Churchill, deTocqueville, Prejean, and the Suicide of California
Winston Churchill is reputed to have said that the best cure for democracy is five minutes with the average voter.
Boy was he right, at least if that voter is Californian.
In a remarkable act of fiscal suicide, California’s voters have used the state’s unusual direct democracy provisions to essentially close off all options for dealing with their looming fiscal crisis. The state government is disallowed from raising taxes, cutting spending, or using reserve funds. And President Obama has joined with the public employee unions to say double-no on spending cuts.
Observing a young American experiment in democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the greatest danger to democracy would arise when the mass of people realized they could vote themselves the benefit of the public treasury while refusing to pay for it. That seems to be exactly what is happening in California. With a strong majority of Democrats in the state legislature and bureaucracy, California has long been a profligate spender. Large and well-organized blocs of interest groups have succeeded in enacting one of the largest systems of entitlements outside of northern Europe. But a backlash cohort led by isolated fiscal conservatives succeeded in the 1980s in imposing requirements for a two-thirds majority in the legislature to authorize any tax increases.
Do the math: It requires only a majority to authorize spending increases, but a two-thirds majority to pay the bills. That is a recipe for disaster. Layer on the apparent stupidity of the median California voter (the pejorative descriptor “stupidity” being justified by the apparent fact that they cannot do the math), and we no have that recipe in the mixing bowl with the oven pre-heating.
For the last several weeks, liberals have been shouting that the stupidest thing to come out of California was Carrie Prejean. It seems a few of them need to look in a mirror for a better example. And some of the conservatives who have been singing the praises of Prejean’s genius need to somehow show themselves superior to beauty-queen-level logic when paying the state’s bills.
From the looks of it the people of the world’s 10th biggest economy decided to step back and let two ideologies have their way with their state. Now they’re all single mothers.
I tried to express my sympathy, but I can’t play a violin that’s only 8 nm high.
Dude,
How da hell do you come up with the opinion that “the stupidest thing to come out of California was Carrie Prejean”? I personally think that the stupidest thing to ever come out of a vigina is you. I think your mother made a mistake when she decided not to have an abortion.
oooops… sorry did not read the sentence right. I thought you were just another liberal douche-bag for a moment….
I wouldn’t call Schwarzenegger an ideologue.
Though the California “set up” leads to the budget crisis (as Jason has pointed out) I fear the entire country will face similar tough decisions in 10-15 years.
The difference between a state in this situation and the federal government though, is that the feds just print more money or issue more debt. The Dems and “moderates” who keep saying that we have to accept that people want bigger government need to wake up to the fact that when you sell that dependency to the voters, they’re not going to one day say, “You know, this is getting too expensive and we just can’t afford it, so go ahead and cut those services that you’ve promised me.” What then?
The state government is disallowed from raising taxes, cutting spending, or using reserve funds.
That’s simply not true. The NYT article seriously mischaracterized the nature of Proposition 1A. The state government is NOT “disallowed” from cutting spending. Nor does the failure of the referendums prevent the legislature from raising any taxes they could already have raised — 1A would have extended several “temporary” tax increases already passed, something the legislature could have done on its own, had it the spine. And the effect on the BSF (“rainy day fund”) would have been to actively restrict and redirect what could be withdrawn from it, earmarking withdrawals for specific purposes and groups. That would have imposed greater restrictions on the BSF, not not lesser ones.
The fiscal suicide of California has been ongoing for decades. This week’s vote was more in the nature of the voters telling the state that it was time to apply tourniquets to stop the bleeding before wasting unsustainably increasing amounts of blood (money) in transfusions drawn from a shrinking supply.
If you want to see where Obama and the democrats are leading us.
Just look at California.
There you have it. A mini USA in 10-20 years.
Turn out the lights…..the parties ooovvvaaahhhhh………..
@c3 and Doomed
10-20 years? You guys are optimists. It could be next year if the Chinese decide to pull the money-plug on this ponzi scheme. And if they find enough consumerist dumping stations other than us, that is exactly what they will do.
I agree that CA is a precursor to our national plight. And no, we can’t just print more money. It is expensive to print money. Why not just dump the fake cash directly into accounts or on gov’t-issued debit cards for the poor to skip all that “legal tender” nonsense. Wait, what’s that you say? This is actually the plan?!?! NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
It is an interesting concept though. Many of the young people who voted for Obama right now have no clue what he is doing. In my travels I have spoken to many in a non confrontational way such as.
What do you think of this illegal immigration problem we are facing? Rough general sense coming from anyone under roughly 30 years of age is “What immigration problem?”
What do you think of National Health Care? Rough general sense coming from anyone under roughly 30 years of age is “I don’t have to pay for health care anymore? Kewl!!”
What do you think of our National Debt and the fact that Obama wants to double it in 5-8 years to pay for everything he wants to do? Rough general sense coming from anyone under roughly 30 years of age is “I think the debt needs to be fixed!”
In essence. Most people are consumed with their own lives to worry about what our government is doing. That is why the finger pointing is so pronounced in the days of the internet and cell phones. Its a massive PR campaign to keep the people lied to.
In short….Political junkies know whats going on. The other 80 percent of our nation are too busy just making it thru life HOPING our politicians get it right.
Boy are they going to be pissed in a few years.
@Doomed
Not much to add, but…YOU GOT THAT RIGHT! Boy are they going to be pissed in a few years.