Posts Tagged ‘California’
Friday, August 10th, 2012
Time for another look at how Texas’ Red State model stacks up against California’s Blue State model, with a roundup of relevant news from the past few weeks.
Here’s a roundup of California’s dysfunction. Lots of tasty tidbits, including this gem: “California has both the highest state deficit in the country and the highest personal income tax.”
The Summer California Went Bankrupt.
California was counting their Facebook chickens before they hatched.
How California’s green energy delusions are impoverishing the entire state.
How California drove XCOR to Texas.
George Will on California’s high speed rail insanity. “At one point, an estimate of 44 million riders a year—subsequently revised downward, substantially—assumed gasoline costing $40 a gallon.”
California can’t even keep run it’s own prisons.
Texas tax revenues are up 10%.
Texas is going through a craft brewing boom.
While commuter rail isn’t cost effective in California, the Long Beach-to-Los Anegles Blue Line is good for one thing: killing people. (Hat Tip: Dwight.)
And while California schools are in crises to pay their bloated pensions, Beaumont’s school district actually instituted a tax cut and gave teacher’s a pay raise.
Tags:Blue State, California, economy, Red State, Texas, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Economics, Texas, Welfare State | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
Spent most of the day checking things off my list and web-surfing Creepy Pasta. So here’s a quick roundup of Texas vs. California tidbits:
A ballot initiative could derail the union stranglehold over California.
Among all states, Texas has the most adequately funded pension plan.
Endemic corruption in California cities.
California tosses another $4.7 billion down the high speed rail rathole. Hell, even Mother Jones says that it’s a money-wasting boondoggle.
Texas has a market that works just fine for electricity when government lets it: “California pretended to have a deregulated electricity market, but it was really a poorly designed, government-controlled system that eventually collapsed under its own weight. Texas’ economy is outperforming the rest of the country because we put fewer burdens on markets. This is why Texas has the most competitive and successful electricity market in the United States, if not the world. If we let it work, the world-class Texas electricity market will power Texas’ future.”
You know, if I were looking to save money, eliminating the state’s open meeting law is about the last thing I would cut. California at every level government needs more transparency, not less. (That probably true for the other 56 49 states as well.)
Obama continues his efforts to harsh California’s buzz by shutting down the state’s largest marijuana dispensary.
Finally, I want to note that Dwight has created a tag to track all mentions of the No Longer Golden State on his blog, so you can read his roundups on police incompetence, municipal corruption, and bankrupt locales such as Vernon, Bell, San Bernardino, Cudahy, Maywood, and Zalgo.
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Tags:Blue State, Budget, California, Crime, Economics, fraud, Texas, unions, War on Drugs, waste, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Thursday, July 5th, 2012
“Most members of the urban workforce don’t actually have any plan if they came in contact with a mountain lion.”
You don’t say.
Actually, in Texas, a CHL holder would have one more action available: shoot it. Of course. this wouldn’t do you any good in California, or if you’re unfortunate enough to work in an office that has a “Gun Free Zone” policy, since there’s no chance the mountain lion will heed the “Mountain Lion Free Zone” policy…
Tags:California, Guns, Texas, weird news
Posted in Guns, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, June 28th, 2012
Today brings news that Austin just surpassed San Francisco in population to become the 13th largest city in the country. In fact, Texas had six of the top seven fastest growing cities over the past 14 months: Round Rock, Austin, Plano, McKinney, Frisco, and Denton placed 2-7, topped only by a post-Katrina New Orleans. And at only 7,000-odd residents behind Jacksonville and Indianapolis, expect Austin to be the 11th largest city in the country the next time this list is updated.
And that news gives me a great excuse to to another roundup of Texas vs. California!
“Texas has been doing very well. If you draw a triangle whose points are Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, enclosing Austin, you’ve just drawn a map of the economic and jobs engine of North America.”
“California may be dreaming, but Texas is working. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 2000 to 2010, California lost a net of 519,600 jobs while Texas gained 1,093,600 jobs.” Lots of additional statistics here make the case for the measurable superiority of Texas’ Red State model over California’s Blue State model.
And they brought their incomes and assets with them. And there are plenty of reasons to move to Texas:
Lest you think this is some kind of fluke, or that taxes are not the determining factor in this “escape from NY and California,” it isn’t just Texas that is gaining all these fleeing residents. The U.S. Census reported that all of the top 15 states for population growth during the past decade are no tax or low tax states like Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Utah, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It seems Americans are smarter than politicians give them credit for- they are voting with their feet for lower taxes, pro business attitude, and more economic freedom.
Because no state in the union has a better economy, let’s look “up close and personal” at the Texas miracle. Texas practices what I proudly call “Wild West Cowboy Capitalism.” And it works!
Texas has zero state income tax, zero capital gains taxes, and zero death taxes. It is a “right to work” state where employees may choose to join a union, but are never forced to. It is pro business and anti-lawyer (discouraging class action lawsuits and the first state to pass a “Loser Pays” law). Texas is also tight-fisted with welfare and entitlement benefits- unlike New York and California. The result of this limited government attitude is people with high incomes, assets, and ambition are moving into Texas, while those who lack work ethic, and feel entitled to handouts are moving out. Good riddance.
But the most important attribute of Texas is that its constitution limits the time that politicians can meet. The Texas Legislature is limited to meeting only 4 months every other year. That pretty much explains everything. Texas and my state of Nevada have no state income taxes and the fastest growing populations in America…not in spite of, but because the politicians aren’t allowed to sit in their seats all year long thinking of new ways to re-distribute income, impede business, and destroy jobs.
How red tape strangles job creation in California.
Tort reform has resulted in a 44% increase in the number of doctor’s in Texas since 2003, or twice the population increase.
Texas factory orders up in May.
California’s pension crisis continues to fester, and Democrats appear to be unwilling to grapple with the issue. (And here’s more on the pension bomb from Walter Russell Mead.)
Gary Farmer, head of the Austin Economic Development Corp. tells California audience exactly how Austin lures business from their state. “The key reason for the state’s success in luring business from other locations is a better political and regulatory climate, he added. Texas has a corporate tax of 1 percent on adjusted gross receipts, while California’s is 8.84 percent of income. Texas has no personal income tax while California’s is 9.3 percent.”
Finally, speaking of California transplants, In-and-Out Burger is headed to Round Rock.
Tags:Blue State, Budget, California, Denton, Economics, Frisco, Gary Farmer, McKinney, Plano, Red State, Round Rock, Texas, tort reform, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Economics, Texas, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 21st, 2012
According to this DSM story. The other material in that story should be familiar If you’ve been reading this blog.
On reason I’ve kept on this story is that once I uncovered the Ron Paul connection, it was obvious the MSM would run with Chi as a “Right Wing Extremist.” Which is already happening in the comments for various stories. But, as I showed, it’s not that simple. Chi is also on record as supporting organic food and opposing religion, corporations and genetically modified food, all of which are hardly typical Ron Paul positions. I wanted to get the facts out there before the MSM clouded the issue.
Tags:Anson Chi, bomb, California, Crime, Media Watch, Plano, Ron Paul, Texas
Posted in Crime, Media Watch, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, May 21st, 2012
Though markets have calmed a bit, the desperate search for a lever that will actually steer Europe away from the looming wall of a EuroCrash continues. Meanwhile, certain repeating motifs are detected:
“Now that times are bad, the single currency has turned into an unbridled doomsday machine. Merkel continues to insist that she’ll do whatever it takes to save Europe’s “destiny”. The continued insistence on fiscal austerity and debt repayment tells a different story. Is Germany really prepared to bankroll a wider monetary union by putting its money where its mouth is, or is the game finally up?”
Boris Johnson also calls the Euro a Doomsday Machine:
Europe now has the lowest growth of any region in the world. We have already wasted years in trying to control this sickness in the euro, and we are saving the cancer and killing the patient. We have blighted countless lives and lost countless jobs by kidding ourselves that the answer to the crisis might be “more Europe”. And all for what? To salvage the prestige of the European Project, and to spare the egos of those who were wrong and muddle-headed enough to campaign for the euro.
Johnson is right about the cancer, but slightly wrong about the cause: The European cradle-to-grave welfare state is the cancer; the Euro just made it slightly more malignant.
But with two separate commentator’s calling the Euro a Doomsday Machine, I feel a new meme coming on:
Not to mention much better chances of being linked by Jonah Goldberg and James Lileks…
Europe is awakening from its Utopian dream.
Greece’s invisible bank run.
Greece is happy to stay in the Euro…as long as other countries are footing the bill. They want more subsidies and an end to even the #fakeausterity. Not only do they want to continue to dig their deficit spending grave, they insist on digging it as fast as possible. How to get Germany to agree to continue footing the bill is the one flaw in their otherwise cunning plan…
Why the Blue State model doesn’t work: Cheap money doesn’t mean welfare states balance their budgets, it just means they spend that much more:
Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Italy (and California). In each case, the promise of more bailouts and a steady flow of cheap money only produced more reckless behavior, excessive levels of government spending and record levels of debt.
Johan Norberg, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, summarizes the results: “From 1997 to 2007, government expenditures increased by around 6 percent annually in Spain, Portugal and Greece, while population remained mostly stable. Spending increased by 4 percent a year in Italy — even while the economy shrank.”
Consequently, “Between 2000 and 2010, Portugal increased its public debt as a share of GDP from 49 percent to 93 percent, France from 57 percent to 82 percent, Italy from 109 percent to 118 percent, and Greece from 103 percent to 145 percent,” reports Norberg.
Greece and California are headed down the same path to disaster, and for the same reason.
In addition to budget deficits, the EU suffers from a deficit of democracy:
The European crisis is as much a crisis of politics as economics. The current paralysis of the Greek political system demonstrates the point very clearly. EU policy has actively contributed to this crisis by effectively sealing off discussion of the political problems thrown up by austerity.
Budgetary policy is at the core of traditional democratic politics in Europe but the management of the euro zone is increasingly being effected not through democratic institutions but via a centralised and depoliticised form of technocratic fiat. The “stability” narrative has triumphed over the need for legitimacy as the crisis in Europe has deepened.
Ivan Krastev, the eminent political scientist, argues that we have now arrived at a point where national governments have politics but are no longer in control of policy, including budgetary policy, which is moving via the fiscal treaty and other measures to the EU level.
On the other side of this divide the European Union has policies but no politics, since decisions are increasingly being made by technocratic managers rather than directly elected representatives of the European public. The euro zone crisis has thus amplified an existing problem – the absence of both a European citizenry and a transparent European level political process.
A long meditation on what a Greek exit would mean involving Frankenstein, Old Maid, and David Brin.
The EU sends inspectors to find out why Spain’s deficits are so high. Offhand I would say the solution to the mystery might be “because they’re spending more money than they’re taking in.” Obviously such thinking will never get you anywhere in the EU civil service…
Tags:California, Doomsday Machine, Euro, Europe, European Debt Crisis, Greece, pics, PIIGS, Spain, Star Trek
Posted in Budget, Economics, Foreign Policy, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
Time for another roundup of Texas vs. California news:
I would say California is broke again, but it’s been so long since California wasn’t broke that it would have to be “California Still Broke,” which isn’ t exactly news…
How unions and big government hijacked California: “A state with 12 percent of the country’s population and one third of its welfare recipients. A state with the nation’s lowest bond ratings, the second-highest marginal income tax rate and the third highest unemployment rate. Most important – a state that CEOs rank the worst in the country for doing business. Dead last! For the eighth year in a row.”
How California’s liberals destroy middle class jobs.
Texas gets an A+ for small business friendliness, while California gets an F.
California is great at exporting. Exporting jobs and citizens, that is.
And the rate businesses are leaving California is increasing.
California’s poor business ranking is now the norm:
Gov. Jerry Brown insists those who say California is unfriendly to business are wrong. But Mr. Brown, of course, is not the chief executive officer of a private business. He is the top executive of a deficit-burdened, intrusive, bloated government bureaucracy that has perfected squandering other peoples’ money while botching delivery of services such as education and lavishing public employees with unaffordable pay and benefits.
California public school teachers are the nation’s highest-paid, while their students’ performance ranks among the worst. The state’s various unfunded pension and retirement health care benefits promise to bankrupt the already overextended government.
California is following the French fiscal model. I would have said Greece, but close enough for government work.
Finally, I’ll close with a tweet from the indispensable Iowahawk: “It’s a proven fact that government creates jobs. As long as the governments are in California & Illinois, and the jobs are in Texas.”
Tags:Budget, California, Regulation, Texas, unions
Posted in Budget, Regulation, Texas, unions | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 8th, 2012
The challenge with covering the respective fortunes of Texas and California is where to cut off the news roundup. Here’s news of how California is sucking, and Texas isn’t, from the last month or so:
Texas is ranked number one for business. California? Dead last.
Why so many people are moving from California to Texas. “California may be dreaming, but Texas is working.”
The madness of California:
Things will only get worse in the coming years as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and his green cadre implement their “smart growth” plans to cram the proletariat into high-density housing. “What I find reprehensible beyond belief is that the people pushing [high-density housing] themselves live in single-family homes and often drive very fancy cars, but want everyone else to live like my grandmother did in Brownsville in Brooklyn in the 1920s,” Mr. Kotkin declares.
Also this:
Middle-class workers—those who earn more than $48,000—pay a top rate of 9.3%, which is higher than what millionaires pay in 47 states.
California Governor Jerry Brown (his aura smiles and never frowns) is hiking state income taxes that were already the highest in the nation. (Hat tip: Prairie Pundit.)
The California budget process is still broken.
A California-to-Texas translation guide.
Destroying the California dream.
California not only has the five most polluted cities in the country, it has the top five most polluted cities in all three categories of air pollution (ozone, short term particle pollution, and year-round particle pollution).
That nugget above came from Will Franklin’s WILLisms, who also brings word that Texas created 32% of all jobs in the last decade, and 35% of all private sector jobs, with his usual skillfully executed charts:
Tags:Budget, California, Jerry Brown, jobs, Taxes, Texas
Posted in Budget, Texas, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
A bunch of news popping up, including some from the Middle East:
Here’s the actual Dewhurst denial of the Tony Podesta/Democratic fundraising story.
A left-wing Irish documentary maker sets out to make a documentary about the plight of the Palestinians, but gets waylayed by those annoying facts, and instead decides to tell both sides of the story. Guess what? His friends aren’t interested. “The problem began when I resolved to come back with a film that showed both sides of the coin. Actually there are many more than two. Which is why my film is called Forty Shades of Grey. But only one side was wanted back in Dublin. My peers expected me to come back with an attack on Israel. No grey areas were acceptable.”
Israel and Hamas declare a ceasefire after four days of fighting. Honestly, maybe because I was traveling, or because I no longer feel the need to consult MSM news sources on a daily basis, I was actually unaware that there was slightly more violence than usual in the Middle East. The fact that Hamas cried uncle after a mere four days, despite the fact that Israel set it off by giving Hamas leader Zuhair al-Qaissi an express ticket to paradise, tells you that they must really have been getting their asses kicked by the IDF. Maybe Zuhair al-Qaissi really was important, or possibly Iran and Syria have had their hands too full to dole out the Qassam rockets with their customary generosity.
Speaking of Syria, Michael Totten talks to Andrew Tabler about what it’s like under the Assad regime in Syria, as covered in Tabler’s new book In the Lion’s Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington’s Battle with Syria.
That whole “force Catholics to pay for contraception” deal? Turns out it’s not working out so well for Obama.
Eric Holder seems desperate to let illegal aliens vote.
Good evening, I’m Chevy Chase for Weekend Update. California is still screwed. So is New York. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.
Forget TVs and car radios: The hot item for thieves these days is bottles of Tide.
Tags:abortion, Border Controls, California, Crime, David Dewhurst, Eric Holder, Hamas, IDF, Israel, LinkSwarm, Michael Totten, New York, Syria, Texas, Tide, Tony Podesta
Posted in Budget, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
“California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today.”
Remember this the next time some liberal says that Texas has a budget crises “just like California.” We don’t. The Texas budget battle was like a husband and wife arguing over what to cut back from the household budget to keep putting money in the kids’ college fund. California’s budget crises is like two junkies arguing over whether to sell the baby’s insulin to buy more crack. Texas has never had to worry about whether the lights will stay on or whether the checks the state government writes will bounce or not. Nor will it, as long as the fiscal discipline that comes from having conservative Republicans in charge of the House, Senate and the Governor’s Mansion remains in effect.
The big government, high tax, closed-shop, heavily regulated blue model doesn’t work any more, and whenever you hear that Texas should embrace the California model, what they’re really saying is that big government is so awesome its worth the long-term risk of default and bankruptcy to implement. It isn’t, and it’s not.
(Hat tip: Instapundit Glenn Reynolds.)
Tags:California, state, Texas
Posted in Budget, Texas | No Comments »
