things like education for illegal aliens and endless pay raises for themselves? The state spends millions on things like “green chemistry” and anti-smoking campaigns, and they threaten to cut police and teachers and release prisoners if they don’t get their way.

Governor Schwarzenegger started out as a fiscal conservative but eventually morphed into another tax and spend liberal who wants to waste money on things like global warming initiatives. It’s time he got back to the campaign promises that got him elected and back to the world of common sense.

We the people can help out. The state budget is a public record. We can send our suggestions along. Maybe if enough people do that they will get the message.