[p2p-research] Post-Depression first: Americans get more money from government than they give back | csmonitor.com

[Ryan Lanham]

On 11/25/09, J. Andrew Rogers <reality.miner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 3:54 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> That's the problem, very little of the money went to public services.
>
> Instead they spent money continuously building more prisons, because
> the prison union is extremely powerful, with the requisite prison
> guards making six figure salaries.  I'm not blaming unions generally,
> it was the government employee unions that looted the state. I have a
> lot of relatives that work for the state of California, and while they
> like the very high wages obviously, they don't deny the deleterious
> effects of the unions on state governance either.


Do you really believe that the prison guard union is the cause of California
having 158K inmates?  1 out every 31 adults in America is in a prison.  One
our of 12 black men is in a prison.  If unions have done that, they really
are powerful.

At the risk of dealing in facts, here's what Reuters has to say...Arnie
wants the guards to work at minimum wage....

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0845881120080908

> on the other side the tax revolt fueled by the reagan right made it
> impossible to level realistic taxes required for such public services ...


Taxes in California are very high, higher than surrounding states.

As of 2005, California had the 20th highest state and local taxes in the
US.  Nebraska, Utah and Kansas all had higher tax loads.

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystate2005/


Yet they consistently generate worse and vastly more expensive
services than the same neighbors.  Why does it cost California 12x as
much to build the same piece of highway as neighbors, with lower
quality implementation?

Because the real estate costs a lot more and shutting down traffic
completely has much greater implications.


You are taking a very ideological view of this, but it is much simpler
than that. The State of California is deeply corrupted and
extraordinarily wasteful even by the standard of most State
governments.

Ever work in Louisiana?  Missouri?  Texas?  Arkansas?  Illinois?  West
Virginia?  Tennessee?   South Carolina?  Florida?  Alabama?  Mississippi?
California isn't even in the league of big time corruption.   Who is the
last governor or senior legislator there to go to prison?  I don't recall
one.  Rod Blagojovich?  Sanford?  Texas--the whole lot of them!

We are talking about a State that has proven so
incompetent at delivering basic services that residents of some of the
most left-wing areas of the State have successfully sued to privatize
projects in order that service be delivered after several years of
getting nowhere on a project that should only have taken a few months
and modest amount of money.

This study received a lot of press last year....

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/gpp_report_card.aspx

It ranked California low.  The reasons were complex but mostly dealt with
debt and poor governor/legislature interactions.

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/states_card.aspx?abrv=CA

In infrastructure, California actually did quite well.  I can tell you that
in public administration, they are an admired state compared to Texas, New
York, Illinois or Florida -- their peers.


Ryan
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