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

[DrScholl]

When people complain about zoning laws I always go back to how that fertilizer plant in West, Texas exploded and wiped out an entire neighborhood. You do need zoning laws for public safety.

There are some cities in California with overly restrictive zoning laws, but plenty of hardcore conservatives support them and have even written some of them, so it's not a partisan issue. Most areas don't even have rent control and the real issue with housing is that developers choose to build luxury housing as opposed to affordable. There was also the loss of the redevelopment agency that hurt the state's ability to build affordable housing.

[Landslide Lyndon]

California was an ungovernable mess in 2010, and everyone admitted that. What changed since then is that the state had Democratic governors and Democrats obtained supermajorities in the legislature and consequently were free to raise taxes and apply their policies.

[John Dule]

When people complain about zoning laws I always go back to how that fertilizer plant in West, Texas exploded and wiped out an entire neighborhood. You do need zoning laws for public safety.

This is not really relevant for California's zoning laws, which disproportionately favor construction of single-family homes in cities like San Francisco. If the market were allowed to function, the Sunset District would be skyscrapers today, and the whole housing shortage issue would be a thing of the past. Instead we have NIMBYs trying to protect their nice coastal views, in the process displacing thousands of commuters to actual hellholes like Vacaville.

There are some cities in California with overly restrictive zoning laws, but plenty of hardcore conservatives support them and have even written some of them, so it's not a partisan issue. Most areas don't even have rent control and the real issue with housing is that developers choose to build luxury housing as opposed to affordable. There was also the loss of the redevelopment agency that hurt the state's ability to build affordable housing.

Yeah, and why do the developers choose to build luxury housing when there's obviously a demand for low-income apartments? Because if they build cheaper housing, rent control laws prevent rents from being raised in response to increased demand. Also, with the limited availability of development space in the cities due to zoning restrictions, it makes much more sense for them to maximize profits by catering to wealthy buyers rather than low-income renters.

[DrScholl]

Rent control isn't in effect in most municipalities, yet developers still refuse to build it. The state is starting to put more pressure on cities to raise density. But none of that was the topic of this thread. The topic was about the state having a surplus, but thread was turned into an "I Hate California" topic.

[Intell]

Can they fund mass scale social housing then? No of course CA democrats are puppets for techbros and property owners.

[Bojack Horseman]

🎵I love you California, you’re the greatest state of all
I love you in the winter, summer, spring, and in the fall
I love your fertile valleys, your dear mountains I adore
I love your grand old ocean and I love her rugged shore

When the snow-crowned golden Sierras keep their watch o’er the valley’s bloom
It is there I would be in our land by the sea
Every breeze bearing rich perfume
It is here nature gives of her rarest, it is home sweet home to me
And I know when I die I shall breathe my last sigh for my sunny California

I love your redwood forests, love your fields of yellow grain
I love your summer breezes and I love your winter rain
I love you land of flowers, land of honey, fruit, and wine
I love you California, you have won this heart of mine

When the snow-crowned golden Sierras keep their watch o’er the valley’s bloom
It is there I would be in our land by the sea
Every breeze bearing rich perfume
It is here nature gives of her rarest, it is home sweet home to me
And I know when I die I shall breathe my last sigh for my sunny California🎵

[Mr. Smith]

Completely misleading for the reasons dead0man said. Also if it's so great how come there are homeless people everywhere and people leaving the state because they can't afford it. Not to mention the fact that Newsom has an approval rating in the 40s and the state legislature has an even worse approval rating than that.

The truth is we have massive bond debt and a massive pension problem that gets overlooked because muh surplus.

Overall the state isn't a hellhole. However major cities have a tendency to be, because they are filled with homeless people living on the street. I no longer take BART in the bay area because you're likely to get robbed or a homeless person will be pissing on the train. It's not a great place to live. Although there are still some good areas.

I don't know how anyone can look at the past years of democratic control in California and come away with the thought that yeah this has been good we're doing great.

The homeless people are there because the weather is good enough and the cities aren't complete a-holes to them...because of course, lots of homeless are simply those evicted out, and not the druggies that you and Smiling John seem to lurve portraying them all as.

Also it's very f*(king easy to praise Dem control after seeing the walking disaster things were when Der Sperminator was in charge, or the 16 years of prison build-up under Duke and Wilson.

But you have a point, I think it was Dem controlled and Dem majority even in the 70's when the DINOs crossed over to Jarvis and put through the most monstrous proposition ever passed. And boy howdy could so have been done if not for those tax freezes

[RINO Tom]

The totally jelly so-called fiscal conservatives in this thread are hilarious

Aren’t we past the date you re-registered yet, Badger?

[DrScholl]

Completely misleading for the reasons dead0man said. Also if it's so great how come there are homeless people everywhere and people leaving the state because they can't afford it. Not to mention the fact that Newsom has an approval rating in the 40s and the state legislature has an even worse approval rating than that.

The truth is we have massive bond debt and a massive pension problem that gets overlooked because muh surplus.

Overall the state isn't a hellhole. However major cities have a tendency to be, because they are filled with homeless people living on the street. I no longer take BART in the bay area because you're likely to get robbed or a homeless person will be pissing on the train. It's not a great place to live. Although there are still some good areas.

I don't know how anyone can look at the past years of democratic control in California and come away with the thought that yeah this has been good we're doing great.

The homeless people are there because the weather is good enough and the cities aren't complete a-holes to them...because of course, lots of homeless are simply those evicted out, and not the druggies that you and Smiling John seem to lurve portraying them all as.

Also it's very f*(king easy to praise Dem control after seeing the walking disaster things were when Der Sperminator was in charge, or the 16 years of prison build-up under Duke and Wilson.

But you have a point, I think it was Dem controlled and Dem majority even in the 70's when the DINOs crossed over to Jarvis and put through the most monstrous proposition ever passed. And boy howdy could so have been done if not for those tax freezes

The police chief where I live said that a lot of homeless people come here from states with heavier winters and stay only temporarily, so I agree that the weather is a big factor.

[Antonio the Sixth]

And yet we suffer from critical public underinvestment in all infrastructures from transport to electricity to housing, with catastrophic consequences. Muh liberal Dreamland.

[OSR stands with Israel]

California was an ungovernable mess in 2010, and everyone admitted that. What changed since then is that the state had Democratic governors and Democrats obtained supermajorities in the legislature and consequently were free to raise taxes and apply their policies.

Actually no , what changed was that the 2/3 rule for passing budgets was eliminated along with power to pass certain types of ballot measures was reduced as well. 

The CA ballot measure system and the 2/3 budget rule is what made the state ungovernable

[OSR stands with Israel]

Completely misleading for the reasons dead0man said. Also if it's so great how come there are homeless people everywhere and people leaving the state because they can't afford it. Not to mention the fact that Newsom has an approval rating in the 40s and the state legislature has an even worse approval rating than that.

The truth is we have massive bond debt and a massive pension problem that gets overlooked because muh surplus.

Overall the state isn't a hellhole. However major cities have a tendency to be, because they are filled with homeless people living on the street. I no longer take BART in the bay area because you're likely to get robbed or a homeless person will be pissing on the train. It's not a great place to live. Although there are still some good areas.

I don't know how anyone can look at the past years of democratic control in California and come away with the thought that yeah this has been good we're doing great.

The homeless people are there because the weather is good enough and the cities aren't complete a-holes to them...because of course, lots of homeless are simply those evicted out, and not the druggies that you and Smiling John seem to lurve portraying them all as.

Also it's very f*(king easy to praise Dem control after seeing the walking disaster things were when Der Sperminator was in charge, or the 16 years of prison build-up under Duke and Wilson.

But you have a point, I think it was Dem controlled and Dem majority even in the 70's when the DINOs crossed over to Jarvis and put through the most monstrous proposition ever passed. And boy howdy could so have been done if not for those tax freezes

Um no CA was at its peak after those 16 years of Republican control and hasn't recovered from those 5 disastrous Davis years.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-dec-14-mn-54020-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/wilson010299.htm

[dead0man]

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.

yes, that 6 year old link is so much better than my 10 month old link on the same subject.  You really showed me!


If CA is doing great financially, that's awesome.  I read the data a little differently, but ok.  I wish them luck.

[John Dule]

Rent control isn't in effect in most municipalities, yet developers still refuse to build it. The state is starting to put more pressure on cities to raise density. But none of that was the topic of this thread. The topic was about the state having a surplus, but thread was turned into an "I Hate California" topic.

Yeah, rent control is only in place in California's most expensive cities. Strangely, those cities seem to only be getting more expensive despite this, which isn't a coincidence. Also, the thread implied that running a budget surplus disproved conservative arguments that the state is poorly managed, and I was illustrating that there's a lot more to running a state than just making sure the books are balanced. So this is very much on-topic; in fact I'm responding directly to the insinuation in the thread's title.

[tagimaucia]

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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Rent control isn't in effect in most municipalities, yet developers still refuse to build it. The state is starting to put more pressure on cities to raise density. But none of that was the topic of this thread. The topic was about the state having a surplus, but thread was turned into an "I Hate California" topic.

Yeah, rent control is only in place in California's most expensive cities. Strangely, those cities seem to only be getting more expensive despite this, which isn't a coincidence. Also, the thread implied that running a budget surplus disproved conservative arguments that the state is poorly managed, and I was illustrating that there's a lot more to running a state than just making sure the books are balanced. So this is very much on-topic; in fact I'm responding directly to the insinuation in the thread's title.

Arguably, Californian rent control isn't the problem, just an example of how not to respond to a problem.

[President Johnson]

California was an ungovernable mess in 2010, and everyone admitted that. What changed since then is that the state had Democratic governors and Democrats obtained supermajorities in the legislature and consequently were free to raise taxes and apply their policies.

This, tough a tax increase for upper incomes was actually approved by voters in 2012. Governor Jerry Brown openly supported the measure and helped to garner support. In addition, as a fiscal moderate, he has blocked many millions of spending by the legislature. For this and several other reasons, he's one of the best governors ever.

[DrScholl]

Rent control isn't in effect in most municipalities, yet developers still refuse to build it. The state is starting to put more pressure on cities to raise density. But none of that was the topic of this thread. The topic was about the state having a surplus, but thread was turned into an "I Hate California" topic.

Yeah, rent control is only in place in California's most expensive cities. Strangely, those cities seem to only be getting more expensive despite this, which isn't a coincidence. Also, the thread implied that running a budget surplus disproved conservative arguments that the state is poorly managed, and I was illustrating that there's a lot more to running a state than just making sure the books are balanced. So this is very much on-topic; in fact I'm responding directly to the insinuation in the thread's title.

A budget surplus and a lack of housing are two separate things, but whatever.

[Badger]

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]

The totally jelly so-called fiscal conservatives in this thread are hilarious

Aren’t we past the date you re-registered yet, Badger?

May of next year. How about you?

[Badger]

Completely misleading for the reasons dead0man said. Also if it's so great how come there are homeless people everywhere and people leaving the state because they can't afford it. Not to mention the fact that Newsom has an approval rating in the 40s and the state legislature has an even worse approval rating than that.

The truth is we have massive bond debt and a massive pension problem that gets overlooked because muh surplus.

Overall the state isn't a hellhole. However major cities have a tendency to be, because they are filled with homeless people living on the street. I no longer take BART in the bay area because you're likely to get robbed or a homeless person will be pissing on the train. It's not a great place to live. Although there are still some good areas.

I don't know how anyone can look at the past years of democratic control in California and come away with the thought that yeah this has been good we're doing great.

The homeless people are there because the weather is good enough and the cities aren't complete a-holes to them...because of course, lots of homeless are simply those evicted out, and not the druggies that you and Smiling John seem to lurve portraying them all as.

Also it's very f*(king easy to praise Dem control after seeing the walking disaster things were when Der Sperminator was in charge, or the 16 years of prison build-up under Duke and Wilson.

But you have a point, I think it was Dem controlled and Dem majority even in the 70's when the DINOs crossed over to Jarvis and put through the most monstrous proposition ever passed. And boy howdy could so have been done if not for those tax freezes

Um no CA was at its peak after those 16 years of Republican control and hasn't recovered from those 5 disastrous Davis years.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-dec-14-mn-54020-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/wilson010299.htm

I cannot add enough "ha"s after "hahaha" to properly and fully ridicule the notion that California's current economic situation is due to the influence of its sub anemic Republican party. What a hack and worshipping the altar of alternative facts take that is, osr.

[Badger]

Just going to conclude before I go play some computer games after taking off early for the weekend that it is particularly adorable to see California conservatives b**** and moan about what a horrible socialist it managed hellscape thirst aid is.

California conserva tards - - I hate California! The price of housing is immense. Taxes are high. Democrats have ruined this state!

Everyone else - - ok, the road to Oklahoma or Arkansas is that way. Need help packing?

Conserva tards - - um, well.....

[OSR stands with Israel]

Just going to conclude before I go play some computer games after taking off early for the weekend that it is particularly adorable to see California conservatives b**** and moan about what a horrible socialist it managed hellscape thirst aid is.

California conserva tards - - I hate California! The price of housing is immense. Taxes are high. Democrats have ruined this state!

Everyone else - - ok, the road to Oklahoma or Arkansas is that way. Need help packing?

Conserva tards - - um, well.....

Texas> California

[Santander]

Our (CA taxpayers) money at work...

[Coastal Elitist]

Just going to conclude before I go play some computer games after taking off early for the weekend that it is particularly adorable to see California conservatives b**** and moan about what a horrible socialist it managed hellscape thirst aid is.

California conserva tards - - I hate California! The price of housing is immense. Taxes are high. Democrats have ruined this state!

Everyone else - - ok, the road to Oklahoma or Arkansas is that way. Need help packing?

Conserva tards - - um, well.....

To be clear I don't hate California, but outside of a surplus how exactly can you look at it and say this is great? You'd have to be living under a rock to think that things are going great here. We have a pension crisis, massive bond debt, rising homelessness and increasing crime in inner cities. Not to mention how sh**t the DMV is, which the democrats blocked an audit of. Also every highway seems to be permanently under construction and again the cost of living is ridiculous.

I'd be saying this regardless of what party is in charge or what state I live in.

.