On the morning of September 2, 1945, upon the mighty battleship USS Missouri parked in Tokyo harbor, the Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allied forces, led by the United States. At that very moment, one American state was producing nearly 40% of the [entire] gross national production of the country: California.
As difficult as it is to believe, California produced the lion’s share of American aircraft, shipping, railroad rolling stock, ground vehicles, electronics, fruits, vegetables & foodstuffs, medicines, oil, fertilizer & refined materials of all kinds, not to mention an absolute cornucopia of weaponry. Its public universities had created the means by which we ended the conflict, giving America the atomic bomb, and validating FDR’s moniker, the “arsenal of democracy.”
From the end of WW2, until the early 1990’s, California entered its true “golden age”. Its population swelled with the baby boomers & external migration, having years in those 4+ decades in which 1 new public school construction was completed every week. It built freeways that would make Hitler’s autobahn engineers green with envy. Its Hollywood & media influence actually shaped American and global culture for more than 40 years.
Then it went to crap, courtesy of the Hard-Left. How did they do it? With all kinds of tax-raising ballot initiatives.
It was trending this way when Ronald Reagan left the California governor’s mansion in 1975; California liberals and their co-conspirators, Wall Street, discovered the municipal bond (i.e. debt) and its complement, the voter ballot initiative, along with its “circle of enrichment”.
That’s where Lefty politicos propose a “solution” requiring $$$ (which isn’t present), and then a ballot initiative for a tax (to create the $$$), which goes to pay off the debt (muni-bond bankers create), …of whatever is built or funded. It’s great for public infrastructure; it’s terrible for social engineering and more government employee parasites.
Hollywood and rich California Liberals loved this circular scheme, because the interest paid on the local bonds are tax-free, federal and state. Such-a-deal! According to Wikipedia, from 1970 to 2020 California held more than 550 ballot initiatives, with more than half relating to tax increases, of some form or other. It’s truly mind-boggling.
The state is now buried in public servitude; $363 billion in state & local government debt (2021); globally larger than all but 30 entire countries. So what happens if there’s an earthquake cataclysm? As the statisticians say, “nature sides with the hidden flaw.” Go figure.
Want to know why California is so damn expensive? Their massive local & state debt structure is the #1 reason.
Arizona voters will shortly have an opportunity to put in place a legal safeguard for this problem; Proposition 132. It mandates constitutionally, that voter ballot initiatives requiring tax increases must pass by at least a 60% majority. Numerous states have these exact same safeguards, AND federal courts have ruled them to be consistent constitutionally; for instance, Idaho’s safeguard is 66.7%, and Idaho is BOOMING.
This is a no-brainer, Arizona….pass Prop 132 and buy some protection from the California mindset.
Sellers is a Southpark Republican living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization