CA Members, I'd like your opinion

[Skinhead]

I received the following via email, and don't usually put much stock in them, but I have my own opinion of the situation in California (beautiful state, but totally screwed up IMHO) and would like your opinions of what is supposedly Rodger Hedgecock's thoughts. 

This is not meant to cast aspersions or attempt to hurt anyone's feelings, I would merely like the opinions of some people that live there.

Thanks Skinhead







CALIFORNIA OBAMA’S DREAM

Written by Roger Hedgecock
Wednesday, 25 January 2012

I live in California. If you were wondering what living in Obama's second term would be like, wonder no longer. We in California are living there now.

California is a one-party state dominated by a virulent Democrat Left enabled by a complicit media where every agency of local, county, and state government is run by and for the public employee unions. The unemployment rate is 12%.

California has more folks on food stamps than any other state, has added so many benefits and higher rates to Medicaid that we call it "Medi-Cal." Our K-12 schools have more administrators than teachers, with smaller classes but lower test scores and higher dropout rates with twice the per-student budget of 15 years ago. Good job, Brownie.

This week, the once and current Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown had to confess that the "balanced" state budget adopted five months ago was billions in the red because actual tax revenues were billions lower than the airy-fairy revenue estimates on which the balance was predicated.

After trimming legislators' perks and reducing the number of cell phones provided to state civil servants, the governor intoned that drastic budget reductions had already hollowed out state programs for the needy, law enforcement and our schoolchildren. California government needed more money.

Echoing the Occupy movement, the governor proclaimed the rich must pay their fair share. Fair share? The top 1% of California income earners currently pays 50% of the state's income tax.

California has seven income tax brackets. The top income tax rate is 9.3%, which is slapped on the greedy rich earning at least $47,056 a year. Income of more than $1 million pays the "millionaires' and billionaires'" surcharge tax rate of 10.3%.

Brown's proposal would add 2% for income over $250,000. A million-dollar income would then be taxed at 12.3%. And that's just for the state.

Brown also proposed a one-half-cent sales tax increase, which would bring sales taxes (which vary by county) up to 7.75% to as much as 10%. Both tax increases would be on the ballot in 2012.

The sales tax increase proposal immediately brought howls of protest from the Left (of Brown!). Charlie Eaton, a sociology grad student at UC Berkeley and leader of the UC Student-Workers Union, said, "We've paid enough. It's time for millionaires to pay."

At least five other ballot measures to raise taxes are circulating for signatures to get on the 2012 ballot in California. The governor's proposals are the most conservative.

The Obama way doesn't end with taxes.

The governor and the state legislature continue to applaud the efforts of the California High Speed Rail Authority to build a train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco. Even though the budget is three times the voter-approved amount, and the first segment will only connect two small towns in the agricultural Central Valley. But hey, if we build it, they will ride.

And we don't want to turn down the Obama bullet-train bucks Florida and other states rejected because the operating costs would bankrupt them. Can't happen here because we're already insolvent.

If we get into real trouble with the train, we'll just bring in the Chinese. It worked with the Bay Bridge reconstruction. After the 1989 earthquake, the bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco was rebuilt with steel made in China. Workers from China too. Paid for with money borrowed from China. Makes perfect sense.

In California, we hate the evil, greedy rich (except the rich in Hollywood, in sports, and in drug dealing). But we love people who have broken into California to eat the bounty created by the productive rich.

Illegal’s get benefits from various generous welfare programs, free medical care, free schools for their kids, including meals, and of course, instate tuition rates and scholarships too. Nothing's too good for our guests.

To erase even a hint of criticism of illegal immigration, the California Legislature is considering a unilateral state amnesty. Democrat State Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes has proposed an initiative that would bar deportation of illegal’s from California.

Interesting dilemma for Obama there. If immigration is exclusively a federal matter, and Obama has sued four states for trying to enforce federal immigration laws he won't enforce, what will the President do to a California law that exempts California from federal immigration law?

California is also near fulfilling the environmentalist dream of deindustrialization.

After driving out the old industrial base (auto and airplane assembly, for example), air and water regulators and tax policies are now driving out the high-tech, biotech and even Internet-based companies that were supposed to be California's future.

The California cap-and-trade tax on business in the name of reducing CO2 makes our state the leader in wacky environmentalism and guarantees a further job exodus from the state.

Even green energy companies can't do business in California. Solyndra went under, taking its taxpayer loan guarantee with it.

No job is too small to escape the regulators. The state has even banned weekend amateur gold miners from the historic gold mining streams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

In fact, more and more of California's public land is off-limits to recreation by the people who paid for that land. Unless you're illegal.

Then you can clear the land, set up marijuana plantations at will, bring in fertilizers that legal farmers can no longer use, exploit illegal farm workers who live in hovels with no running water or sanitation, and protect your investment with armed illegal’s carrying guns no California citizen is allowed to own.

The rest of us only found out about these plantations when the workers' open campfire started one of those devastating fires that have killed hundreds of people and burned out thousands of homes in California over the last decade.

It's often said that whatever happens in California will soon happen in your state.

You'd better hope that's wrong.

[Chillerman]

I left California 21 years ago and am never going back!

[sheets]

Rings true to me.

[Serk]

If ya' wanna know which way the wind is blowing, just check the rates for a one way Ya'll-Haul (U-Haul to you yankees) to and from different places...

Article about this phenomenon - http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/04/u-haul-rates-confirm-california-exodus.html

Ya'll-Haul's website where you can play with different scenarios yourself:

http://www.uhaul.com/reservations/Default.aspx

[Gear Jammer]

I'm waiting for our resident Cali's responses,,,,

[musclehead]

did you write that or is it just cut and paste  ( a typical response eh?)

[Paxton]

California is a state of many cultures and environments and political trends. 
It would be inaccurate to say that my generalized statements on this subject are THE whole truth.
Roger Hedgecock expresses his own pains about this place, to which he is entitled.

As it may surprise some of you, I don't fear President Obama's reelection.
You are entitled to choose your reactions to your own reality. I pass no judgement on that.
Be who and what you want to be.
However, if today's California is like living thru the President's second term, then by all means,
Vote for the President. I take this twisted reality any day.  
It appears that Roger Hedgecock's expectations for comfort are high.

Yes, California's state-wide unemployment rate averages at 10.9%. In my city it hovers around 3%.  ???
In other locations throughout the state, the unemployment rate is as high as 18%.

There are folks who dislike the Los Angeles area for their own reasons... perhaps because the cost of living is too high or
because of traffic jams or because... you name it.   But I like it here.
For everyone who dislikes California, there are 5000 who love it. I like it here; with all its "drawbacks."

California. You could ride virtually 12 months out of the year... the weather is near perfect for the outdoors person.
Today is 75-degrees and the Sun is shinning... it seems like forever.  

I love the beauty of this vast land of ours with so many sights to take in. 
North America is a beautiful continent where beauty is supreme everywhere...

"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be..."
John Lennon

[art]

No doubt cal is a beautiful state but with the over population,economy and the politics it is not a good state to live in.I lived there in the mid 60s to the mid 90s and seen its good and bad.I moved out to Az.then Oregon.I'm happy here but the weather can be a bitch in the winter.It makes a person appreciate the coming of summer.I do miss riding in Cal. just stay off the freeways .

[Rams]

Remind me again exactly how much CA borrows from the fed on a daily basis to support the fallacy?  I've got nothing against CA, I wish them well but, let them do it on their own dime.

[musclehead]

California is a state of many cultures and environments and political trends. 
It would be inaccurate to say that my generalized statements on this subject are THE whole truth.
Roger Hedgecock expresses his own pains about this place, to which he is entitled.

As it may surprise some of you, I don't fear President Obama's reelection.
You are entitled to choose your reactions to your own reality. I pass no judgement on that.
Be who and what you want to be.
However, if today's California is like living thru the President's second term, then by all means,
Vote for the President. I take this twisted reality any day.  
It appears that Roger Hedgecock's expectations for comfort are high.

Yes, California's state-wide unemployment rate averages at 10.9%. In my city it hovers around 3%.  ???
In other locations throughout the state, the unemployment rate is as high as 18%.

There are folks who dislike the Los Angeles area for their own reasons... perhaps because the cost of living is too high or
because of traffic jams or because... you name it.   But I like it here.
For everyone who dislikes California, there are 5000 who love it. I like it here; with all its "drawbacks."

California. You could ride virtually 12 months out of the year... the weather is near perfect for the outdoors person.
Today is 75-degrees and the Sun is shinning... it seems like forever.  

I love the beauty of this vast land of ours with so many sights to take in. 
North America is a beautiful continent where beauty is supreme everywhere...

"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be..."
John Lennon

no I don't think many here are surprised that you'll vote to re-elect Obama. your choice.
I've driven through Cali many times, much to see. have you been up to Donner pass?
northern cali is nice too, love it near weed.

[Jess from VA]

Nice place to visit, but I would not live there..... at least until the San Andreas brings the shoreline 50-60 miles East from San Fran to Oceanside. 

[Rick in SD]

Between the environmentalists and the socialists California is showing what America could be with the left in charge. Margaret Thatcher once said "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them." California is just adding an exclamation point to that.

Rick

[Gear Jammer]

There seems to be somewhat of an exodus from LaLa land   

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304444604577340531861056966.html

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001925-if-california-is-doing-so-great-why-are-so-many-leaving

http://www.nationalbubble.com/people-are-leaving-california-by-the-thousands

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2863562/posts

http://www.erica.biz/2011/california-im-leaving-you/