When we all heard his speeches during the 2008 campaign, it was something akin to the Lesley Gore’s Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows. He promised more transparency and a return of civility in politics. He was everything George Bush wasn’t, which provided the hot air that led him to the presidency. Bush did run deficits and the orgy of spending and corruption scandals that plagued Republicans in 2006, that were not forgotten in 2008, allowed Democrats to control the narrative on a key Republican issue: Taxes and Spending. The “tax and spend label” that usually sinks liberal candidates, or at least makes the race a competition, faded away. Obama vowed to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term and that was music to the ears of independent voters sick of Dubya. However, when the ballots closed that miserable day in November, Barack Obama rode that wave of “hope and change” into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on a flawlessly executed campaign that ushered in our first black president. However, after a $800 billion dollar stimulus, a trillion dollar new entitlement program, stagnant economic growth, a volatile job market, and high unemployment, the banner of hope and change is looking more like a Kafka-esque nightmare. We’ve all transformed into beetles.
As for the so-called “stimulus,” we should thank the president. He finally and irrevocably proved that government spending doesn’t spur economic growth and, therefore, killed the cornerstone of Keynesian economics. We’ve had eleven recessions and recoveries in the past sixty years and, as Harvey Golub wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
This recovery is near the bottom of all 11. Cumulative nonfarm job growth is just 1.9% 34 months into recovery, the ninth-worst performance and well below the average job growth of 6.5%. Cumulative GDP growth is just 6.8% 11 quarters into this recovery, less than half the average (15.2%) and the worst of all 11…fiscal policy, under the control of the president and his party, increased expenditures by about $700 billion per year since 2008 and launched a spending package of about $800 billion (along with various “targeted” temporary tax reductions), all of which resulted in an increase in national debt of over $5 trillion. In other words, we borrowed $5 trillion, for which we will pay interest for who knows how long, in order to stimulate the economy now.
Stupid is as stupid does. That’s pretty much what sums up California.
This place is turning into a shit hole. This is directly attributable to the Democrats that have done everything in their power to tax the shit out of everything and wonder why the hell all the businesses are leaving the state, only to increase taxes again, and again, in their belief that somehow, things will change for the better if we keep going down this path. Fucking morons.
There was a time when the California dream conjured visions of sun, endless summers, hot love, cool breezes, and muscle cars. The California economy, once the world’s 7th largest, supported these dreams — carrying us into the future on its brawny young shoulders. Innovation in aviation, computers, and countless other industries, compounded by the creative forces of free people innovating daily in a manufacturing economy, spurred the growth that produced the greatest bounty for more people than any other place on the planet.
Today many of those industries are long gone. Today’s California dream is more likely to take the form of a waddling, overweight, bureaucrat devising new schemes to hang on to her lavish lifestyle and cushy retirement. The California economy today resembles a sick and wounded old elephant carrying an impossible load of ticks and fleas each calculating how much more blood he can extract before it all comes crashing down.
This is a follow up to mypostyesterday. Kalifornia is really boned. And the masses are out protesting and will likely get violent. Enjoy your Communist holiday.
The weekend produced a spate of dang-this-is-bad articles on the economic situation in California. Steven Greenhut’s for the Orange County Register is entitled “California to middle class: drop dead.” At The Daily Beast, Joel Kotkin laments that “As California Collapses, Obama Follows its Lead.” (H/t – and a “Read it, people!” shout-out – to Ed Driscoll at PJM.)
But what does all this look like in terms of numbers? What’s the how much and where and whom of the Golden State collapse? Perhaps the most interesting and telling thing is that it really is as bad as it looks. And the reasons are pretty much what you’d expect. Here’s the California story, in numbers.
According to a March 2012 report, 855,000 is how many private-sector jobs California has lost since the recession started four years ago. (H/t: California Political News & Views.) The state today enjoys an unemployment rate of 11%, compared with the official national average of 8.3%
Texas, by contrast, has added 139,800 jobs, posting the biggest absolute gain among the 50 states. (California’s is the biggest absolute loss.) Texas’ unemployment rate is 7.1%. Number 3 on the job-growth list? The District of Columbia, with 21,000 added private-sector jobs. Government is big business.
I’m not an economist and don’t claim to be one, but, I know failure when I see it. And every time Keynesian economics has been tried, it has failed miserably.
Here’s an article from CATO that should remind you of that very fact.
There’s an old saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. This certainly is a good description of Keynesians, who relentlessly push more government spending as some sort of magic potion for the economy – notwithstanding a record of failure.
The latest example if Larry Summers, the former economist for the Obama White House, who says Europeans need to make government bigger.
Here is some of what he writes for today’s Washington Post.
European efforts to contain crisis have fallen short. …Much of what is being urged on and in Europe is likely to be not just ineffective but counterproductive to maintaining the monetary union, restoring normal financial conditions and government access to markets, and reestablishing economic growth. The premise of European policymaking is that countries are overindebted and so unable to access markets on reasonable terms, and that the high interest rates associated with excessive debt hurt the financial system and inhibit growth. The strategy is to provide financing while insisting on austerity, in hopes that countries can rein in their excessive spending enough to restore credibility, bring down interest rates and restart economic growth.
The good news is that Summers recognizes that there has been “excessive spending.” The bad news is that he uses the wrong definition of austerity.
Once upon a time, millions upon millions of young people dreamed of moving to California. Nearly endless sunshine, pristine beaches and a booming economy made it seem like paradise to many.
But now those days are long gone. Unemployment is rampant, home prices have fallen like a rock, violent crime and gang activity are on the rise, local governments all over California are facing horrible financial problems, millions of illegal immigrants have poured into the state, traffic around the big cities is nightmarish and tax rates are absolutely outrageous. Plus there is the constant threat that your home could be destroyed by an earthquake, a wildfire or a mudslide. In recent years, hordes of hard working families have decided that they have had enough and have decided to move away from California. In fact, since the year 2000 more than 1.6 million people have moved away from the state of California.
There are still a few pockets of the state that are still very beautiful and that have been sheltered from the economic nightmare that is sweeping the rest of the state.
But in general, most cities in California are rapidly becoming giant hellholes.
Without a doubt, the “California Dream” has now become a “California Nightmare” for most residents of the state.
Do you live in California? If so, perhaps now is the time to move. The following are 16 really good reasons to move away from California….
Yea. I’ve abandoned all hope and now side with the liberals. Tax the rich! Tax them until those rich bastards are poor bastards. No. Really. Just kidding. You can breathe now. Have a look at this, especially if you’re one of those progressive assholes that thinks taxing the rich will solve all of our nation’s financial woes. Morons.
THE O-MAN GETS TESTY WHEN REPORTER ASKS ABOUT EXPENSIVE NON-STOP GETAWAYS
While millions of Americans have been forced to cut back on discretionary spending over the last several years – vacations, new cars and other such luxuries – the family Obama seems to have been on a non-stop vacation, estimated by the Daily Mail at a cost of more than $10 million…
Where's my vacation? Oh that's right, I can't afford one in this economy. Not a problem for Teh One! Just ask him! If this were Bush doing the same thing, you'd never hear the end of it with the liberal douche bags in the media.
H/T A lot of Coffee and Sleepless Nights
There is no doubt in my mind that the reason education in California is one of the worst in this country is due directly to the CTA. That and a lot of the pet project legislation of the Democrats in this state are largely funded through this union.
If California ever wants to see black ink on their ledgers and educated children, then the bloated monstrosity of the CTA has got to be dismantled.
Their solution to everything is raise taxes. Raising taxes has done the opposite of its intended effect. Revenues in the state have taken a nose dive and will continue to do so until the state is finally insolvent.
The CTA backs a tax increase that would worsen the state’s economic travails.
Certain perennials accompany life in California: the weather will always be fair, the scenery will always be breathtaking, the budget will always be on the brink of outright chaos, and the state’s liberal intelligentsia will always be chasing tax increases as a remedy. So it is as the 2012 elections approach, with the state facing a $9.2 billion budget deficit and Governor Jerry Brown pushing a November ballot initiative that would raise income and sales taxes.
California law provides two mechanisms for increasing taxes. The state legislature can implement an increase via statute, but that requires a two-thirds majority—a rule stemming from 1978’s Proposition 13, the famous ballot measure limiting property taxes. The other way is to follow the same route as Prop. 13 and take the issue to the voters through the initiative process. With Republicans controlling just enough seats in the legislature to thwart Brown’s ambitions, the governor has chosen the second path.
Circumventing conservative opposition in the legislature doesn’t mean that Brown’s proposal is on a glide path to victory, however. Despite early polls showing the measure performing well—a survey conducted by USC and the Los Angeles Times in late March indicated 64 percent support among registered voters—the way ahead is far from smooth. The polls will almost certainly tighten as Election Day nears, particularly given California voters’ longstanding aversion to tax hikes. As Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, observes, “Voters have rejected the last seven tax increases put on the ballot.” The same USC/Times poll that heartened Brown and his allies also reflected that resistance: 45 percent of voters said that, as far as they’re concerned, taxes were too high already and that the budget deficit should be made up exclusively through spending cuts.
President Obama’s national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.
Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO’s standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama’s pledge that the legislation would cost “around $900 billion over 10 years.” When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.
Sounds like we need to kick out as many Democrats as possible in the next election. That’s the only way to keep these assholes from doing what they promise to do if they are returned to Congress. Donors to the GOP, or against the Democrats would be harmed otherwise. Typical leftist crap.
Democrats must be having a pretty bad fundraising season, on K Street as well as everywhere else. Normally, a party with a good shot at holding power would expect big-ticket donors to flock to their outside groups and drop lots of money in order to curry favor. This year, though, Democrats have abandoned a strategy of attracting donors in favor of threatening them, Politico reports:
Democrats on K Street are warning their corporate clients: Give to Republican challengers in the 2012 election, and you’ll regret it come tax reform time.
Lobbyists are getting that message from allies of powerful Democrats such as Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who is closely watching support for Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Republican challenging Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). Baucus supporters fear that if Rehberg ousts Tester, Baucus could be next to face a serious Republican challenge in the state.
One K-Streeter close to the Baucus operation said the senator considers a gift to Rehberg a contribution against him. Another Democratic lobbyist told a client to take his name off a Rehberg fundraising event because it would be hurtful to his company, according to sources.
The case K-Streeters are making to their clients: It will be a hard sell next year to get Baucus’s support on business-friendly tax perks set to expire or the Bush-era tax cuts that must get through his committee.
Hmmm. Is that how policy gets made in the era of Hope and Change? Correct answer — of course! It’s pretty much how both parties fundraise off of K Street, by warning of the dire consequences of letting the other party take control of Congress and/or the White House. Normally that gets framed in the context of the opposition’s platform, not personal payback for picking the wrong side. This sounds a little more explicit than one would normally expect, but it’s really the same message, packaged in slightly different form.
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