California’s Choices: Austerity, Expropriation, or Liberty

[Ed Hudgins]

California’s Choices: Austerity, Expropriation, or Liberty

By Edward Hudgins

May 16, 2012 -- California Gov. Jerry Brown announced that his state’s budget deficit will be $16 billion, up from earlier estimates of $9.2 billion, on a budget of $92.6 billion. So what to do?

Brown tells Californians that there will be have to be some cuts in the state budget. That’s Option One. But Brown and politicians of his ilk elsewhere—i.e., Greece and France—generally vilify austerity. See how President Barack Obama, as part of his reelection campaign, denounces the proposed federal budget of Rep. Paul Ryan, who is clear-eyed enough to observe that you can’t consume more than you produce and, thus, that government should curb its ravenous appetite.

Politicos like Brown live to hand out other people’s money, and they hate to anger those on the dole who might turn against them at the polls.

Thus Brown is pleading with Californians for Option Two: "Please increase taxes temporarily." (Temporarily? Please, Jerry, don’t toy with us.) Brown wants government to expropriate more from those already bled dry. In the long run this approach won’t work, and all Californians damn well know it.

California is the poster child for a central theme of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged: If you punish people for the virtue of productivity, they won’t produce as much, and many who can will flee.

California adds to high taxation a tangle of regulations that strangles entrepreneurship. Let’s use this fact to take a historical perspective and point the governor to a third option:

Back in 1994 the theme of first issue of Regulation magazine that I edited at my Cato Institute gig was "California: Autopsy on a Regulatory Suicide." A piece by Joseph Farah and Mike Antonucci highlighted businesses driven from the Golden State:

*An aerospace aluminum manufacturing company, which employed 750 Californians, spent ten months and $360,000 on permits for a new plant. Faced with even stricter air-quality standards, it moved to Nevada.

*The Great American Food Stock Company of San Diego expected to pay $40,000 for a building permit and wait eighteen months for government approval of its planned new facility. So the company built in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, where the same permit cost $2,250 and took four days to obtain.

*Rohr Industries of California decided not to build its new aerospace manufacturing plant in its home state because it could avoid paying $750,000 and instead pay only $750 by building in Arkansas.

So in the two decades since those enterprises shrugged, did California learn its lesson? Hardly! According to business relocation coach　Joe Vranich, in 2011 some 172 companies moved out or were in the process of moving out of California. That’s about an enterprise every two days. At least the moving-van business is doing well.

Which brings us to Option Three, which would burn Gov. Brown’s tongue even to mention: Cut regulations and taxes with a legislative meat axe! Free the producers! Get the hell out of the way! But this would reveal clearly to all that the policies of politicians like Brown have been responsible for California’s plight all along.

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Hudgins is director of advocacy at The Atlas Society.

[caroljane]

Alas, a major industry of California is movies. And as a successful screenwriter said, in movies, Nobody Knows Any Facts.

[9thdoctor]

You left out Option Four: ban foie gras. One of the little known revealed doctrines of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that the force feeding of ducks is the root cause of Government budget deficits. Once the ban goes into effect on July 1 the California fiscal situation will begin to improve to such an extent that unbelievers will cry “miracle!” and church membership will swell dramatically. The addition of so many pirates to the world population will then cause the end of global warming. Unlike other faiths that will remain nameless, FSMism makes testable predictions.

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/05/30/foie-gras-feeding-frenzy-grows-as-california-ban-nears/?intcmp=trending

[Brant Gaede]

You left out Option Four: ban foie gras. One of the little known revealed doctrines of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that the force feeding of ducks is the root cause of Government budget deficits. Once the ban goes into effect on July 1 the California fiscal situation will begin to improve to such an extent that unbelievers will cry "miracle!" and church membership will swell dramatically. The addition of so many pirates to the world population will then cause the end of global warming. Unlike other faiths that will remain nameless, FSMism makes testable predictions.

http://www.foxnews.c...intcmp=trending

You left out Option Four: ban foie gras. One of the little known revealed doctrines of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that the force feeding of ducks is the root cause of Government budget deficits. Once the ban goes into effect on July 1 the California fiscal situation will begin to improve to such an extent that unbelievers will cry "miracle!" and church membership will swell dramatically. The addition of so many pirates to the world population will then cause the end of global warming. Unlike other faiths that will remain nameless, FSMism makes testable predictions.

http://www.foxnews.c...intcmp=trending

Well, if "ducks" is a metaphor for politicians who are feeding on the citizenry, do we have to eat their livers or can we just throw their carcasses on the dump?

--Brant

silence of the politicians

[blackhorse]

I am moving (back) to Sacramento on June 12th. Actually we are moving to the foothills of Placer County, the "Galt's Gulch" of northern CA in my opinion. A movement is growing in California to embrace classical liberalism once again. Albeit, much work needs to be done, but I believe the trend is upswinging towards liberty at a slow but steady pace. I think in large part this is due to the avail. of knowledge via the internet and other modern technology. Liberalism is a diatribe of lack of information, which is why it is on he wane. Yes Jerry "moonbeam" Brown was elected, but Californians are having serious buyers remorse like the nation did with Obama. I will fight tooth and nail to preserve liberty and reason in California. It is s beautiful state with so much industry, now it's time to take it back from the union thugs and the liberals.

[Brant Gaede]

I am moving (back) to Sacramento on June 12th. Actually we are moving to the foothills of Placer County, the "Galt's Gulch" of northern CA in my opinion. A movement is growing in California to embrace classical liberalism once again. Albeit, much work needs to be done, but I believe the trend is upswinging towards liberty at a slow but steady pace. I think in large part this is due to the avail. of knowledge via the internet and other modern technology. Liberalism is a diatribe of lack of information, which is why it is on he wane. Yes Jerry "moonbeam" Brown was elected, but Californians are having serious buyers remorse like the nation did with Obama. I will fight tooth and nail to preserve liberty and reason in California. It is s beautiful state with so much industry, now it's time to take it back from the union thugs and the liberals.

I once met a man moving from Tucson to Grass Valley. Beautiful country. I drove 18-wheelers from Nevada into California on Rte. 80 several times, twice in the winter. It took me hours to chain up because I wasn't an expert chainer. An expert took 30 minutes. That was ten years ago. There is no tougher route over the mountains in the West and I suspect the whole lower 48.

--Brant

[9thdoctor]

Well, if "ducks" is a metaphor for politicians who are feeding on the citizenry, do we have to eat their livers or can we just throw their carcasses on the dump?

--Brant

silence of the politicians

I’m an FSM literalist, and I find your suggestion that there’s something metaphorical about this offensive to my deeply held faith. There is a real noodly appendage, and a real heaven including the stripper factory and beer volcano, and the pirates/global warming connection is not a mere correlation, the causal link has been proved to the elect via revelation.

Mess with the FSM, and you're messing with the God with balls. Sure you want to do that?

[blackhorse]

Brant, funny story; I actually took that drive once, coming from Utah. Once we got to the Sierra's just outside of Lake Tahoe we realized that our brakes were at about 10% capacity. To make matters worse, it was snowy, we had about 1000 lbs of electrical gear in our truck bed and to brake we had to use both feet! Scariest thing in my life. Oh, and it was also night. Note to self; respect the Sierra Nevada's.

[blackhorse]

Brant, funny story; I actually took that drive once, coming from Utah. Once we got to the Sierra's just outside of Lake Tahoe we realized that our brakes were at about 10% capacity. To make matters worse, it was snowy, we had about 1000 lbs of electrical gear in our truck bed and to brake we had to use both feet! Scariest thing in my life. Oh, and it was also night. Note to self; respect the Sierra Nevada's.

[Brant Gaede]

It sounds like your brakes were over-heated.

Once driving a grossed out semi in stop and go Phoenix traffic approaching a stop light I found myself without effective brakes. I could not see what traffic might be coming through the intersection from my left because of a wall. I didn't know until I had plowed halfway through before stopping whether I would T-bone a mini-van full of kids. Fortunately there was no traffic and no cop. With these trucks with good pads over-heating is the only way I know you can lose braking effectiveness. A loss of air pressure will result in the pads clamping down stopping the unit. It is air pressure that keeps the pads open. The best way to avoid over-heating is to be aware of the potential problem at all times and to use supplemental engine braking as the primary going downhill. It is imperative to be in the right gear going down any significant elevation. That's why you'll see those emergency truck over-run stops on long-descent highways. I once saw a fool in his stopped car blocking one of these.

--Brant

[blackhorse]

Once was enough for me

[blackhorse]

Once was enough for me