California's death spiral...

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... by the numbers:




254: the number of companies that moved out of state last year; five times as many that moved out in 2009.


120,000: the number of jobs lost last year; Texas gained 130,000.


3,600: the number of people that will be employed at Apple's next expansion in Austin, Texas. Apple, you will recall, was founded in California.


12: the percentage Americans living in California.

34: the percentage of Americans on welfare living in California.



9 billion: the amount of dollars Governor Brown expects to generate in revenue from his proposed tax plan (that will be voted on in November) in the first year.

2.2 billion: the actual amount of dollars in revenue that the Legislative Analyst's Office expects the state to realize from the Governor's proposed taxes.


9.2 billion: the deficit this year as estimated by the State Controller's Office.




Here's Brown's ad announcing his candidacy for governor back in 2009:





The numbers demonstrate things have got progressively worse since then.

The man has exhibited zero leadership in forging any headway with respect to our budget deficits, instead resorting to the gimmickry of hoped-for "unexpected revenue" windfalls that never materialize in order to balance the budget.

He has zero interest in standing up to the public employee unions that are saddling the state with unsustainable pension obligations and he has allowed himself to be painted into a corner by Big Labor, the green lobby, Big Construction, Democratic mayoral machine politics and the Obama administration over the high-speed choo-choo project that is estimated to cost as much as $120 billion when all is said and done.

Jerry Brown claimed he was just "too old" to give a damn any longer in his pitch to solve the problems of California. Turns out, even old age can't wring out deeply engrained statist hackery.


That man in the ad requesting "courage" is nowhere to be found these days.

Dereliction of duty: thy name is the Senate...

... and the office of the President if you're scoring at home.


Good lord. Some truly epic smack from, based upon what he was running on the floor of the Senate last night, a person we hope will be running for President come 2016.

Marco Rubio (D-Florida) expresses yet another reason why this debt-ceiling deadline of August 2nd is complete bu#@sh%t as the Senate has not even proposed let alone passed a budget in over 820 days. Now we're supposed to get serious about passing a budget?

Revel in it, brothers and sisters, as Rubio name-drops and calls out tea-party radicals for their extrmist ways.

Let me tell you how ridiculous the (President's) budget was... not a single member of the Senate including the Democrats voted for it.

97-0.

Where's the (President's) plan? We haven't seen it.

3:23 : Did he just toss his notes onto the floor? Awesomeness.

Video clip of the day

How much awesomeness can be packed into 63 seconds? You're about to see in this FD (Fiscal Dysfunction) ad that is an ode to TARP, HAMP, Porkulus and Bailout Nation in general while giving props to generational theft at the very end.

At last...

(Another re-published post that appeared briefly on Thursday before the great Blogger meltdown of May 2012)



Thank goodness. It looks like Sacramento legislators here in California are finally going to roll up their sleaves and get down to solving the issues that are plaguing the Golden State like high unemployment, budget deficits and state-employee pension liabilities, right?


Errr...

Chances are, the last time you flopped down on one of those lush hotel beds, replete with a pillow-top mattress, high thread-count sheets, down comforter and mounds of fluffy pillows, you weren’t wondering, flat — or fitted.

Yet, that’s at the core of a debate that will consume state legislators beginning next Monday when a committee will ponder a labor union-backed bill mandating the use of fitted bottom sheets in all hotel rooms.

The way union leaders see it, such sheets – common in households across America but far less so in hotels – will help ease the backbreaking work that defines a housekeeper’s job. Hoteliers, who say the mandate could cost the industry $20 million statewide, call it a ridiculous, unnecessary piece of legislation that is sidetracking politicians from far more pressing work like balancing the state budget.

The bill, SB 432 is backed by the California Applicants’ Attorneys Association, which works on behalf of UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union.

Wouldn't getting fitted sheets be a concession for which you negotiate the next time the contract expires rather than taking up legislative time?



We will never... never shill for the Republican Party in neither general nor specific terms but we continue to be amazed regarding the level of unseriousness exhibited time after time by the Democratic party (OK, we'll grant you Constitutional flag-burning amendment attempts trotted out every once in a while by the GOP).


At least the Republicans are attempting or at least accused of serious albeit evil stuff.


The Republicans are trying to kill Medicare! The Republicans are trying to dismantle the social safety net! The Republicans are shredding the Constitution! The Republicans... the.. the Republicans are drowning little baby kittens on Gun Smoke!
It's serious, man!



But fitted sheets? Yeah.

Quickies

A round-up of new items, articles and columns that caught our eye this past week or so.



The opening to the most awkward front door conversation evah:

“I don’t know how else to say this, but the fogged glass in your shower window isn’t as fogged as you might think it is.”

Short conversation. Seriously, what do you say after being confronted with that? "And, what do you think?"





David Harsanyi: If Washington is so great, let's all pay for it.

Many conservatives argued that lowering the tax burden would free up capital and induce job creation. "Washington would likely see increased revenues as prosperity grows," they claimed. This must be a fact, as economists I choose to believe say it is. It's unfortunate, though, that most Republicans won't go further and argue that everyone, even the rich -- even the super-filthy rich! -- deserves to be treated equally by the government.

That post-OBL snuff buzz is going to wear off pretty quickly and we'll be back to the drudgery of trying to close our spending deficits and solve the looming entitlement crisis but unfortunately, as per the President's Big Idea, that also means we're back to the predictable drudgery of statist class warfare as the solution.





Bob Seeger, Rush and Jackson Browne: one of these artists/bands is not like the other.

How is it that Rush is not in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and the other two are?

Because, in reality it's the Hall of Lame, that's why?

Red meat alert. But then again, maybe not.

The Cemetery of the Innocents at Clarion University in Clarion, PA is supposed to commemorate the millions of babies lost to abortion. But last week, the quaint memorial with 350 wooden crosses resembled a satanic ritual scene after it was vandalized during the campus’s Life Week, which also happened to be Holy Week.

Students for Life of America (SLA) explains the vandalism:

In a breathtaking public display of anti-Christian and anti-Life motivations, 350 crosses were pulled up and re-inserted in inverted fashion, a well-known anti-Christian symbol. Additionally, red paint was splattered on crosses and signs. Even eerier was the mock bloody footprints of an infant painted in front of the display.

Pretty bad, huh?

We're not sure, however, what is more disturbing? These sick acts of vandalism or the fact that this college allows themselves to be victimized year after year. If it's really that important to them then hire some security or post student watches. Dammit. C'mon people!





For a city that can least afford it: Hundreds show up for bogus jobs fair in Detroit.

As Pops would say, "T'ain't cool, McGee."

It's come to this:

A Hamburg judge has filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel for “endorsing a crime” after she stated she was “glad” that Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces. Meanwhile a new poll reveals that a majority of Germans do not see the terrorist’s death as a reason to celebrate…

Politicians, including those within her own center-right coalition, said that no death was cause for celebration, and reproved the remark as un-Christian and vengeful.

Un-Christian?
Considering it's Europe, should that not have been un-post-Christian?

Or as Jim Treacher put it: Deutschland über ball-less.




And finally, Steven Tyler and post-abortion trauma.

That is, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith fame. Or perhaps, more relevantly these days, Steven Tyler of American Idol fame.

More government = more violence

Bad for your health in more ways than you may realize.



As predictably as the Sun rises in the East, cash-strapped states who are strangling the golden goose have found that slippery golden goose has gone underground.

Larry Penninger, acting director of the tobacco diversion unit of theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), says investigations and prosecutions involving tobacco trafficking have been increasing as smugglers flood high-tax states with cigarettes from low-tax states.

From 2007 to last year, 27 states raised their cigarette taxes, according to Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which closely tracks tobacco tax rates across the country. Mackinac describes tobacco smuggling as an “unintended consequence of high cigarette taxes.”


There is so much illicit money to be made, Penninger says, that some drug and weapon trafficking organizations are adding tobacco to their product lines to boost profits. For example, in low-tax states such as Virginia, where cigarettes cost about $4.50 a pack, smugglers can sell a truckload (typically 800 cases) in New York at $13 a pack. New York is the highest tobacco taxing jurisdiction in the country.

Smuggling costs states and the federal government about $5 billion, according to U.S. government estimates. “Everybody out there (involved in illegal trafficking operations) is tapping into tobacco,’’ Penninger says.

(italics, ours)

Bless their hearts... it's as if Mackinac stumbled, quite accidentally, upon this phenomena.

Seriously, just what did the states think was going to happen when they started jacking up the price of cigarettes via higher taxes?

The statist just doesn't get it - he thinks that if you add a 75 cent sin tax on a pack of cigarettes, he is going to get that extra 75 cents x the amount of packs of cigarettes sold before that tax was added. It just doesn't work that way. Of course, people will seek the cheaper alternative and if that means purchasing cigarettes that were brought over state lines, that is exactly what they are going to do.

This is just a perfect illustration of how taxes alter people's behavior.

Terrific. Now states are out that projected revenue putting themselves in an even deeper whole and the feds have yet another potentially violent crime product they have to deal with all because of extremely short-sighted policy made by state law-makers that are economic dunces and who cannot see beyond their own noses as to the ill-effects down the immediate road brought about by their legislation.

We suppose this would be one way to close the deficit

We're almost positive the following has neglected to mention some sort of detail that would justify exactly why this is, but generally speaking, we think this is a pretty good leading indicator of the level of seriousness our state elders possess when it comes to getting California's house in order.

On a straight party-line vote California lawmakers gave the green light for welfare recipients to purchase alcohol and tobacco products using taxpayer money. The insanity in the Golden State continues despite the state’s $23 billion deficit and double-digit unemployment.

Recently California changed the way it disperses food stamps. In an effort to take the stigma away from food stamps the state issues welfare beneficiaries with an Electronic Benefits Card which look and work like an ATM card.

The Golden State doles out welfare benefits through the CalWORKS program. In the past welfare recipients were not allowed to buy beer and cigarettes, but compassionate state lawmakers decided it wasn’t fair to stop TAXPAYER money from being used to subsidize non-essential bad habits.

“You would think a simple common sense reform like trying to make sure taxpayer money is not used for the purchase of alcohol and tobacco would find bi-partisan support,” said GOP State Senator Bob Dutton.

Mr. Dutton should know better than to use "common sense" when referencing Sacramento politics.

California shells out $100 million a year to the 600,000 families that are on the dole. But far from lunacy as the primary motivating factor in allowing the poor and/or unemployed to get likker'd-up, we think it may be sheer pragmatism as the Sacramento pols hope to get as much of that money back in the form of revenue from the heavily-taxed tobacco and alcohol products that are sold as a result of this.


Creating a businees-friendly climate? Easing back on excessive regulation? Uh-uh, that's just not the Cali way, man.

Closing the state budget deficit via alcoholism and lung cancer inflicted upon the poor.


Now we're talkin'!

The battle is joined

20 years ago, we read a book called Generations which charted 4 recurring generational cohorts through American history.

From the preface:

This book presents the "history of the future" by narrating a recurring dynamic of generational behavior that seems to determine how and when we participate as individuals in social change - or social upheaval. We say, in effect, that this dynamic repeats itself. This is reason enough to make history important: For if the future replays the past, so too must the past anticipate the future.

Obviously, of particular interest to us were the cohort generations (Reactive generations) of the Gen-Xers (in the book, the 13ers as it was the 13th generation since the nation's declaration of independence). The common trait or characteristic of the cohorts of the Gen-Xers was that though they got off to a rocky start, it was this generation that was asked to make the sacrifices and tough decisions to guide America through turbulent times.

It was interesting to note that the previous cohort to the Gen-Xers contained F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Irving Berlin and Eugene O'Neill of the "Lost Generation" that fought the moral crusades of Prohibition and the Palmer Raids "with bathtub gin and opulent sex" but then matured into the generation also of FDR, George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman that guided this nation through the dual crises of the Great Depression and WWII.

As we read this in our mid-twenties as a much popularly-maligned member of Gen-X, we wondered what history would hold in store and what avenue of redemption would be presented for us to lead. 20 years on, we think it's becoming clear what this crisis is going to be if it is not at our door step already. To ignore it is to be blind to the facts and to do nothing about it would be simply a massive moral failure.



Folks, the Gen-Xer-in-Chief, Paul Ryan (via KT):






B-Daddy has great break-down of Ryan's budget proposal, here.


We never got all the way through the book so we may need to dust off that book again to see how things turn out.

Another excellent idea

Some read meat to wrap up the week for all our social conservative friends out there.




Time to defund Planned Parenthood and time to defund it now.

We always thought that the debate surrounding whether or not ObamaCare was going to fund abortions was a curious one as Planned Parenthood received approx. 1/3rd of its funding from the U.S. tax-payers.

If budget cuts are going to be across the board, why should Planned Parenthood's government funding be off the table? Republican leadership would be wise in framing this strictly as a budgetary matter rather than a "values" issue.

We're positive the liberal-Left in this country can scrounge around the seat cushions to come up with that missing $360 million to continue to fund one of their favorite pet causes. Picture it: bake sales outside the Grammys and Oscars.

And on a related matter, Rick Santorum (Presidential hopeful?) makes a complete ass of himself in statements regarding abortion and Social Security solvency. Negocious Loucos writing for W.C. Varones has the details, here. Check it out as well as the lively debate in the comment section.

Inside job?

So why don't state employee pensions and entitlements pose a problem to state budgets?

Let's just say that in many cases there might be conflicts of interest and where state employees responsible for cooking the books... crunching the numbers are assuming totally unrealistic rates of return as explained by Veronique De Rugy in the video below.






And a little bit closer to home here in California:

Actuaries got another rebuff this week when the labor-friendly CalPERS board voted to leave its earnings forecast unchanged, much like a CalSTRS board action in December that did not lower its forecast as far as actuaries recommended.

A lower earnings forecast raises pension costs for state and local governments struggling with budget cuts during a deep recession. But another rate increase also might fuel the drive for pension reforms that increase worker costs and cut their benefits.

"I was afraid we were going to throw gasoline on the fire in the public pension debate," Neal Johnson of the Service Employees International Union told a CalPERS committee after a key vote.

Whew. Dodged a bullet. Nothing like a dose of reality to harsh your mellow, eh, champ?

The fix is in but it doesn't matter because math is winning and this Johnson clown just doesn't want to admit it.

Follower blog post of the day

Our opportunity to show some gratitude and show off the blog work of one of our followers.


Leslie at Temple of Mut has a few words on rising fuel prices (which have far-reaching effects on just about everything else we use/purchase in our daily lives), seemingly bogus poll results circulating around California showing that Californians are open to tax increases in order to shore up the state's budget deficit and the potentiality of bar keeps mixing iodide in their beer to get out ahead of Japan's radioactive cloud heading our way.

We asked Sarah, the beer director at The Neighborhood if there was indeed any naturally ocurring iodide in beer. She gave a skeptical look and informed us that it was highly doubtful. Perhaps, but who are we to take any chances?

The rest of Leslie's thoughts, here.

Semantics?

So, are we broke?

Here's Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie on the matter.



We suppose that if you're the federal government, you're never really broke-broke if you can print money but that doesn't lead to savory results, either.

So, yeah... what Gillespie said.

This must be some more of that "new civility" they're talking about

Via Instapundit:

A little red meat in the morning? Don't worry - it's dinner time somewhere on this planet.





Plus... dominos?

Headline of the Day

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From Bloomberg News:


Geithner Quietly Tells Obama Debt Expense to Increase to Record




Considering how this might blow the cover for the new "centrist" and "fiscally conservative" image hinted at by the President during his State of the Union Address, we wonder just how this was executed?


Did Geithner whisper it to the President? Did he use flash-cards or perhaps sign language?



Or did they use much older but still-dependable technology...?

Link of the day

And on the flip side of collective bargaining...

Imagine if the tables were turned and employers had the right to 'employer bargaining' with employees, under which the employer could demand whatever pay reductions or workday increases he wanted, employees had to negotiate with the employer and employees couldn't quit! This could only be classified as slavery.

Shane Atwell does a really nice job of breaking down the absurdity of public employee unions as the table is currently set.

States are now floundering in oceans of debt and are facing unsustainable future obligations because of ill-conceived benefit and pension plans slap-dashed together in better economic times. Wings need to be clipped, and fast before the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

Graphic of the day

America: we're getting older and this extended bout of un- and underemployment is not helping matters any with respect to generating the necessary revenue that is needed to fund our expenditures.

B-Daddy has a long but worthy piece on we can revive the economy, cut spending and reduce the budget deficits, here.

Graphic of the day

"It was under Mr Bush that the deficit spiralled out of control as we fought an unnecessary and endless $3,000bn war in Iraq..."
- James Carville, the Financial Times.

Once upon a time, it was cool and even factually correct to say that the Iraq war was a significant contributor to the federal budget deficits... but my oh my how times, congresses and administrations change.

Exit question: Would it now be cool and even factually correct to say that the Iraq war is/was budgetarily insignificant?

Puts current domestic spending in a whole new light, now doesn't it?

Unheeded warning

Current budget trends are what?

"(A cancer) that will destroy the country from within"

Your inner Paul Krugman is thinking that is just some sort of tea-baggy fear-mongering, right?

Unfortunately, that quote was from the two leaders of the President's own debt commission.

Secular Apostate has more, here.

Good thing this all didn't mean a damn thing.

... we wouldn't want them actually doing anything, would we?

Healthcarepalooza went down Thursday where the C-SPAN cameras were let in to the debate between the President, his Democratic allies and the Republicans. And just in case anyone was wondering whether or not this thing was pure theater, about halfway through the proceedings, the Democrats not in the room let it be known that they were going with the Dem-only reconciliation route starting first thing next week.

It’s all good, though. We view this as roughly akin to knowing the Olympic results of a particular event prior to settling into the highlight show later that evening. No angst, no drama… it becomes just about the process.

First clip: the Prez playing the it’s good to be the King card.



We actually thought it was pretty funny. Guess what? Dude is the President and
there are a certain amount of non-egalitarian perks that go along with it. Deal.

And now for the star of the show as far as we are concerned, if you can spare 6 minutes. Paul Ryan (R-WI) does an excellent job of breaking down what a fiscal trainwreck Obamacare will be.

Ahhhh…… Wonk out!!!!



“We don’t think the government should be in control of all this. We think people should be in control.”

No drama. No angst. It really is that simple.

What did you do with your majorities?

So, what did all that compassionate conservatism get us? The chart below is the tale of the tape.



Crikey! Those look like some actual surpluses in that (far-) righthand column.

This is what happens when you restrict budgetary growth to merely 4%/year vs. blowing out the stops as we did in the Oh-Nos.

A near decade’s worth of folly spent in the pursuit of conservative ends through statist means.

H/T: KT