As go the “progressive” states, so will go the nation, if this keeps up:
President Obama has bet the economy on his program to grow the government and finance it with a more progressive tax system. It’s hard to miss the irony that he’s pitching this change in Washington even as the same governance model is imploding in three of the largest American states where it has been dominant for years — California, New Jersey and New York.
A decade ago all three states were among America’s most prosperous. California was the unrivaled technology center of the globe. New York was its financial capital. New Jersey is the third wealthiest state in the nation after Connecticut and Massachusetts. All three are now suffering from devastating budget deficits as the bills for years of tax-and-spend governance come due.
These states have been models of “progressive” policies that are supposed to create wealth: high tax rates on the rich, lots of government “investments,” heavy unionization and a large government role in health care…
…Mr. Obama believes union power is a ticket to the middle class. The middle class is getting creamed in all three of these “progressive” states, where organized labor is king. The unionized share of the workforce is 20% in California, 19% in New Jersey and 27% in New York compared to 13% across the country. All three are non-right-to-work states, have super-minimum wage requirements and provide among the nation’s most generous public-employee pensions.
Workers in these paradises are indeed uniting — by leaving. New York ranks first, California second and New Jersey third in moving vans leaving the state. A study by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found that over the past decade these and other high-union states (mostly in the Northeast) had one-third the job growth of states with low union penetration.
This is why we have federalism, folks. And you know the state that’s doing well? Texas. Why doesn’t Washington try emulating that? Including a part-time legislature (though as fast as these vandals rush bills through, they can do a lot of damage even if they only meet for a month).
Why not try it? Because there aren’t enough opportunities for graft if you’re not wasting the big bucks.
Why do you insist on spreading facts Rand. You know they aren’t persuasive to our new genius leaders. While it may have failed every time it’s been tried in the past, you just have to try harder don’t your know?
“they can do a lot of damage even if they only meet for a month”
Don’t we know it!
Those of us who live close to Austin say that there was actually a typo in the state constitution. The language says the legislature is to meet for 100 days every two years. It was supposed to be 2 days every 100 years.
Texas? Because that’s where the eeeeee-vil Buuuuuush! is from! No, can’t do anything the way Texas does it.
Besides, imagine the chorus of sneering from the coastal elites (who, coincidentally, mostly live and/or work on CA, NY and NJ).
No, we voted for The Chicago Way, and Alinsky politics, and so we damn well deserve then good and hard.
I’m already here, but we do have a self-described conservative state senator that thinks the Texas Congress should meet more often because 3 months isn’t enough time to solve problems.
I’m convinced the folks get diseased with power when they start writing laws.
So when the Beltway financially and bureaucratically implodes, we have an alternate ‘functional’ capital and constituted government in reserve to take its place with a better track record of doing it in budget and with minimized overhead. Works for me.
…the folks get diseased with power when they start writing laws.
That’s because they don’t understand the difference between rules and principles.
You have to understand…..these are BETTER bureaucrats than those that ran things so poorly elsewhere. That’s why this time it will work. You need to be on the correct side of things here, or some very friendly bureaucrats will come and visit!
Which is why we must act as predators and cull the diseased from the herd.
God forbid…we could even go back to the Republic envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
Hmm…could make an interesting video…bring those men into the year 2009 and listen to their thoughts on ObamaCare, Social Security, and the rest of it. 🙂
The Texas congress still does alot of damage, but thank god they can only meet 140 days every two years. I believe that this is the only thing that has saved us from going the way of the other big states.
Don’t just do something, stand there!!!
God bless Texas.
You forgot to mention PA. With it full time legislature being the second largest in the country, most Pennsylvanians (other than Democrats and Union members) would say it is also the largest collection of legislative idiots outside of Washington DC.
I’m a Texan. I can’t keep up with the whirlwind demonstration of cluelessness demonstrated by this power mad combination of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. Right now, if I were offered a real opportunity to secede from the country we are about to live in, with out a civil war, I’d vote YES!
Yes, as I recall, one of the underlying principles of the Texas Constitution was that, “Neither life nor liberty is safe when the legislature is in session.” Something very near to that anyway.
Actually, the Texas constitution requires that the legislature meet for 90 days every 2 years.
Its Texas lore that the transcriber got it wrong years ago, in that the legislature is supposed to meet for 2 days every 90 years.
That aside, Texas it pitching its no snow climate, its no personal or corporate income taxes, and its abundant open lands to many large corporations which have been headquartered in other states for years. Can you imagine General Motors moving to Texas? I can.
Although it is true that Texas has no state income tax, property taxes are about twice as high there (on a percentage basis) than in CA. Plus, state income taxes are deductible on your federal tax return, while the only way to deduct state sales taxes is through a hokey mechanism. Plus you have to put up with the nutjob creationists a lot more in Texas than CA. I’ve lived almost as long now in SoCal (12 years) as I did in North Texas (13 years), and despite the treehuggers, unionists, and their ilk, plus the horrible public schools, I find it very difficult to conceive of a situation that would get me to voluntarily move back to Texas. SoCal is paradise for me…
Why doesn’t Washington try emulating that?
The question answers itself. Leftists DO NOT WANT ECONOMIC PROSPERITY. Their power rises as they drain the private sector. Hence, the CA/NY/NJ outcome is precisely what they had hoped for. The TX outcome is the bane of their existence.
Making the whole nation like CA/NY/NJ is Obama’s goal. Period.
If CA split into two states…
NorCal would be a deep blue nutjob state.
SoCal, however, would be a swing state, and a big one (40 EVs or so). Look at the counties in 2004 and 2008 – SoCal would really have been a swing state, where the GOP has a real shot.
Texas is hot, dry and unpleasant. There is no “diversity”. The people are unfriendly to strangers. You would best be served by staying where you are at and collecting welfare and unemployment. Unka Obammy WILL take care of you.
Texas also has a constitutional amendment that doesn’t allow deficit spending unless approved by the voters. Despite what some may say, the speed with which Washington is negating our rights and spending us into oblivion, secession talk is growing.
And…cthulhu, please stay in your high tax, high cost, socially degrading, morally bankrupt, and soon fiscally bankrupt CA. We’ll do just fine here in God’s country. Oh, I’m sorry, did the use of the word God offend you? Well, get over it.
It already has, though ironically the black hole it has become operates opposite to its celestial counterpart.
From a black hole in the sky, no light escapes. But into the Black Hole of D.C., no light can penetrate.
Although it is true that Texas has no state income tax, property taxes are about twice as high there (on a percentage basis) than in CA.
So what? Housing prices in California are four to five times higher than they are in Texas. I owned a ten year old, 1300-square foot, 3 bedroom 2 bath house with a yard, hot tub, and two-car garage in Dallas for $120k. Anything even remotely close to that in California would be at least four times as much. It doesn’t matter if you’re paying half the tax rate; if it’s on four times the value, you’re still paying twice as much.
Plus, state income taxes are deductible on your federal tax return, while the only way to deduct state sales taxes is through a hokey mechanism.
It’s a simple table in the 1040 instructions that just require you to plug in your state, income, and number of exemptions. Compare that with the ludicrous California surtax system and it makes perfect sense.
I lived in the panhandle for several years, and though I would not want to return, I take issue with that. My experience has been the exact opposite. They are more polite and respectful than people I have met as a stranger almost anywhere I have visited or lived.
Yeah, and in Texas, Secession from the United States is gaining steam too. We Texans are worried that maybe we thrifty, prudent ones will have to pick up the tab for big-spending, unionized, welfare-ized states like California, NY and NJ when they go bankrupt. That’s what we get for being sensible and running a surplus. We want out! Seriously.
Fiftycal was joking, son. It was excellent. The libs should stay home, they’d just hate it here. We don’t need a plague of locusts.
What North Dallas Thirty, West Texan, and Curt Thompson said. And THIS Texan is NOT looking forward to bailing out the stupidity of CA politicians (and I guess I have to say the people of CA who elected them) via federal income taxes which *I* pay.
“I lived in the panhandle for several years, and though I would not want to return, I take issue with that. My experience has been the exact opposite. They are more polite and respectful than people I have met as a stranger almost anywhere I have visited or lived.”
I think fifty was being sarcastic hoping it would keep the blue staters away.
West Texas – Did my use of the term “creationist nutjob” offend you? If so, get over it :-/.
North Dallas Thirty – no argument that housing in most of DFW is a minimum x3 less expensive than SoCal – that’s one of the reasons my family back in OK and TX thinks I’m nuts for continuing to live in SoCal. And I’m definitely not defending the nuttiness of most of CA politics – I do my best to try to vote liberal nutjobs like Boxer and Feinstein out. But I know several other libertarian / conservatives like me, who grew up in the Bible Belt and lived there as an adult for 10+years, who have fallen in love with SoCal despite many people’s best efforts to ruin the place. Logically, D/FW was a much better place to live, all things considered. But you couldn’t get me or my spouse to move back there with guns pointed at our heads; something about this place out here just gets into your blood :-/.
God created an almost perfect place on earth when He made San Diego. So He gave us the CA state government to keep us from getting too smug.
Not to be nosey, but what cthulu typed (although I disagree) seemed perfectly reasonable to me, that he’d rather live where he is now. That’s fine, and a good argument for less federal power to boot (you know, let each state try out its own system). I mean, I could have done without the creationist crack, but at least he has done the right thing and moved to where he is comfortable, and not just tried to force everyone else to live his way, like the liberals seem to want to do.
Save the defensiveness for the real jerks who occasionally come in with ad hominem Texas bashing. They haven’t shown up in this thread yet but they will soon.
Having lived in socialist paradises like San Francisco and Bethesda, Maryland, I was a bit confused when I moved to Texas and the papers were all aflutter about the legislature meeting that year. I think allowing the TX legislature to meet only a short period every two years has helped protect individual rights here – we should adopt a US constitutional amendment to the same effect.
As to the argument that the property taxes here somehow make this worse than California I can only laugh. If you are a hard working/high income individual, you come out way ahead in Texas. I’ve done the analysis several times as a result of California job offers and Texas wins by a very large margin every time. You hard working Californians are welcome. The rest of you stay there.
So He gave us the CA state government to keep us from getting too smug.
I’m pretty sure that was not a gift from God…
Please do not promote Texas. We don’t want any more transplants trying to make things work like wherver they moved from. “If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell” U.S. General Philip Henry Sheridan 1866. Don’t move here fom CA or NY or anyplace in the Northeast, stay where you are and fix your own problems.
I don’t mind people coming here to Texas from other states, as long as they don’t whine about how it’s so much better in California or New York. We’ve still got a lot of room down here, y’all.
cthulhu, I figure you should just stay put and keep enjoying the Southern California ambiance. It suits you better and that’s just fine. The rest of y’all, come on!
I worked a consulting gig in northern Texas some years back. It was supposed to be a year long, but I quit in disgust after 90 days because there were but nothing but gee-bus freaks and gun crazies at the client. Our weekly engineering review meeting was always started by a long prayer from an idiot manager who was also deacon of one of the whacko Assy of Ghod churches that have spread thru the region like stage 4 cancer.
He kept trying to get me to come to church, and it got to the point that I dreaded coming to work every day because of the religious and gun lover BS. I stuck it out for 90 days, then escaped to a more progressive contract.
I did try to explain to the deacon that I am an unbeliever and that I found these prayers a waste of time and deeply irritating. The shop didn’t want to get involved since the contract was lucrative to them and because the other roadies were at least nominal believers.
My client for the last few years prohibits bibles and guns on the premises, and there are few if any gee-bus lovers. None are public, and I can listen to progressive radio that is piped into our office. No deranged rightwing nut jobs here.
I’ll gladly pay the taxes in NYC in exchange for intelligent and progressive political leadership. And frankly, I wish you Texans would secede. Take all the gun nuts, alcoholics, wife beaters and gee-bus lovers with you, into the cultural sewers, while the rest of the country becomes a lot better place to live in. No guns, no gee-bus, and progressive leadership.
Houston – if you were referring to my first post when you said “As to the argument that the property taxes here somehow make this worse than California I can only laugh” – then you misinterpreted my post, which to be fair wasn’t as clear as it could have been (except about the creationist nutjobs :-/). I did that exact analysis when I moved to SoCal, and concluded that I would be taking an effective cut in pay moving from D/FW to SoCal – and I came anyway; the job was worth it, and I fell in love with SoCal at first sight. But I fully recognize that part of my compensation comes in “sun dollars”…
I still love Texas; hell, my kids are native Texans. But we love SoCal more, and try to do our part to cancel out the big-govt-fascist-insanity.
I’ll gladly pay the taxes in NYC in exchange for intelligent and progressive political leadership.
That’s hilarious. Apparently you lack a sense of irony.
I’m just glad that I don’t get all the government I pay for.
For all you transplants headed to the third coast, please, keep drivin’! We don’t want to Californicate our state!
Had Proud NYC Transplant been even remotely aware of what’s been going on in Albany?
With the state governors?
Or more locally with Bloomberg’s attempts to override term limits. Or with the state of the education unions.
Also does anyone else find it ironic to cite “progressive” That’s a movement that’s over seventy years old.
At least they’re not calling themselves Fellowtravelers at least. Though I wouldn’t be shocked if Popular Front came back.
I’ll gladly pay the taxes in NYC in exchange for intelligent and progressive political leadership.
As a lifelong New Yorker, I might feel the same way — if any such leadership existed. There is no such thing in New York (though Mike Bloomberg is better than some previous mayors despite his attempted purchase of a third term). But the city and state are held hostage by public unions, a legislature that gives new meaning to the word “corrupt” and perhaps the most inept and inconsequential governor in American history.
“I’ll gladly pay the taxes in NYC in exchange for intelligent and progressive political leadership. ”
You got half of your bargain. I’ve lived in Texas 20 years and have travelled the state from Perryton to Brownsville and Alpine to Orange. I’ve never met friendlier people across a whole state.
Sheepole – Please. Fighting over state pride while the federal government sells all of us down the river. All of you are going to just keep electing the same thiefs and blame it on the other guys thief. This nonsense is what keeps the business as usual culture of corruption power brokers in place.
Do you understand that our financial policy is run by Goldman Sachs masters of the universe; the same Goldman Sachs that is a prime contributor to the current financial crisis. Look at all of the high ranking offcials in the new administration of change who are ex-Goldman Sachs.
Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.
NYC Transplant said…
“None are public, and I can listen to progressive radio that is piped into our office.”
So admittedly inappropriate workplace prayers are horribly annoying/oppressive, but ‘piped in’ progressive radio the whole office is forced to listen to isn’t?
???
Do people who hiss “Californicate” think they’re being clever as they show off their ignorance of history? The Bear Flag Republic was a fine place until it was overrun by immigrants from other states. It began with the Dust Bowl refugees (who included a big pile of Texans, btw) and the tarnish on the Golden State grows with every Nancy Pelosi who arrives from elsewhere.
And where is YOUR family from, Micha?
> Although it is true that Texas has no state income tax, property taxes are about twice as high there (on a percentage basis) than in CA. Plus, state income taxes are deductible on your federal tax return, while the only way to deduct state sales taxes is through a hokey mechanism.
CA has a higher state sales tax than Texas.
CA’s property tax rates may be lower, but the property taxes themselves are higher.
“something about this place out here just gets into your blood :-/.”
Maybe so. I grew up there. I’ve had a transfusion.