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

[Mr. Smith]

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

As a someone whose lived in both, the answer to that is yes and no. And a lot the whining about the homeless is equally applicable in Houston.

And what's more, there don't seem to be a lot of navigation centers or shelters.

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.

It's a better DMV than what passes for such in Virginia, and it's far less convoluted than the DPS/DMV divide in Texas.

Now, if I disagreed that there were blemishes, I wouldn't have moved over to Texas...that said, such issues are generally far more minor when looking at most of the country.

[DINGO Joe]

When i read the WV news, and I do, there's a constant litany about the homeless problem.  They're burning down the vacant building, leaving needles everywhere, and are the cause of much of the crime, or so the news says.  Of course, WV doesn't lack affordable housing (though they do lack decent housing).

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Under budget, and ahead of schedule. Thank you FF's Governors Brown and Newsom!

[Technocracy Timmy]

Texas> California

Dallas/Fort Worth + Austin > California

California >>>>>> The rest of Texas

[Santander]

Texas> California

Dallas/Fort Worth + Austin > California

California >>>>>> The rest of Texas

I love California.

[MasterJedi]

It's almost like Republicans don't know they're the king of zoning codes. Aka only single family homes, anything else brings in undesirable minorities.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I find it interesting how people are so keen on making it look like wanting to leave is a specifically conservative hangup, given that polls find that roughly half of Californians are pondering leaving. Guess California is just a really conservative state.

     I have already been forced to leave the city I was raised in due to exorbitant housing costs, but I stayed in the Greater Bay Area. It's almost like people have things like friends and careers that don't make it feasible to pick up and go whenever they aren't happy with where they are.

[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.  

[Fuzzy Bear]

    I find it interesting how people are so keen on making it look like wanting to leave is a specifically conservative hangup, given that polls find that roughly half of Californians are pondering leaving. Guess California is just a really conservative state.

     I have already been forced to leave the city I was raised in due to exorbitant housing costs, but I stayed in the Greater Bay Area. It's almost like people have things like friends and careers that don't make it feasible to pick up and go whenever they aren't happy with where they are.

People are voting with their feet.

California is scheduled to LOSE a Congressional district after the 2020 Census.  This is quite a remarkable thing for a state that has had the most remarkable growth in my lifetime.  (Only Texas and Florida rival it.)  

California gained:

   ***9 Congressional seats after the 1930 Census
   ***3 Congressional seats after the 1940 Census
   ***7 Congressional seats after the 1950 Census
   ***8 Congressional seats after the 1960 Census
   ***5 Congressional seats after the 1970 Census
   ***2 Congressional seats after the 1980 Census
   ***7 Congressional seats after the 1990 Census
   ***1 Congressional seat after the 2000 Census
   ***0 Congressional seats after the 2010 Census

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.

dead00man brings up an interesting point.  The local liabilities faced by local governments are immense.  Local governments are not sovereign; they are creations of state government, and these liabilities are liabilities that impact all of the people of California, whether they like it or not.

California's governace has long been complicated by its governing by "Propositions".  Recalling public officials.  Proposition 13 style limitations on taxation and spending.  I, personally, despise provisions that allow voters to approve Constitutional amendments, recall officials, cap tax rates, etc.  These measures end up causing chaos and binding states in ways they ought not be bound.  (They are also abused by monied interests.)  But the end result is that these features, as well as other factors, have contributed to California's decline.  And it is, indeed, a decline if you view people voting with their feet and not having children.  

[John Dule]

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.

[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

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.

Can you read my post again and the context of it  because what you said has absolutely nothing to do with what you just said

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

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.....

AR and OK have higher net domestic migration rates than CA

[DINGO Joe]

Regarding migrations and population

The metro coasts take in much of the immigration in the country and because they are high cost areas, people tend to exit them when then retire, it makes states like Oklahoma and Arkansas much older than  California and with a much higher death rate.  West Virginia is a little different as almost no one domestic or foreign migrates there (except for East Panhandle)  so it has developed a massive birth-death gap as it dies off. 

[Bismarck]

Are there any conservative states that have a surplus? It's amazing that blue avatars are finding a way to turn a surplus into a negative. California has problems, but it still is more fiscally sound than other states with lots more jobs.

Lots of them do, including Indiana.

[Hydera]

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.

Red states tend to ignore the problems in their state and attack California. Its a coping mechanism.  Drug abuse and poverty is also rife in Appalachia yet ive yet to see republicans talk about it the way they talk about cali's problems. But anywheres these people seem to think that more hispanics = bad but somehow the greater number of cletuses with beer guts, drinking natural ice, driving pickup trucks with 15 mpg = economic success

[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.....

Texas> California

In terms of obesity, people without health insurance coverage, High School Dropout rates, sub proficiency scores in math, science, English, bad highways, executions, oh, and to their advantage fossil fuel deposits. Sure.

On pretty much everything else that matters, except in your eyes electing Republicans to Statewide government, Texas is clearly horribly behind California

[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.....

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.

.

Your last sentence is completely correct. You could be saying things about the rising crime rate and homelessness, plus having a sh**ty DMV and Highway seemingly always under construction, and in truth even to a large degree the Bond debt and obligation to long-term pensions, in just about every state in the country.

The difference is red States just love to dunk on California for their economic success because, well gee by golly, it's just not supposed to happen that way! And the reality that a progressive run economy with a liberal immigration policy can be a rezoning worldwide success just confounds and pisses them off to no end.

Well, to no end other than maybe reconsidering their core beliefs and preconceptions about what makes an economy strong, of course. Conservatives seem to be literally incapable of such self-analysis nowadays

[Badger]

Texas> California

Dallas/Fort Worth + Austin > California

California >>>>>> The rest of Texas

Not Houston as well?

[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, 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.

[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.....

Are you even trying to express an idea beyond "love it or leave it" chauvinism?

That's not even remotely close to what I put in my post. My point is that it is rather ridiculous for these conservatives to come out of the woodwork damning what a hell hole California is based on what their ideology says should happen to 8 liberal run economy with liberal immigration laws as opposed to what's actually happening. Yes, the cost of living has reached crisis levels in parts of the state, but as accurately pointed out conservatives are equally afraid of liberalizing zoning laws to allow cheap affordable housing anywhere near their neighborhoods, so blaming that entirely on liberals is facetious at best. In short, California is being hoisted by its own petard of success in population growth which Most states would do damn near anything to achieve.

The only one that comes remotely, and I emphasize remotely, close to a point is fuzzy noting that California is on track to (gasp!) lose a congressional seat in the next census. And still remain the largest state by far. Which is something several other states that have largely been run by Republicans for most of the last 10 years are facing as well.

Even The conservative Californians here aren't exactly lining up to leave the state. Sure, the state has its problems as noted here in, but the conservative reactions to it in this thread are just somewhere lunacy women reality confronts their ideology, and laughable for the same reason.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

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

In terms of obesity, people without health insurance coverage, High School Dropout rates, sub proficiency scores in math, science, English, bad highways, executions, oh, and to their advantage fossil fuel deposits. Sure.

On pretty much everything else that matters, except in your eyes electing Republicans to Statewide government, Texas is clearly horribly behind California

I am certainly no defender of Texas, but every cited educational deficiency seems to be made up based on stereotypes. The high school graduation rate is effectively at the upper quartile of US states whereas California is at the lower quartile.

As far as test scores, Texas is considered 'significantly above' the national average for both average and number of proficient students for mathematics and science. California is considered 'significantly below' in both subjects. Both are considered 'significantly below' for English. All subjects seems to have a very obvious north/south divide except for when Texas bucks the trend.

https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/

[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

In terms of obesity, people without health insurance coverage, High School Dropout rates, sub proficiency scores in math, science, English, bad highways, executions, oh, and to their advantage fossil fuel deposits. Sure.

On pretty much everything else that matters, except in your eyes electing Republicans to Statewide government, Texas is clearly horribly behind California

LMAO


Texas unemployment is lower than California, cost of living is much lower, homelessness is lower, taxes are lower etc. So yes Texas> California


And I am a supporter of the Death Penalty so California effectively abolishing the death penealty is not a positive to me

[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

In terms of obesity, people without health insurance coverage, High School Dropout rates, sub proficiency scores in math, science, English, bad highways, executions, oh, and to their advantage fossil fuel deposits. Sure.

On pretty much everything else that matters, except in your eyes electing Republicans to Statewide government, Texas is clearly horribly behind California

I am certainly no defender of Texas, but every cited educational deficiency seems to be made up based on stereotypes. The high school graduation rate is effectively at the upper quartile of US states whereas California is at the lower quartile.

As far as test scores, Texas is considered 'significantly above' the national average for both average and number of proficient students for mathematics and science. California is considered 'significantly below' in both subjects. Both are considered 'significantly below' for English. All subjects seems to have a very obvious north/south divide except for when Texas bucks the trend.

https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile/

Badger will just dismiss those facts " as made up stats by right wing think tanks"

[OSR stands with Israel]

As someone who lives in a state that has been run by the Democrats for Decades, the idea that Democrats are good on education is hillarious. They have completely and utterly destroyed the education system of my state that after decades of Democatic rule this is the result:

https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2019/01/oregon-generated-second-worst-graduation-rate-in-us-in-2017.html

(Kate Brown and our local media hit this report until after the election): https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2018/10/kate_brown_appointee_delays_sc.html

https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2019/09/oregon-schools-deliver-worst-test-scores-in-5-years.html

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

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.

.

Your last sentence is completely correct. You could be saying things about the rising crime rate and homelessness, plus having a sh**ty DMV and Highway seemingly always under construction, and in truth even to a large degree the Bond debt and obligation to long-term pensions, in just about every state in the country.

The difference is red States just love to dunk on California for their economic success because, well gee by golly, it's just not supposed to happen that way! And the reality that a progressive run economy with a liberal immigration policy can be a rezoning worldwide success just confounds and pisses them off to no end.

Well, to no end other than maybe reconsidering their core beliefs and preconceptions about what makes an economy strong, of course. Conservatives seem to be literally incapable of such self-analysis nowadays

lol