Texas has a better K-12 education system than California right now.
Posted by purple at March 11, 2009 08:09 AMnice rant.
on a side note, you lost me at "principled message" and "Gavin". Actually, I guess it's not a lack of principle but rather a tone-deaf sense of political timing that undercuts Newsom's viability.
Posted by punaise at March 11, 2009 10:15 AMMN's Coleman released all his donor's credit card info on the Internet..whoa!..but then tried to blame it on "dirty politics" ---Hey Norm, the funny guy won...he doesn't need dirty politics...he won, you moron. the race is over.
Breaking News: Obama had lunch today.....is he biting off more than he can chew?
T2 you have to tell us what the President ate before we can editorialize on your question...darn get the rules down whydoncha?
Posted by headxray at March 11, 2009 02:21 PMWell after seeing him sign everything under the sun, even today he was in front of the cameras signing, he took that $410 billion Omnibus Bill into an office and quietly signed it. Must not have been to appetizing or he was ashamed to have to fund government that way.
Now back to Doxie, casting all your pains upon the minority party of California! Now that's a new one, yeah it's the Doxie's fault we're in Iraq. It's Doxie's fault that Gitmo exist. Well, your party was in the minority then, why not?
I liked purple's comment up there. When I lived in California, it had a top five education system. Democrats took over and now it's down there with Mississippi in the bottom 10. I guess that's what you get with representation gerrymandered to keep the majority in power all the time. No competition for office, conditions in the state fall. They are connected...
California is by nature the most richly endowed region in the world. Nowhere else is there so much fertile land, watered by gravity-fed winter runoff from the majestic Sierra. California has ample supplies of oil and natural gas. Millions of acres of timber abound in its coastal and mountain forests. Temperate climate and weather allow outdoor activity almost year round. The coastline is over 1300 miles long -- with two of the great natural ports of the world at Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay.
Second, prior can-do generations of Californians created an unparalleled infrastructure of dams, canals and hydroelectric generation that once provided the state with ample energy, irrigation and recreation. Its three-tier higher education system -- 110 junior colleges, 23 state universities, and 10 University of California campuses -- once ensured a literate populace.
We associate Hollywood with the world's motion picture industry. Napa Valley tops the wines of France. The Silicon Valley fueled the high-tech revolution that gave us Apple, Google, Hewitt-Packard, Intel and Yahoo. Millions of tourists each year flock to Disneyland, Death Valley, Kings Canyon, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco and Yosemite.
California remains America's richest farming state, leading the nation in fresh fruit, vegetable, nut and dairy production. In other words, the present generation enjoyed quite a head start on their lives through the work and investment of often forgotten predecessors.
A final observation we can agree on is that something has gone drastically wrong in the state in the last two decades.
California managed to achieve all at once the nation's highest sales and income tax rates -- and yet also the largest annual state deficit. So far under Republican Governor Schwarzenegger's tenure, state spending grew 34.9 percent, well beyond inflation and population that increased only 21.5 percent. And yet the governor often prevented the state Legislature from spending even more it didn't have.
The budgets of Medi-Cal, the state-run health program for the poor, are out of control. Prison costs increased about 50 percent in less than a decade, and now claim almost 10 percent of state spending -- almost as much as higher education.
The state is in its third year of drought. Billions of dollars of agricultural production are threatened by water cut-offs. Yet California hasn't build a major dam or canal in years.
Biannual state proposition initiatives, often put on the ballot by narrow special interests, allowed voters to vote for additional entitlements and benefits without providing the money to pay for them. Yet Californians are not an informed electorate, as the state's mediocre high schools experience 30 percent dropout rates.
Less discussed is the common culprit: a weird sort of utopian mindset. Perhaps because have-it-all Californians live in such a rich natural landscape and inherited so much from their ancestors, they have convinced themselves that perpetual bounty is now their birthright -- not something that can be lost in a generation of complacency.
Californians count on the wealth of farming but would prefer their rivers to remain wild rather than tapped. They like tasteful redwood decks but demand someone else fell their trees for the wood. Californians drive imported SUVs but would rather that you drill for oil off your shores rather than they off theirs. They pride themselves on their liberal welfare programs, but drive out with confiscatory taxes the few left to pay for them.
In short, after Californians sue, restrict, mandate, obstruct and lecture, they also get angry that there is suddenly not enough food, fuel, water and money to act like the gods that they think they have become.
Sorry for the length of this Steve.
Posted by peter at March 11, 2009 03:47 PM