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September 02, 2005

Why the People's Republic of California is Irredeemably Screwed

Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to help, but as Stephen Greehut has pointed out, even if these initiatives pass, it'll change nothing'. Here is what (very timid) reforms Schwarzenegger is attempting to put before the voters.

"a) A Schwarzenegger-backed, Chamber-of-Commerce/Business Roundtable plan to meekly control government spending, by restricting spending increases to the average revenue growth in the past three years.

b) Another Schwarzenegger initiative, which would force teachers to work five years before being granted tenure, a nearly ironclad protection against firing barring some gross illegality.

c) An independent initiative that would limit the ability of unions to take money by force to fund the Democratic politicians who are bankrupting the state by giving unions everything they want (Look up "pension crisis," for an example).

d) The governor's redistricting initiative, which would let a nonpartisan panel, rather than politicians, create California electoral districts. Under the legislator-drawn districts currently in force, not a single legislative seat changed party hands in the last election cycle.

These initiatives (Propositions 76, 74, 75 and 77) are all worthy efforts as far as they go, as is Proposition 73, which forbids, say, the school nurse from taking your kid to the abortion clinic without bothering to tell you about it.

Yet none of these initiatives really gets at what's at the heart of California's and the nation's fundamental problems, namely, an excessively large and arrogant government that never gets enough power, money, or special privileges to suit it.

Politics is the art of the possible, and the November initiatives certainly are politically possible. Fortunately, columnists have the luxury of living in the world of the philosophical, where we can think of ideas that seem impossible ... at least for now. Of course, for most of humanity's existence, the ideas enshrined in the U.S. Constitution were deemed unthinkable, so there's good reason to float a few trial balloons, to keep reminding Americans that real change could someday happen."

California is to American politics what New Orleans is right now to the natural world. Screwed up badly by forces larger than itself and irredeemably so except to the healer of last resort: Time.

In time this irrational situation they have will correct itself into some kind of equilibrium, just like water in time finds its own level. The human suffering that will take place in the meantime is sad, but apparently inevitable.

Posted by Ali Massoud at September 2, 2005 01:01 PM

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