Well, with people here talking about being OK with increasing CA taxes, when they are already so high, it really is a beast.
In Europe, they have higher taxes, but at least they get so much more out of them.
Here in the US, we pay a non-negligible amount in taxes, but what we get out of them is paltry.
Basically, if you are middle class with a job, you give and give, but don’t get much back from the state or the federal government, besides the army and police and infrastructure, and I don’t think those things by themselves would cause taxes to be that high (especially if the US didn’t want to act like the world’s police)
I am only somewhat familiar with the SF Bay/Silicon Valley/really rich area, which is why I still sometimes get a weird feeling when I hear about how bad California’s economy is.
I’m little obtuse (and haven’t been in the sciences since my first year at Berkeley. Could you explain the joke?
I did read in the Guiness book of recods that Californium is considered the most valuable susbstance in the world (or at least the rarest).
I never got around to explaining what I meant exactly by this. But California has hundreds of commissions" that are comprised of former politicos who have made way for certain funds to go to certain industries. They make six figures and meet only once a month. Contrary to popular belief, corporations aren’t leaving California because of taxes. These commissions do whatever they can to keep them in the state, because they never know when they’ll get an offer from some big company. The legislature is well aware of this–because of term limits they’ll probably end up there too.
You get a population of youths who aren’t going to try to rob or burglarize you because they’ve got a decent education and and job prospects (not to mention a society that actually cares about you).
And California has many excellent public schools that win national decathlons, etc. Comparing California’s tax and economic problems with those of a state like Connecticut is like comparing apples and oranges. It’s a much more heterogeneous society. To be certain, the immigrant population means much more people to educate. But people mostly don’t come here to get a better education for their kids. And–as the cliche goes–“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” I’d much rather have a kid in the classroom than hanging out with the Harpies. Most NEUTRAL economist agree that the economic effect of immigration in California is a wash. About the only thing you can get without papers is WIC and public education. Which do you prefer? Malnutritioned babies (who eventually tax the medical system) and gangbangers or productive member of society who do your valet parking at some fufi restaurant on Melrose?
I don’t deny that L.A., as well as other relatively large California cities, has a problem with organized crime (drugs) with an alarmingly broad (international scope–especially in El Salvador). I once lived in an apartment building in South (Central) L.A. Half of the residences there were girlfriends of MS-13 guys, and we got along on good terms–I played with their kids on the weekends, and their boyfriends left me alone, mainly because I was the only white guy in the building, and I came home from work at 11: 00pm in a suit and tie. I realize full-well that they engaged in some violent acts, and gunfire was common on the weekends. I knew what kind of stuff they engaged in, and several times had to walk over murder scenes. These are the kinds of guys we need to get rid of–not their father or mother working in a sweat shop. LAPD is working on it.
But these girlfriends can’t get things like disability or Medicare, etc. They go to clinics and pay out-of-pocket. They don’t have the documents necessary to get more than WIC–which is basically millk and cereal. The important thing is that THEY DON’T EXPECT any social services–other than feed and educate their children, who other than work only ask for low-paying jobs after school. Have you ever been on an LAUSD facility? Like between classes or after classes? These kids are as American as apple pie, except for the occasional Spanglish or Konglish.
California’s economic problems are extreme, but they’re complex. I will say one thing: the energy problem caused by Enron really took a toll.
The government employees retirement fund is not underfunded. PERs is in good finical shape. Why do think the polititions want to get their hands on it. If allowed they would turn it into a fund like Social Security, just funded by a safe full of IOUs.
We turned down all that was on the ballot because it was only stop gap. Raiding different funds was the major point. All it would have done was put off by a year or two the same thing.
Year after year bonds issues have been put to the voters and every arguement for them has contained the clause “this bond will not raise taxes”. But most did not have any funding to pay the bonds except the general fund, the voters believed in the free money idea.
I have always understood math and numbers. In the 50’s and 60’s on the federal level many programs were started that would not cost the tax payers. “We will just add them to SS.” We now do not even call it offically Social Security it is FDIC and medicare. And the tax rate on that is a lot higher than when I was a kid, but the amount most will recieve will not pprovide security.
Trends start in California and I would like to be wrong, but I think the nation may follow.
Let blame it on prop 13. Prop 13 was passed because property taxes were going up 200 to 400% a year with no signs of stopping. I now pay around $1700 per year in taxes, because of prop 13 and I will admit that is low. But with out prop 13 they would be in the range of What $20,000 to $40,000 per year. I would have lost my home around 1973 to 1980 with out prop 13.
I know that I will be accused of over stating it. but if If you owned a home or property in CA in the 70’s and recieved a tax bill and have them go look at the numbers.
As written prop 13 is a bad law but what it replaced was worse. And if you think the polititions are going to give any better then look at the value of the home owner’s exception. That was their joke of relief. And Most do not trust then to give a good law.
Just like income tax. A flat tax or a value added tax should replace income tax, but I do not trust they way it would get passed.
I agree with this. When prop 13 was passed at that time school funding should have been handled in a different way. And as a pro 13 voter and a property owner I would have been infavor of funding schools on property taxes, but limited on the amount that they could be increased.
Yes, slaves that broke the law to get here and be exploited! If it was so terrible for them they could just stay home. Oh, that’s right, they don’t want to stay home because we pay ten times what they make there, and actually bother to run a school system, decent hospitals, stop crime, etc.
The state budget has doubled in just ten years, mostly due to the power of public employee unions and the influx of illegals The problem is not that we haven’t been paying, it is that we are paying way too much.
The cost of energy is not what has brought us to our knees, it is prolifigate government spending. And I don’t blame brown people, the brown people are acting in their own interest, as anyone would. I blame the politicians that want to make it as easy as possible for them to break the law and sink the system financially, because that is their ideology and how they butter their political bread. Of course, you probably believe that anyone that believes in limited government is a racist. I happen to live in a hispanic neighborhood, I think there is one other white guy on this block. I must really hate the brown people! Of course, all my neighbors are here legally, as far as I know. Most of them were born here, as a matter of fact.
Illegal immigration and the public employee unions are the reason we are going down the drain here, not “brown people”. And I would love to see how you feel about “brown people” when one of them starts using your social security number!
As far as Prop 13 is concerned, it was passed for a very good reason. Old folks were getting thrown out of their homes because they could no longer afford to pay the property tax. Just listen to all the liberals that want to throw granny out in the street! I thought that was something only mean old Republicans liked to do…
So, at least 36 of them earned over $173,000, and 1423 earned over $133,000. Many of those guards are guarding, wait for it… ILLEGALS. Illegals that the govenator is now threatening to release back to their country of origin, where they will most likely face little or no penalty, and stand a good chance of returning to the United States. None of these people should have been in this country to commit a crime in the first place, and many would not have been, if it were not for lax enforcement of our immigration laws.
Yeah, it is the fault of the United States that Mexico is a kleptocracy. :rolleyes: Well, in a way you are right. By providing a safety valve for the malcontents, we keep them out of a long overdue revolution. If the leaders of Mexico could expect to swing on a rope instead of collect castles in Europe when they retire, things might change down there. But easier to blame the Yanqui for all their problems, just like the arabs do. Rob your country blind and blame the United States for the conditions the people suffer. Nice work, if you can get it! Mexico has rich agricultural land, boodles of mineral resources and a hard working population. What exactly is holding them back? The Gringo!
And I would also point out that along with people, we are importing their culture of corruption. These are people who abuse and defraud without a second thought. It extends all the way down to the most mundane things you can imagine.
It seems like every time I am in Souplantation there is a Hispanic guy (whom it is pretty easy to tell is a newcomer, because people raised in this country just don’t act like that) who waits for the new pot of chicken soup to come out, and then elbows his way in to spend five minutes unabashedly fishing every single last piece of chicken out of the pot, taking care not to dilute his bowl with any actual soup. He doesn’t stop to think that anyone else might want some chicken in their soup, he just exploits whatever is available without a shred of guilty conscience to trouble him, because that is how they do it back home. He has never been properly socialized, at least not in the way that we consider to be proper.
Now, I don’t care about the chicken soup in Souplantation, because I don’t eat it myself, I like almost any of the other soups they offer much better, but I almost always see that guy when I am there. But apply that to the way they exploit public benefits, and you can see the potential for trouble. When the morays that you adhere to basically say “get as much as you can for yourself and damn the torpedoes” the whole system breaks down.
Preserving the values of honesty and fair play is almost as important an issue as the financial problems created by this massive influx of a third world peasant class that does not share our values.
And I will point out, Tao, that at the end of the Mexican-American war, we were in an excellent position to take over their entire country, but when they sued for peace, we only took a small fraction (it only looks like half on a Mercator projection, but that is an illusion that the proponents of Atzlan exploit) and we gave them a huge chunk of cash. Let me ask you, if they had won the war, do you think they would have exhibited similar largess? Not a chance. They would have grabbed all they could. We didn’t, but that’s just how we roll. Just ask Germany, Japan, Italy…
Of course the people of Mexico would probably be much better off today if we had taken the whole thing, but that is another issue.
Mexico rolled the dice and started a war, and they lost. They paid a price, so tough titties on them. One of the possible consequences of starting a war is you just might lose.
Farragut couldn’t have said it any better, but I bet he would have spelled a little better.
And you think your soup situation is bad? Every time I go to a Chinese restaurant there’s this fat guy named Steve who always takes like 3 pennies from the tray, and never puts any back. So I finally take a stand and say, “You can’t be all like damn the torpedoes if you want to beat these Union bastards!” I tried banning overweight people and men whose names started with St from the town, but everyone here is too PC to accept it. And of course they called me a nutbag, but that’s the price we pay for speaking truth to power.
And if you want to have a debate over the Mexican-American war, I’d pick a message board that wasn’t crawling with Whigs, and head on over to the Know-Nothings at FR.
About 40% is a small fraction? That’s not even including the disputed Texas and adjunct territory.
Also, the U.S. provoked the war by fortifying and patrolling land that Mexico viewed as their own, as the disputed Texas ended at the Nueces. Also also, even at the time, the Mexican-American War was widely viewed as unjustified and as a naked land-grab. One doesn’t need a lefty professor to inform oneself of the contemporaneous sources.
And, lastly, what the hell has the Mexican-American War got to do with California’s fiscal situation?
What are you disputing? The people living in the disputed region wanted to be part of the United States. Mexico didn’t acknowledge that, and asserted it’s claim, ignoring the wishes of the people living on the land in question. The war was started by Mexico with the Thornton affair, in which some 2000 Mexican troops attacked a handful of our guys. It was, by any standard, a cowardly ambush.
Mexico lost the war, and lost badly. They were broke, and their army was defeated and in disarray. We could have taken over the whole place, but settled for a portion and paid them money on top of it.
Care to dispute any of those FACTS? Well, I guess you can’t really do that, because they are there for anyone to look up. So nitpick a spelling error and point out that there are others as misinformed as you are… :rolleyes:
Mexico may have viewed the land as their own, but the people who actually lived there didn’t. The whole area was very sparsely populated, and the “border” before the war was at best, indistinct and subject to dispute. I suppose the United States could make the claim that we own the moon, because we sent a few guys there, but do you really own something if nobody is living there, save for some indigenous populations? In any case, the Texans made it clear what country they wanted to be a part of.
I bring it up because the notion that we stole the southwest is an erroneous and dangerous notion, that justifies nutbars like the Atzlan movement, which seeks to have the area repatriated to Mexico, an action which would be a disaster for all parties. It is also used by those who apologize for the illegals, under the rubric of “well it was really their land to begin with, so let 'em in!” And the illegals most certainly ARE one of the prime causes of the current fiscal crisis in California.
And for AdmiralCrunch, my Souplantation example is just one of many I could name, living here and seeing this crap all the time. I’ll give you another example from the same exact venue. A group of Hispanics was in the Souplantation last Thursday, and it was near closing. Most of the diners had left.
One of their precious ninos was running around and took a fancy to the little cards on the table that let the servers know if you are done with your meal or are just getting another helping. In plain view of his parents, he ran around and collected all he could find until he had a whole deck of them. Did the parents admonish him that this was not appropriate behavior and instruct him to return the property as I or hopefully you would have done? Nope, they just told him “bominos!” and the kid walked out the door with all the cards.
And then they wonder why so many of these kids join a gang when they get older. :rolleyes: It just doesn’t occur to them to socialize their children to norms that most US citizens adhere to.