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Californians Are Sinking Themselves
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
The world's
eighth-largest economy has just gone belly-up. When midnight tolled on
Tuesday night with legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still
deadlocked over how to resolve the state's staggering $24 billion
budget shortfall, California became unable to pay its bills. The state
will have to begin issuing IOUs to its creditors as early as Thursday.
It is the worst budget crisis in the state's modern history.
There is an unreal, almost dreamlike quality about this moment. Dreadful things are about to happen: Hundreds of thousands of children will lose their healthcare. Five thousand state workers will be laid off. Massive cuts will decimate education at every level. Social services will be slashed. Two hundred and twenty-nine parks, out of a total of 280, will be shut down. Even some of the state's landmarks may go on the auction block to raise money.
Yet as their state prepares to go over the cliff, California's citizens seem weirdly oblivious, or resigned, or numb. Like inhabitants of a corrupt third-world country who have utterly lost faith in their government and in politics itself, or ostriches sticking their heads in the sand, Californians are behaving as if the whole thing is out of their control. Or even that it isn't happening at all.
Californians are not directly responsible for the state's budget debacle. They are not the legislators who are so ideologically polarized that on Tuesday they could not even agree on an emergency partial budget fix that would have saved the state $5 billion. But in a larger sense, Californians are indeed responsible for today's crisis. The cumulative weight of their decisions, over decades, and their inability to reach consensus on the fundamental issue of what government should do and who should pay for it, are squarely responsible for the historic mess this unruly nation-state finds itself in today.
It is a truism that California is a national bellwether. From John Muir's founding of the Sierra Club to Prop. 13, the 1978 tax revolt, from Mario Savio to Ronald Reagan, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, California has time and again proven itself to be a national and global trendsetter. The least American of places, a piratical exception to East Coast gentility on the far end of the continent, it is also the most American of places, with its brilliant, selfish and wanton extremities mirroring the oldest and still-unresolved contradictions of the American spirit. As Kevin Starr, dean of California historians, writes in his superb 2003 book, "California: A History," California has "long since become one of the prisms through which the American people, for better or worse, could glimpse their future." And right now, what they see isn't pretty.
The immediate source of California's financial problems is a lethal combination of ideology and rules. It is deeply politically divided, and its governmental mechanisms are completely broken. Bay Area leftists stare at Orange County conservatives across an unbridgeable abyss; a large and potent group of anti-government libertarians faces off against an equally powerful group of pro-tax, proactive government liberals. If California, like most states, required only a simple majority to pass its budget, the disagreements between these camps could be worked out; after all, the Democrats control the Legislature. But California requires a two-thirds majority, which gives the GOP, now dominated by anti-government, anti-tax ideologues, veto power over the process. The result is deadlock.
Compounding this problem is California's notorious initiative process, which allows voters to bypass the Legislature and place initiatives directly on the ballot simply by gathering enough signatures. The initiative process was originally passed by voters in 1911 to circumvent the power of the oligarchic railroad trusts by restoring direct democracy. And it still offers citizens a chance to take control of important issues. But it has gone out of control, abused by powerful interests who hire people to collect signatures and ram through bills that no ordinary citizen can be expected to comprehend. By sidelining elected officials, it achieves the worst of both worlds: It gives ordinary citizens, who lack requisite expertise, institutional memory and accountability, too much power, and then forces legislators to clean up their mess -- except that because of ideological gridlock and the supermajority requirement, they can't.
A classic example is the 1994 "three strikes" initiative, which mandated harsh prison sentences for repeat offenders. The bill was cathartic for citizens who wanted to get tough on crime, but it had serious budgetary consequences. As a result of the initiative and other tough crime laws, California's prison population has increased 82 percent over the last 20 years. State institutions now house a mind-boggling 170,000 prisoners. Corrections costs California $13 billion a year -- a fivefold increase since 1994, and more than the state spends on higher education. Former Gov. Gray Davis gave the powerful prison guards union a 30 percent pay raise from 2003 to 2008.
But the most momentous initiative was Prop. 13, which slashed property taxes. By voting for Prop. 13, while not demanding a reduction in public services, Californians were in effect saying they wanted to have it all: low taxes and social services, subsidized public education, infrastructure and the other things provided by government.
This was, in effect, a mass outbreak of cognitive dissonance, an up-yours delivered to government with the public's left hand, while its right hand reached out for Sacramento's largesse. Now, 31 years later, the bill has finally come due. There is no free lunch. If you want good roads, parks, decent schools (California's schools, once the best in the nation, are now among the worst) and adequate social services, you have to pay for them.
For some reason, Californians have never come to grips with this fact. Some citizens who voted for Prop. 13 and other anti-tax measures are hard-line right-wingers who are ideologically opposed to government and don't care if state programs die. They are the soul mates of the current Republicans in the Legislature, who see the current crisis as a golden opportunity to get rid of government programs they have opposed for years. But they are the minority. Polls show that most Californians are more centrist. They are not absolutely opposed to taxes or government programs. They want compromises that work. The tragedy of California is that its political system no longer speaks for them. The center has not held. It no longer exists. It is a self-reinforcing problem: The more the public perceives politicians as ineffectual, the more it dismisses politics altogether.
As historian Starr points out in his new book, "Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963,"
What happened? Why did the center fail? Why has California, a place famous for giving birth to cutting-edge ideas that changed the world, proved humiliatingly unable to manage its own affairs? Why can't California do politics as well as it does technology, biotech, movies, music and social justice movements?
Beyond the state's dysfunctional system, the short answer is the rise of the hard-right GOP. Pushed far to the right by ideologues like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and their ilk, California Republican lawmakers have staked out an absolutist line against taxes that makes governance nearly impossible. Lawmakers who believe and act on Reagan's famous line that "government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem," are walking oxymorons. Why expect anti-government Republican legislators to resolve a budget crisis when that crisis will result in their goal: the destruction of government? The floundering Governator may not be an extremist, but he remains in thrall to the members of his party who are.
But Californians themselves, of all political stripes -- or, more likely and significantly, none -- also are responsible. The fact remains that self-centered California has yet to come to terms with what it is. This is a state that was built with government programs, financed by massive federal military and aerospace spending and state funding of local projects, and yet still has not decided what it thinks about the New Deal, or government itself. Of course, those opposed to government tend to be on the right. But the fact that many leftists, chasing the chimera of perfection, disdain the world of practical politics is also damaging.
Will California be able to pull itself out of its current hole? Certainly it has done so in the past. Its history is nothing if not a tale of reversals and unexpected triumphs. It will no doubt muddle through. But in the long run, to overcome its structural problems, it must transform some of its most cherished values. Without abandoning its individualism, utopianism and radicalism, it must learn how to use them in the world -- with all the compromises that requires. Like an aging starlet, the Golden State is clinging desperately to its glorious youth. But it is past time for it to grow up.
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115 Comments so far
Show AllAnd, at all costs, we must ignore the elephant in the living room.
"Like a third world country whose citizens have utterly lost faith in government" certainly describes current conditions in the US.
Wealth transfer has now reached third world status and Dick Durbin recently confirmed what most Americans already know: corporations own the US Government.
Yeah, the GOP elephant!
Well said: California failed because it jettisoned the primary attributes of democracy in two ways:
1. It literally got rid of 'majority rule'. In the California legislature, the vote of one Republican is literally worth that of two Democrats.
2. It opted out of representative government and placed overarching power directly in the people through the initiative process. So most people keep voting for Democrats, but the only ones who vote for various initiatives are Republican drones who are told how to vote by their party. The initiatives are so complicated most honest voters admit they don't know how to think about them and leave them blank. The purpose of representative government is you are represented in the legislature by your local person, who understand the intricacies.
Finally, to those who say CA pays some of the highest state taxes in the country, one word: loopholes. Loopholes exist PRECISELY so that people can claim something that is true on paper only. On paper Californians DO pay some of the highest state taxes. In reality, in California, tax collections as a fraction of state income are lower than in 16 other states, i.e. California's TRUE state tax level is near the CENTER of America's states, NOT near the top.
I read in a paper here that the wealthiest 1% of Californian's pay about 7.8% of their income in taxes, while poorer Californian's pay 11%.
Do those tax %'s sound familar?
I visited the Bay area in Nov. 2008 , was there for the election. I once lived in Calif. back in the 60's and 70's. I hadn't been in Calif . for over 20 yrs. till last yr. I was amazed at how much development had happened in Northern Calif. For a very long time Calif . benefited from the fact that the wealthy of the world wanted to move there and this influx of the $$ class kept property values going to north etc. At the same time the middle class in Calif., began it's long decline as in the rest of America. Calif., now is a place of extremes. Great wealth and increasing poverty. I saw whole towns filled with illegal and legal Mexican folks and I saw whole neighborhoods filled with fore closure signs. But, right next to these places I saw enormous wealth. It saddened me in a way. I see Calif., becoming an American version of Mexico. Great wealth for the top 10% and everyone else living in a declining economy and poverty. If this is our future we can thank the extremists of the hard right for it. This is their vision of a so called opportunity society. It's looking more and more though like a 21st century version of Feudalism , complete with the walled Castles and private armies and militias of the middle ages.
Exactly, this is the unquestionable consequence of conservative ideology.
A small population of super rich and large population of needy, poor, destitute. The elimination of the middle class.
Americans need to reject conservative ideology. Conservative thinking is the problem in America today.
Conservative ideology (or Authoritarianism) is simply that which is most easily hoodwinked by the controlling 'small population of super rich' - the oligarchical corporate elite.
Without an authoritarian mindset willing to 'buy in' and perpetuate the lies and deceit employed by the Ruling Class in order to maintain the status quo, ordinary people would revolt (or at least maintain/demand a more equitable system of governance).
"Conservative" has been hijacked by neoliberalism and capitalism; we in America (in fact) have never had a true conservative party or ideology.
A true conservative embraces sustainability and diversity.
And all these conservatives exist only in your mind, because I can't seem to find them anywhere else.
And all these conservatives exist only in your mind, because I can't seem to find them anywhere else.
Maliswan has an older usage.
"I see Calif., becoming an American version of Mexico."
I see the entire United States becoming an American version of Mexico.
In the United States, today, 1% of the population owns 34% of the wealth, 10% own 71% of the wealth, and 10% receive 42% of the income. Real wages of the working class have been falling now for decades. It won't take much longer.
Yes. The right wingers would feel perfectly comfortable living in a third world country, where a small wealthy minority that controls most of the wealth, lives in walled off enclaves guarded by private militia, while most of the population is very poor and scrambles for scraps, children who should be in school hawk merchandise on the sidewalk to feed themselves and their families, a small middle class operates the business sector and governement posts, and sewage runs in the streets because there's no public money to build or maintain infrastructure. If this sounds familiar, think Mexico, or any other 3rd worlrd sh|t hole. The logic of the present politics, both in the political arena and in corporate boardrooms, leads inexorably to this result. Of course most rightwingers would never imagine that they themselves could be on the losing side of this equation.
There should be a proposition to get rid of the supermajority rule on the budget, but I guess there will have to be very serious pain before such a ballot measure passes, and even then the moneyed interests will try manipulate public opinion to ensure its defeat. But we've got to try. Doing nothing guarantees the 3rd world scenario.
California may not be as bad as Mississippi but it sure as hell is getting there. Unmentioned is the fact that even in the most liberal cities of that state, voters continue to reelected GOP-lites repeatedly. What do Nancy Pelosi and Arnold Schwarzengger have in common? They're both looked at as "liberals" as the media portrays them and the voters fall for it. Anyone who voted for Pelosi does not deserve to call himself or herself a liberal or a progressive. California might as well put my shitty governor Haley Barbour in its place and nothing would change !
The same is true of Dianne Feinstein - year after year, vote after vote, she effectively negates our other 'progressive' senator, Barbara Boxer's, vote. And yet, most 'liberal' voters I encounter, haven't a clue that she is in bed with the corporate elite (They: Didn't she used to be the mayor of San Francisco?).
Even Boxer endorsed representative Jane Harmon when she was seriously challenged by a true progressive, Marcy Winograd in the democratic primaries of '06.
I went to the polls last fall to expressly vote against my rep, the ineffectual Democrat-lite, Corporate-right! Henry Waxman, and found that he RAN UNOPPOSED!
Let's not forget that a big part of the stratagem used by the corporate elite in this on-going Class-Warfare is to keep the sheeple uneducated, uninformed and apathetic.
I once heard Ralph Nader rhetorically question why the voting records of our elected officials aren't printed and circulated to the same degree as sports' statistics.
BOXER IS NOT A PROGRESSIVE.
SHE WAVERS BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL AT BEST.
Agreed.
Which is why I used 'quotes' when referring to Boxer as a progressive...
It's true the really wealthy , in particuliarly those that own enormous tracts of Spanish land grant land , like the Irvine family in Orange county DO NOT pay taxes @ anywhere near the rates anyone who bought property after 1978 has to pay. Prop. 13 is grossly regressive and in effect allowed a certain class of Calif., residents ( those owning property prior to it's enactment in 1978 to have super low taxes that can NEVER be raised. This needs to be changed or Calif., eventually will end up like Mexico where 1% ( the descendants of the Spanish Conquistadores) still own 90 % of the country. I really believe that's what Wealthy conservatives want. They envision a 2 class society and have strove mightily these last 30 yrs. to get one. In Calif. they are close to their goals.
On the positive side, maybe Kollyfornya can serve as a lesson to people living in all other states with regard to the natural outcome of tax phobia. Maybe then taxphobes will begin to receive the ridicule they so richly deserve.
While we have all kinds of regressive taxes in Texas, we don't have a regressive state income tax... Oh, I forgot, we don't have an income tax at all, but we are first in teen pregnancies, low wages, last in health, first in number of uninsured, yadda, yadda, yadda...and we have to live with "Hook 'em Horns" B.S. (By the way, the 500 official "student atheletes" at UT/Austin cost about $155,000/head. Pretty expensive horns) eh yippee-kay-yea...
Yea, I know, as I live in Texas also. Texans are among the worst taxphobes on the planet and that helps explain why Texas often comes in first in the race to the bottom.
it's mostly a culture thing. The indoctrination starts in junior high. You're taught Texas history before US history and in greater depth. It's the old southern boy independent mentality. Taxes are the man trying to take your hard earned cash to give to the lazy, the colored, the illegals. Besides who needs roads, schools and police when you have a truck the bible and your shotgun?
Gray Davis must be laughing his head off.
When will Arnold lay off the CHP and close all the roads?
California might revert to it's rightful owners, First Americans.
I live in Corona, CA just over the county line from Orange County and at the beginning of Riverside County also know as "The Inland Empire". I was born and raised in Orange County the pro-business-pay-no-taxes-screw-the-poor repubs and live most of my adult life in the God-guns-gays religious racist wing of the Republican party. It is the eye of the republican shit-storm here. People around here just don't get it. They don't want to pay taxes then complain when the freeways are falling apart or they can't get an appointment at the DMV because they had to be closed for a day. Now they will start complaining when we have less cops, firefighters and more people being released from prisons because it is too costly to keep them inside. Republicans are famous for wanting to cut taxes have less government but put more cops on the streets. People that are only one or two bum paychecks away from homelessness and destitution sit there and complain about having to pay taxes that go to welfare programs for the poor and worship the rich. They don't even realize how much closer they are to being in the same situation as the poor people they villify and dehumanize. So if you don't want to pay taxes, then don't call 911 in an emergency. Build your own damn road to drive on. Purify your own water. Put out your own fires. And don't come crying to the government if you lose your job or health benefits. I don't vote republican because I have a hard time trusting anybody who says they hate the government but want you to hire them to work there. That's like hiring a babysitter who hates kids. Government does work but we do have to pay for it. Freedom really isn't free.
"So if you don't want to pay taxes, then don't call 911 in an emergency. Build your own damn road to drive on. Purify your own water. Put out your own fires. And don't come crying to the government if you lose your job or health benefits."
Damn right!! BE the "rugged individualist" conservative republican that you claim to be, that you IMAGINE you are. And stay the hell OFF my socialist-built highways, and refuse that socialist social security when you get older, and refuse that medicare too. And don't expect my socialist mail system to deliver mail and packages to you. Deliver them yourself. Teach your own damn kids, don't be sending them to those socialist school systems (although California now has one of the worst).
On that note, recently some 13 year-old tried to swim the Rio Grande and drowned. I watched helicopters, planes, hovercraft, mounted patrols, several fire battalions with the associated trucks, ATVs, etc look for the kid for nearly 5-days. On top of that the knuckle-head mayor refused to call off the search. It was a volunteer strolling the riverbank who found the body. While I certainly feel for the family wouldn't it have been cheaper for the taxpayers if after one day they just waited until the river gave up the body. I remember a time when they did just that. A week or so later the state police destroyed a multi-million dollar helicopter, killing the pilot and rescued hiker. The dumb-ass hiker went into the wilderness unprepared but somehow it was our obligation to save her. Oh, how I hate cell-phones.
My point is as you described, everyone wants all the conveniences then they complain when property taxes, etc go up. I'm totally blown away when almost every bond issue passes. The more you expect this stuff the more validity you give to gov't. My next move WILL NOT be within any municipality. There is going to be a sh*tstorm coming when local gov'ts need more revenue.
I agree on the "third worldization" that is occurring in CA, the double hit of prop 13 and the super majority for taxation rule pretty much destroyed CA's ability to stably fund itself. The history of this is more complex than just greedy right wing assholes, of course these people are always around, but it was also the legislature not acting on an out of wack property tax system. Commercial real estate interests used this in the guise of Jarvis Gann. Now, wealthy people can live separate from everyone else, gated communities, private schools and country clubs. They have to get to these place on crappy roads, but land rovers are good at absorbing bumps, unfortunately, just like most places in the third world.......
Here comes the mother of all garage sales. Arnold will put CA assets on the auction block which will result in massive privatization of resources in CA. This has all been well engineered over time, and now the end game approaches. Just watch.
The entire state of California is up for sale on Ebay.
Bidding starts at $1.
Will they take Paypal?
Didn't you know that PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002?
Slap tolls on the freeways.
Will the other 49 learn from California's mistakes?
God, I hope so....I hope California will before its too late.
You mean will they learn and stop electing either conservatives or liberals, and start electing third party progressives?
Sure. Any day now.
This is absurd. Is no one paying attention? Blaming the Republicans, wealthy and Prop 13 for Californias troubles is hooey. They certainly have a share as do all the citizens of California.
But the author makes some very true points for everyone except those that want to live in an echo chamber.
"Polls show that most Californians are more centrist. They are not absolutely opposed to taxes or government programs. They want compromises that work. The tragedy of California is that its political system no longer speaks for them. The center has not held. It no longer exists. It is a self-reinforcing problem: The more the public perceives politicians as ineffectual, the more it dismisses politics altogether."
This is true in California as it is in the rest of the country. Most people are centrists as everyone but fanatics know and admit.
"Beyond the state's dysfunctional system, the short answer is the rise of the hard-right GOP. Pushed far to the right by ideologues like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and their ilk, California Republican lawmakers have staked out an absolutist line against taxes that makes governance nearly impossible."
This is true.
"But Californians themselves, of all political stripes -- or, more likely and significantly, none -- also are responsible. The fact remains that self-centered California has yet to come to terms with what it is. This is a state that was built with government programs, financed by massive federal military and aerospace spending and state funding of local projects"
Also true. California's largesse came from the rest of the country. Claims that Californians make about paying in more than they get back are true, whats not mentioned is the vast amount they get from the Federal government in the first place.
"Of course, those opposed to government tend to be on the right. But the fact that many leftists, chasing the chimera of perfection, disdain the world of practical politics is also damaging."
This is also true.
"But in the long run, to overcome its structural problems, it must transform some of its most cherished values. Without abandoning its individualism, utopianism and radicalism, it must learn how to use them in the world -- with all the compromises that requires. Like an aging starlet, the Golden State is clinging desperately to its glorious youth. But it is past time for it to grow up."
Also very true. I agree with Gary, but I'd say to Mr. Starr that Californians are going to have to modify their radicalism, give up the utopianism per se and return to their liberal roots.
I believe this is true of America as a whole. Obama seems bent on making America fit the view of a small minority of its citizens. With the obvious fact that I can be wrong, he is already beginning to fail. The Academic elites view that everyone needs to be "enlightened" and only they know the "truth" will bite them in the rear.
I watched his town hall on "healthcare" with its hand picked audience and its pre approved questions and tried to see the difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney. They both used the same methods. Propaganda instead of truthful conversation, statistical falsehoods and downright fabrications of conclusions that they knew to be untrue. The only good thing to say about Obama is that he is not going to start a war with his fabrications and half truths.
Bottom line on anyone's ideology or methods is the fact that someone must pay for them. California has forgotten that rule as we all have.
I don't want my country to be California. Kids are being thrown off the healthcare rolls and these folks are discussing nutritional warnings?
Its time to return to our liberal roots, start working with anyone that has the same goals no matter who they are.
http://www.heartland.org/publications/budget%20tax/article/22442/Some_States_Get_Fat_Others_Fleeced.html
>>Also true. California's largesse came from the rest of the country. Claims that Californians make about paying in more than they get back are true, whats not mentioned is the vast amount they get from the Federal government in the first place.
Your statement seems to contradict yourself. If the State of california pays IN to the system more then it takes out, then it can not be called largesse coming from the Feds can it?
I do not understand the point you make.
In Canada Alberta pays more into the system then they get back. That they get money back from the feds can hardly be called "largesse".
What California utopianism are you talking about? Eskalon or condo conversion? The blond kid with the surfboard or Little Saigon?
If you step outside of SF Bay area, Los Angeles and a few coastal enclaves, not many Californians have any liberal roots.
A lot of folks moved to California with the military contracts after WWII and continuing. A lot of people came for the gold rush of property development. A lot of people came across the border and stepped off the boat and drove across on Route 66 come I 10 because the empire provided jobs.
They weren't and aren't any more liberal than any of that would indicate.
California is the precursor for the rest of the country. The first tremors of a collapsing superstructure. Hang on folks as the economic sunami starts pushing itself eastward.
One down forty-nine to go.
Fifty to go if you include Israel.
Durbin in a moment of candor ( rare for Congresscritters) pulled away the screen and showed everyone who really owns what in America. He forever let us know that right now in America the super wealthy own the upper reaches of Gov't and everything else. They are in a dark and vengful mood now after losing last fall. That's half the reason why we see the revenge of mass UI. America isn't a community, it's a rubble heap. Our descent into a 21st century style feudalism is almost complete.
"the super wealthy own the upper reaches of Gov't and everything else. They are in a dark and vengful mood now after losing last fall."
Yes, and thanks to their new improved up-to-date frontman Obama, they've gotten us the taxpayers to bail them out. They get our money and we get "hope" and now "change", to 3rd world living standards.
Less government income (taxes) less government spending. California is the only sane governmental body in the US. Let's hope the federal government will follow their good example and cut spending by 50% so zero borrowing is needed.
I think what you're saying is you don't believe in democracy. What do you believe in?
I'm with you all the way there, bro. Cut the Pentagon budget by 100% and we're there.
What's REALLY going on here?
Are we being set up? Are we, as Americans, being driven such a state of absolute helplessness that when things really start to go south and "they" have to wheel in the martial fist of the law to keep us in line, we will actually be GRATEFUL!?
Maybe I should just turn off the goddamn "news", go outside and do something productive.
>>>But Californians themselves, ... also are responsible.
Of course. Not just Californians, but everyone who thinks they live in a democracy. There's just no excuse for not educating yourself about what goes on in politics. Democracy doesn't drive itself. It needs a driver in the form of an informed citizenry.
>>>Compounding this problem is California's notorious initiative process...
"Notorious" may be a strong word, with negative connotations. The problem is that the citizens haven't made sufficient efforts to inform themselves and organize.
>>>Californians are not directly responsible for the state's budget debacle.
Oh yeah? Gray Davis might have had his faults, but to vote to recall him - only the second time in history when a governor was recalled - and then elect someone with no political experience as their governor - who was responsible for THAT? Electing someone who became a Republican instantly after hearing Nixon's speech (which he found like a "breath of fresh air"!)? Despite his idiotic promotion of the Hummer (and then later advocating "hydrogen-fueled Hummer!), he is now seen as a champion of the environment. There is no excuse for making poor choices time after time.
>>>It is a truism that California is a national bellwether.
That's the real scary part of this story.
>>>Will California be able to pull itself out of its current hole?
Unless there is a new breed of leaders, I don't see how.
One of the pillars of the right wing onslaught on the budget is Chevron--California's own Big-Oil behemoth.
Any fool should be able to recognize that one of the major reasons for the "poor quality of life" in the state is the way in which the private automobile is given the status of a "sacred cow", which has benefited mostly--you know who.
Clogged highways, poor road maintenance and air pollution are the "external costs" that land on the back of the public, the ripple effects of which are now causing untold damage to the poor, the sick and the "yet to be educated".
The latest "red-herring" of disinformation designed to distract and confuse the public, is the "will-you-join-us" propaganda piece which is saturating the airwaves. This PR campaign gives the impression that Chevron is on the leading edge for finding solutions to the energy/climate crisis.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
http://www.oilwatchdog.org/articles/?storyId=27692
"Will-you-join-us", indeed. Our answer should be--when the "sacred cows", as we know them, are forever banished from the state's highways, and transportation needs are met with a much "saner" alternative.
Ride sharing schemes would be a good starting point, but an entirely "new" system, which "inside-the-box" politicians cannot even envision, is what is needed.