IOU California, IOU for everything! - Page 2

Hey I have no problem with taxing Oil along the same terms as other oil producing states.

I do object strongly to the notion that R&D is a "tax loophole". Government funded R&D is responsible for most innovation in this country (that's right: it's ain't just a couple of guys working in their garage).

YT, where would you make cuts in State spending?

Oh please, if I was in charge, I would totally remake how we do government in this state. In terms of spending, I would INCREASE spending for education, adult education, services for the poor and mentally ill, infrastructure, green energy and just about everything else. I would do what JFK did with the federal budget in terms of taxes and probably lower overall taxes but increase revenue by closing loopholes. And, of course, I would legalize marijuana immediately, and prostitution too if I could get away with it. Regulating and taxing both, of course. Also, I'd spring all marijuana-related prisoners out of state prisons. I would freeze sprawl development indefinitely to study the deep, deep infrastructure costs forced on state, cities and counties for the private profits of the Kauffman Broads of the world.

I'd create a state bank like the incredibly stable, productive and impervious-to-financial-meltdowns Bank of North Dakota. And lastly, I would expand MediCal to include all citizens who want it, and reduce a tremendous amount of emergency room costs for that.

If forcing corporations to pay their fair share for overuse of our infrastructure and resources would cause them to leave the state, as you know my motto on that front is "good f&^%ing riddance." I think our state would be much better without conspicuous greed and tax evasion. Over the past 30 years this idea that private corporations should be both allowed and encouraged to grow more powerful than the government that supposedly watchdogs them is INSANE and ludicrous. I would do whatever I could to end reliance on that mindset.

Getting back to your original question, I think this whole idea of out of control spending is a vaporous creation of the very people who do not want the state to tax corporations and the wealthy elite fairly. Yes, there definitely are abuses on virtually every level of government, and I think that would require an anonymous, non-elected (and therefore hopefully not bribable) task force to take on and try to correct.

ps. Someone just said this quote from Einstein that I think is appropriate to the subject of "cutting spending" as the great white hope, "Problems won't be solved by the same kind of thinking that created them." The right wing slashing/burning/privatizing/un-taxing OCD-style repetition from Reagan on down is what has put California in the position it now finds itself in.

YT I have to admire your optimistic assessment of the economy. Wish I could share it. May I point out two fundamental flaws in your prescription?

1) If you increase and deepen the Social Safety Net (and here I'm talking social services, MedicCal etc) you will increase usage of those services exponentially.

Case in point: San Francisco is the most "homeless friendly" city in the US, and as a result has the largest homeless population. Came the day not too long ago when the city's deficit mandated that homeless shelters close. At a time when the homeless population is growing because the Recession is pushing more people onto the streets, there are less resources to care for them.

2) "Corporation" is a word that encompasses organizations consisting of one person up to the International Cartels you seem to really despise.

They can and are leaving this state year by year, and in case you think Obama can impose nation wide taxes to thwart them, they can also relocate to other countries (and they are). Your plan could only work if A) you could somehow force companies to do business her B) you could show some direct benefit to those companies for staying.

I'll use San Francisco again to illustrate the real world affect of letting business flee the state:

McKesson is one of those "Giganto Corps" you rail against. They shipped out their R&D and their internal IT functions to Atlanta years ago. The IT staff was 1500 people. Gone. Factor in the loss to local businesses and school districts (though I suppose you could be optimistic and assume a lot of those IT people stayed in the area in other jobs). Today only the Executives and their Staff actually work in the McKesson HQ in SF.

Another example; take a walk along Market Street from the Embarcadero on. In 3 blocks you should count over a dozen empty storefronts. Now I'm sure many of those businesses are bankrupt. But what are the chances that their former owners will come back and do business in this state?

In sum I just do not accept your world view that in fact this state is overflowing with wealth but that corporations are all hording it via tax loopholes. In fact most companies (of all sizes) are still laying off people.

EDITED TO ADD that now Texas is seeing the largest influx of population. Low taxes, friendly business environment. It sure ain't due to the weather!

Cylon, when I was a kid, before Reaganism and "free market" capitalism ruined this state and our country, there were no homeless people in Los Angeles. I never saw any homeless people as a kid. I remember when Reagan closed all the state hospitals because my Grandma was an activist and explained to me where all these "street people" came from. I remember when the landscape morphed from Main Street-style downtowns to big box stores like Wal Mart, which drove the small mom n' pop stores out of business. I remember when Jimmy Carter made his famous speech about oil imports--that we would never import more foreign oil than we did at that moment--and his subsequent greening efforts. I remember seeing solar panels on hundreds of roofs, including my own house. I remember getting a really good education in California public schools. I'm old enough to remember the world we had before.

All of the alarmist right wing talking points ignore 50 years of history, before all this rhetoric got organized by corporate- and elite-bankrolled "think tanks," when the old standards applied and, aside from bumps in the road, more people than not had a decent quality of life. They had what Teddy Roosevelt called a "living wage," which he defined as being able to support a family, take a vacation once a year, save for retirement, send kids to college, which Roosevelt felt every American was entitled to.

Studies are out now showing that the single most powerful indicator of the disparity between kids that do well in school versus kids that don't comes down to one thing -- the respective wages of their parents.

We could have a better world -- we did have a better world -- before the handful of corporations and handful of rich elite (I realize I generalize and shouldn't) decided that things would go a lot better for them if they could have no restrictions in accumulating wealth. The fact that this wealth had to come from somewhere -- namely the middle and working classes -- was incidental to them. The narrowness of this thinking is that in sucking all the wealth out of the bottom, they're destroying the world their kids are going to grow up in. No matter how rich you are, the desperation of those not as blessed affects your life.

This country needs a thriving middle class for democracy to work. It needs checks and balances on the unprecedented wealth of these families and corporations. We're in right now the kind of monarchy that the Founders fought and died to get away from. This isn't a conspiracy. If you look at the unprecedented accumulated wealth at the very top and either total flatness or impoverishment of everyone underneath that very high barrier, you see that something has gone really really wrong with our system of government.

You have to remember that not everyone in this world is strong. Not everyone is a rugged individualist. There are the strong and there are the weak. My personal feeling is that we are all related to each other. The welfare of one affects all of us. Embedded in the concept of democracy is the idea that we all have to work together to make sure that it's working for all of us, that we all collectively together are taking care of the collective us--not as a nanny state, but as a fair arbiter when the very, very strongest are victimizing the weakest. And that's what's happening right now. Changing tax law would force the very rich and corporations pay their way rather than having everyone less fortunate than them pay their way, instead of the other way around, which is not democratic and flat out wrong. It's evil.

Sorry for a long and rambling response, but that's where I'm coming from.

I know we haven't gotten along very well at times, but I just wanted to say that was a great post, YT, and one of the most reasoned, impassioned things you've written on these boards or for the site. No offense, but I wish you'd write more like that and focus less on your own personal talking points (demonizing the wealthy and the media, conspiracy theories, etc.), because I really liked it.

"No homeless" might have been slightly hyperbolic, but if you don't think the closure of mental hospitals had a sizable impact on the rise of homelessness in Los Angeles and California in general, you're daft.

I think we should bring back Victorian-era asylums. It's in everybody's best interest, really.

Nice try, but pulling the safety net out from under the mentally ill was just one way among many that Reagan and his ilk brought back images I think everyone hoped we'd never see again.




These days I think people have just gotten desensitized by seeing so many people living on the streets but for a long stretch the mentally ill or down-on-their-luck or addicted had a place to go.

YT This post is beautiful

Just a couple of nit picks:

Yes Reagan signed that bill into law, but don't forget it passed the Legislature first. And as we all know the Governor can Veto but otherwise has little direct power. So yes please do blame Reagan for not vetoing that bill, but remember there was a consensus that allowed it to reach his desk.

Again, its easy to single out "Right Wing Think Tanks" as if they are some kind of Puppet masters. And no doubt they helped develop policy and influence public opinion. But as I'm sure you also remember, there was a groundswell of resentment amongst the voting public at large against Big Government. This is what led to Prop 13 being passed, and to Reagan getting elected and re-elected President.


This kind of impassioned argument is so much more persuasive and convincing than the over-generalizing and conspiracy mongering. And we agree on a lot. But I can't ignore the ratings that Fox News gets, or that Rush Limbaugh has a $500 Million contract to broadcast his radio show.

MY take is that a large percentage of people in the US have disconnected from reality. Just like so many people lived beyond their means by refinancing their homes via ARMs etc, they voted to cut taxes while maintaining or expanding services. And at a fundamental level that cannot be sustained. We are seeing a major reset in the economy, and perhaps in people expectations. But so far I've seen no evidence that people have reset their expectations of what government can/should be doing

And to add to that, what I hear in talking to people around me, both in "Liberal" SF (I use quotes because after all, Michael Savage lives there!) and the Republican suburb I live in, there is a common theme. That theme is "I got/want mine, and screw everybody else!". This is most egregious among those empty nesters of childless couples who complain about the Teachers Unions, taxes going to broken schools etc. If they are more honest they'll actually say they don't like paying to educate children because its their money and they want to use it themselves.
And my Liberal colleagues in SF? They are preoccupied with Niche issues: The environment, Gay Rights, Gov't funding of Transgender operations (yes it is true) etc.

There is no awareness whatever that they live in a society, that broken schools do affect them via the crime rate, need to fund police, social services etc. Or that you need to establish priorities on what government can/should do.

And just to finish the meme (from my side), I think one guy who gets exactly what you are saying (about how things could be / were) is: Barrack Obama. Yes he has surrounded himself with questionable folk, and I'm not thrilled with everything he's done in the 5 months he's been in office. But from his campaign on he's spoken about the need for communities to work together on a variety of fronts. And I still get emails every week about local meetings to discuss healthcare, etc

It is unbelievable how much power they wield.

Cylon, thanks for your serious and thoughtful response. I do think we see eye to eye on a lot of this stuff but I think you nailed it with this:

However, I have to say, I don't see why it's so unthinkable that corporations and individuals with billions in future profits and wealth at stake wouldn't take steps to ensure they have a disproportionate role in creating an environment in which that wealth can be taken. In fact, if you read the infamous Powell Memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you can see plainly the roadmap that took us to the place we are now. I strongly recommend you read it. It's spooky stuff, but perfectly logical and solidly legitimate. Powell was a former US Supreme Court Justice.

Until regular people with a stake that is not based on greed or self-interest (well, self-interest in terms of the majority of Americans and preserving the way of life our Founders fought and died to create) can organize as thoroughly as US businesses and elite families have, our situation will only deteriorate to the breaking point. And then who knows what will happen.