The tide begins to turn
For once, California’s prospects seem better in the long term than in the short
CALIFORNIA has changed direction this year. This is not because of a conservative backlash in the mid-term elections, for there wasn’t one—California bucked the national trend and elected Democrats to all eight of its statewide offices. The legislature remains solidly Democratic. Even the new governor who takes office next month is in fact an old one: Jerry Brown last had the job in 1975-83.
Instead, the change of direction is constitutional, and comes as the
cumulative result of a number of decisions that voters made this year,
through the state’s peculiar brand of “direct democracy”. In the three
decades since Mr Brown’s last reign, voters had created, through the
cumulative effect of ballot initiatives, a Byzantine system of
governance, taxation and budgeting that left California helpless when
the Great Recession hit. In the course of 2010 they have passed reforms
that could make the system work again. It will, however, take time.
In the near term, things may get worse before they get better.
Unemployment, at 12.4%, remains higher than in any state except Nevada
(wrecked by a property crash) and Michigan (devastated by the downsizing
of the car industry). A lot of houses are still in foreclosure. Tax
revenues remain far below their pre-recession levels though October was a
strong month.
A state budget was finally signed in October after a record delay
of 100 days, but it was based on silly projections and gimmicks. Mac
Taylor, the legislature’s independent analyst, estimates that the budget
remains $25.4 billion, or about 29% of spending, in deficit for this
and the next fiscal year, with annual deficits of about $20 billion
thereafter until 2016. State spending—on welfare, education and much
else—has already been cut by about $16 billion in three years, and must
be cut more.
This is the mess that Mr Brown is about to inherit. He takes office
on January 3rd and must present a balanced budget to the legislature
just one week later. And Mr Brown knows better than anybody else how
hard that will be.
1 comment:
most of us will be dead before, and if, this state ever gets better.
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