California’s budget deficit is currently estimated at $19 billion, but the Golden State also suffers from myriad tax-based problems. To recover economic prosperity, the state needs immediate tax reform and long-term tax relief.
It's easy to conclude that California may become, as former state librarian Kevin Starr put it, a "failed state." It's just too big, unruly and diverse to be effectively governed, commentators frequently say.
For years, Republican establishmentarians have taken their grass-roots supporters for granted, knowing that, come Election Day, activists will vote for the lesser of two evils – i.e., that even a bad Republican is better than a Democrat.
With California facing a structural $19 billion budget hole, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has argued that the state will need to tap its general fund for billions to prop up faltering public-employee pension funds.
I, as a nattering nabob, see negativism everywhere. The Legislature manages to do just about everything wrong. The Obama administration – like the Bush administration – is an embarrassment bordering on a disaster. Debt is rising, freedom is receding, and our governments keep getting bigger and more wasteful.
The tax swap proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg may be dead, but it can still help educate legislators in their quest to fix the budget, currently about $20 billion in the red, and restore prosperity in California.
Doctors in America are spending more time in courtrooms – and less time with patients – as personal injury lawyers wage a war on providers that's harming the quality of health care. Some states are taking steps to curb this abuse, and other states have good reason to follow their lead.
