The Social Contract

[dgs49]

While wasting a little time this afternoon I did quite a bit of reading about the budget mess in California.

Boiling it all down to the essence, on one hand right now you have a small group of officials fighting against the tide who want to gut the budget by drastically reducing or eliminating a cornucopia of programs designed and intended to help "those in need." On the other hand you have millions demanding that their particular teat be maintained, with the result that none of the teats can be touched. California has a thousand "third rails," it would appear.

I couldn't begin to catalog all the different programs that were mentioned in my readings, but they include (of course) a huge education establishment (K through PhD and beyond, as well as vocational schools) and assorted programs to help Californians pay for them, various forms of welfare, child care, disability assistance, medical assistance, housing assistance...the list never ends. And of course, much of this is available and in fact provided to people who are not in California or the United States legally.

And one could say that California Gub'mint employment itself is a huge social welfare program, but I won't go there. Fromall indications, the State's employees are, shall we say, coddled with compensation and benefits available in only a very few pockets of the private sector (some of which happen to be in California).

But for each one of these California government benefit programs, you have a large number of people who have ordered their lives in such a way (some voluntarily, some not) to depend on those programs. Accordingly, a cutback or elimination of any one of them would present a "hardship" to tens of thousands of people.

There are those in the discussion ("morons") who believe that it would be possible for the State of California to continue providing all of these benefits IF ONLY the state would extract more money from The Rich and from Corporations.

Yet the consensus among adults seems to be that the taxes and fees in California are high enough, and increasing them would be counter-productive in the extreme. Indeed there is a question about whether higher - let's say - taxes would actually bring in more money in the long term, as tax avoidance strategies would proliferate and those who pay the highest taxes might just leave.

So the question becomes, What of the Social Contract? Is it binding? What happens to the Social Contract when the money runs out?

And may we consider this: The people who "signed" the Social Contract (i.e., politicians) were committing money that was not their own.

You pinko's in California seem to be up against it. You want a "kind and compassionate" Gub'mint, but it appears your elected representatives have issued a check in your name and there isn't enough in the figurative checking account to cash it.

Where do you go from here? Arnold tried to treat you like adults (welfare reform, pension reform, tenure), and you told him to go fuck himself. What now?

[Gob]

Why doesn't the USA sell California to the Chinese?

[rubato]

why doesn't California sell the rest of the U.S. to China? It would cost them less.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

If you want facts and not whiny crap:


http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSum ... Charts.pdf


If you want the future to be better than the past then a little suffering to pay for higher levels of education is a good thing. As someone who knows from experience, paying higher taxes for those those in the $300,000 + bracket is not a hardship and will not make us leave for some nasty ignorant shithole like Nevada or Mississippi.


We invented computers and biotech. What did you do?


yrs,
rubato

[@meric@nwom@n]

We feed your whiny stupid asses for one thing.

[loCAtek]

Um, no

[Lord Jim]

Excellent OP Dave.

[liberty]

Why doesn't the USA sell California to the Chinese?

How about this Gob: Let California go bankrupt and defunct at which point California looses its statehood and it’s territory reverts back to the national government. The federal government then would be required to redistribute the territory among the adjoining states. Arizona would get the southern California, Nevada the middle and Oregon would get the northern portion. The problem is how do we go about doing this. The US constitution does not allow a state's territory to be altered without its permission. So the question to our lawyer is, is it even possible without a constitutional amendment. And we definitely would not want congress to have the power to abolish a state if the they had the power we would cease to be federation and become an empire ruled by DC politicians.

[loCAtek]

Shoot, if it were that easy CA would have seceded the union to be it's own country; we could easily be self-sufficient.

[dales]

When the "big one" comes, CA might just float out into the Pacific Ocean.

Problem solved.

[rubato]

We feed your whiny stupid asses for one thing.

With what? Calif. is a net exporter of food to the rest of the country.


And I'm not whining or even slightly unhappy. Why would I be? Our biggest problem is that government is broken. Until they get rid of term limits it will stay broken.


But for the time being I get to look out the window at Monterey Bay and the Pacific ocean. And this week we spent 2 nights at the Ahwanee in Yosemite. What is there to whine about?

yrs,
rubato

[liberty]

Shoot, if it were that easy CA would have seceded the union to be it's own country; we could easily be self-sufficient.

Loca, I love you and I don’t mean to be offensive, but you have to admit your state is in serous trouble. Why can’t you guys get your act together. Hell it is your state take it back. Also it helps to be realistic, there is only so much that any people can do. Should you all be providing a free college education for illegal immigrants when your own people are struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table.

Don’t secede we are stronger together than we are separate provided that everyone pulls their weight.

[Scooter]

California could probably do just fine if it didn’t have to export a huge amount of its capital (in the form of federal taxes) to subsidize those states, like Louisiana, which only survive by sucking at the federal tit.

Don’t secede we are stronger together than we are separate provided that everyone pulls their weight.

When are you and the remainder of the population of Louisiana going to start?

[rubato]

Californians are not only pulling their own weight, they are pulling yours as well. All the states in Red are on life support.:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html
.......................................
State Federal Spending per Dollar of Federal Taxes Rank
New Mexico $2.03 ....................................... 1 WELFARE CASE
Mississippi $2.02 ....................................... 2 WELFARE CASE
Alaska $1.84 ....................................... 3 WELFARE CASE
Louisiana $1.78 ....................................... 4 WELFARE CASE
West Virginia $1.76....................................... 5 WELFARE CASE
North Dakota $1.68 ....................................... 6 WELFARE CASE
Alabama $1.66 ....................................... 7 WELFARE CASE
South Dakota $1.53....................................... 8 WELFARE CASE
Kentucky $1.51 ....................................... 9 WELFARE CASE
Virginia $1.51 ....................................... 10 WELFARE CASE
Montana $1.47 ....................................... 11 WELFARE CASE
Hawaii $1.44 ....................................... 12 WELFARE CASE
Maine $1.41....................................... 13 WELFARE CASE
Arkansas $1.41 ....................................... 14 WELFARE CASE
Oklahoma $1.36 ....................................... 15 WELFARE CASE
South Carolina $1.35....................................... 16 WELFARE CASE
Missouri $1.32 ....................................... 17 WELFARE CASE
Maryland $1.30 ....................................... 18 WELFARE CASE
Tennessee $1.27 ....................................... 19 WELFARE CASE
Idaho $1.21 ....................................... 20 WELFARE CASE
Arizona $1.19 ....................................... 21 WELFARE CASE
Kansas $1.12 ....................................... 22 WELFARE CASE
Wyoming $1.11 ....................................... 23 WELFARE CASE
Iowa $1.10 ....................................... 24 WELFARE CASE
Nebraska $1.10....................................... 25 WELFARE CASE
Vermont $1.08....................................... 26 WELFARE CASE
North Carolina $1.08....................................... 27 WELFARE CASE
Pennsylvania $1.07 ....................................... 28 WELFARE CASE
Utah $1.07....................................... 29 WELFARE CASE
Indiana $1.05....................................... 30 WELFARE CASE
Ohio $1.05....................................... 31 WELFARE CASE
Georgia $1.01....................................... 32 WELFARE CASE
Rhode Island $1.00....................................... 33 Break Even
Florida $0.97....................................... 34 DONOR STATE
Texas $0.94....................................... 35 DONOR STATE
Oregon $0.93....................................... 36 DONOR STATE
Michigan $0.92....................................... 37 DONOR STATE
Washington $0.88....................................... 38 DONOR STATE
Wisconsin $0.86....................................... 39 DONOR STATE
Massachusetts $0.82....................................... 40 DONOR STATE
Colorado $0.81....................................... 41 DONOR STATE
New York $0.79....................................... 42 DONOR STATE
California $0.78 ....................................... 43 DONOR STATE
Delaware $0.77 ....................................... 44 DONOR STATE
Illinois $0.75....................................... 45 DONOR STATE
Minnesota $0.72 ....................................... 46 DONOR STATE
New Hampshire $0.71....................................... 47 DONOR STATE
Connecticut $0.69....................................... 48 DONOR STATE
Nevada $0.65....................................... 49 DONOR STATE
New Jersey $0.61....................................... 50 DONOR STATE

[rubato]

Or to look at it another way you owe us $300 Billion dollars just for the 2000 to 2005 year interval:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html

California year …… federal taxes paid …… federal monies received …… difference ……
…………. 2000 ………… $277,189 …………………… …… $175,967 ………… -$101,222 ……
…………. 2001 ………… $265,573 …………………… …… $188,758 ………… -$76,815 ……
…………. 2002 ………… $243,062 …………………… …… $206,417 ………… -$36,645 ……
…………. 2003 ………… $234,595 …………………… …… $219,706 ………… -$14,889 ……
…………. 2004 ………… $250,373 …………………… …… $232,387 ………… -$17,986 ……
…………. 2005 ………… $289,627 …………………… …… $242,023 ………… -$47,604 ……
Taxpayer …… …… …… ……………… …… …… total 2000-2003 ………… -$295,160 (millions)


yrs,
rubato

[dgs49]

Again, what of the social contract?

California cannot continue to offer its cornucopia of goodies to its citizens and foreign squatters. Politicians and pinkos (like rubato) insist that SOMEHOW it will continue, and yet - where is the acceptance of reality? Can it ALWAYS be said that, Someone else must pay for it?

By the state that gave us Disneyland.

Reality? What reality?

[Gob]

What would be the advantage to the USA of California going bankrupt?

[@meric@nwom@n]

Do your research better Rubo, Indiana is not in the red, we are in the black due to serious belt tightening done by Mitch Daniels. Mich is a conservative rather than a neo con. Indiana did not have to lay off state workers, did not have to pare back there days working to make it through the recession.

Really you aren't about facts though are you, you are about spewing hate.

Liberal smiberals.

[rubato]

Do your research better Rubo, Indiana is not in the red, we are in the black due to serious belt tightening done by Mitch Daniels. Mich is a conservative rather than a neo con. Indiana did not have to lay off state workers, did not have to pare back there days working to make it through the recession.

Really you aren't about facts though are you, you are about spewing hate.

Liberal smiberals.

You were saying something about food?

Or was that pure crap ?





yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Pure crap it is.


We don't actually need you.

You need us.


yrs,
rubato