California - The New Rustbelt?

Back at the turn of the century, around 2001, my new job took me back to Ohio for an nationwide company meeting. We met in Akron. The hotel we were staying at provided a complimentary newspaper. I remember seeing for the first time, page after page of near microscopic type, listing all the delinquent tax bills of individuals and businesses, and statements that John Doe was no longer responsible for the debt of Jane Doe, etc.

On the way from the hotel to the meeting site, we'd pass by many closed and boarded up buildings on the main street of town. The Rust Belt, I thought. Being from California, I gave it little more thought than to feel sorry for the residents.

Fast forward two decades. You'll never guess what I've been seeing on the pages of my Dead Tree Newspaper. That's right! Today, there were two and a half pages full of near microscopic type, listing delinquent tax payments. And it wasn't the first time. Just like Akron, 2001.

The next time I hear Gavin Newsom or some other California Democrat crowing about how wonderful the California economy is, I've got a list two and a half pages long, microscopic type, who people who might want to disagree with them.

The 51st State? Independence Declared From “Commiefornia”

An effort to stand guard over liberty is taking shape in the least likely place I know of─California.

Four years ago, a venture capitalist named Tim Draper sought to split Commiefornia into six parts.  The effort failed miserably.

"The current state of California has become governed by a tyranny," the founding group’s Vice Chairman Robert Paul Preston declared.

“After years of over-taxation, regulation, and mono-party politics the State of California and many of its 58 Counties have become ungovernable. The nature of the State becoming ungovernable has caused a decline in essential basic services such as education, law enforcement, fire protection, transportation, housing, health care, taxation, voter rights, banking, state pension systems, prisons, state parks, water resource management, home ownership, infrastructure and many more.”

Claiming the authority of Article 4, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, the aspiring 51st state plans to convince California's legislature to split the state before submitting the resolution to Congress.

Despite obstacles, doubters, and obvious long odds the group stands united in their statehood dream. “We have to demonstrate that we can govern ourselves before we are allowed to govern,” Tom Reed, a founder, told CBS.

The list of dysfunctions crippling “Commiefornia” would easily fill a volume: a  dysfunctional legislature that has been gerrymandered to protect virtually every seat; a dysfunctional proposition system enables special interests to craft protected fiefdoms via the ballot box; recalcitrant public unions who don't see anything wrong with public servants getting 90% of top-pay in pensions while still earning big bucks as "contract employees", an enormous population of undocumented workers who pay only sales taxes and whose employers pay no payroll taxes only scratches the surface.

I’m rooting for these courageous citizens and hope their dream of statehood is realized.

Xavier Seen Such a Dishonest California Politician?

Californians aren't braindead, although you'd never know it from the quality of public officials they send to Sacramento year after year. And here's proof of it: liberal California politicians have to lie constantly to maintain their power, lest the common people they so disdain rise up against them. Case in point:

There is a ballot initiative coming up for a vote soon to repeal the onerous added gasoline tax to be added in November. The tax would add an additional twelve cents a gallon to gasoline that is already the highest priced in the nation. Fine. Let the voters decide. That's the democratic way isn't it? Let informed voters made the decision. It's that whole "informed" part that Democrat pols don't trust you with.

The office of the top law enforcement official in the state, Attorney General Xavier Becerra, D-Ishonest, is responsible for writing the official summary of the ballot measure, which is supposed to be an impartial description of the measure. (Stop laughing!) Becerra, who, had he been around when the saying "Crooked as a dog's hind leg"was written, might have been the maxim maker's model.

AG Becerra wrote the summary of a repeal of a regressive tax measure (minorities and poor hardest hit) without managing to use either the word "tax" or "fee" to describe it. In fact, it is so egregious that he is being sued because of it. Republican Travis Allen, remarkably a Republican, is suing Becerra for misrepresenting the initiative, casting it as an effort to, and I quote, "eliminate recently enacted road repair and transportation funding". The bastards!! The money fairies brought Californians cash to repair their roads, and some big meanies are trying to take it away from us!

And by "us", of course, he means the State Government, and the magic money fairies are you, every time you fill up your gas tank.

The stakes are high. The 43%, twelve cent a gallon hike in taxes, and the twenty cent a gallon hike in diesel fuel are expected to bring in $5 Billion (with a "B") a year. And as far as regressive taxes on the poor, this one has a double whammy, because everything you buy in the stores comes in on a truck. Your groceries, hardware, clothing, shoes, even your Amazon order, is transported at least in part by a truck or series of trucks. If the cost of fuel goes up, the prices of all those goods must go up at least incrementally. So in addition to paying more in gas to go to work, or to the store, or on vacation, you'll be paying more for everything you buy. Everything. You'll then find it harder to make ends meet and put food on the table and all the Democrat politicians will tell you it's those evil corporations that are stealing you blind. Right.

So, even though most of California's reputation is well deserved, remember this: we're not all braindead out here, and the politicians even have to lie to the ones who are to keep themselves in power.

Cal-Exit Needs its Own Currency

The Canadians have the "Looney". Californians could mint the "Moonie".