California 'Hell-Hole' to Run $7 Billion Budget Surplus

[R.P. McM]

California’s State and Local Liabilities Total $1.5 Trillion

Our findings may appear to contradict reports that suggest a state budget surplus of about $9 billion. But the state’s spare cash and rainy day funds pale before the mountain of long-term liabilities that California governments at all levels have accumulated. Moreover, if the stock market drops, personal income tax and capital gains tax revenue will decline precipitously, wiping out these surpluses.

Our analysis differs from government reporting in a few ways, the most significant of which is governments’ use of a very generous expected rate of return on their pension fund investments. Using a more accurate rate, we calculate the total of unfunded pensions in California at $846 billion – $530 billion more than the official estimate of $316 billion. But even using only the officially reported estimates, California’s state and local governments are about $1.0 trillion in debt.

Relative to what? is the question. Here's an answer:

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/data-visualizations/2014/fiscal-50#ind4

CA does have above-average unfunded liabilities. However, the state also has a higher capacity to absorb them via robust economic growth. So while LA, AL, MI, WV, RI, NY, PA, VT, etc., currently have less debt, they're arguably in much worse fiscal shape. To say nothing of AK, IL, NJ, CT, NM, KY, etc.

[R.P. McM]

Conservatives label CA a hell hole because of demographics and nothing else. You never hear them complain about quality of life in WV, KY, OK, KS, ect.

No. We call it a hellhole because it's prohibitively expensive in most metropolitan areas due to terrible zoning laws

This part is true, but would be just as true if the state was governed by Republicans.  Rank and file real world conservatives aren't for more relaxed zoning at all, only a insignificant group of columnists and libertarian-leaning think-tankers/policy wonks are, and there plenty of folks in those spheres who take the opposite view as well.  

The two most prolific conservative writers that I can think of on urban development issues, Joel Kotkin and Randall O'Toole, are pretty much explicitly pro-sprawl and exclusionary zoning.  Try to rezone a upper-middle class red-leaning suburb so that you can build fourplexes or apartment buildings in a neighborhood of single family homes and see what kind of reaction you get (it will be shrieking hysteria and references to Agenda 21). Unfortunately, NIMBY-ism is very much nonpartisan.

Excellent point. Yeah, the right-leaning liberalized zoning contingent is the same group of folks who woke up on November 9th, 2016, and discovered they no longer had a constituency. Grassroots conservatives are petrified of the prospect of minorities moving next door, so don't expect to see any real reforms emanating from the right.  

[R.P. McM]

Conservatives label CA a hell hole because of demographics and nothing else. You never hear them complain about quality of life in WV, KY, OK, KS, ect.

No. We call it a hellhole because it's prohibitively expensive in most metropolitan areas due to terrible zoning laws and rent control, which traps the working poor in a situation where they spend a huge percentage of their earnings on rent and gas. Oh, and violent drug addicts wander the streets in the cities. I love my state, but the people in this thread trying to pretend that it's some sort of progressive Xanadu (just because the government collects a lot of revenue from techies) are definitely not well-informed with regards to what it's actually like to live here.

So awesome to see conservatives give a flying f*** about the Working Poor when used solely to dunk on a successful liberal state.

Badger, I have tried to take you seriously on multiple occasions. But your constant insistence on assuming the worst of everyone you argue with makes this impossible. You add nothing to this forum's discourse aside from cheap generalizations.

There's nothing generalized about it. It's a very specific indictment about Republican policies. Sorry if reality intrudes on your cool dunk on California.

The generalization is that conservatives only care about the working poor when they criticize liberal policies. Has it crossed your mind that people might be libertarians or conservatives because they genuinely think those policies will help the poor the most?

No. There was a time — prior to Trump — when I believed the NR/AEI crowd had an actual constituency. Now I know better — it's just WHITE POWER! all the way down. You can say whatever you like, but no one on the left is going to accept that you're sincere, or that real voters genuinely agree with you. Republicans are just racially retrograde whites, why are we trying to disguise their motivations?