As a lifelong resident of California and despite that I am only 24 years old, I've seen California go through tough times. Maybe this sounds too premature to say someone my age and in my generation see California crumble year after year after year.
But the evidence speaks for itself:
We've had some of the worst Governors in both parties. Pete Wilson, a Republican, deregulated electricity. Then, after he left office, we get Democratic Governor Gray Davis, who threw California into a deficit crisis and we had rolling blackouts. The voters of California revolted in 2003, and threw Davis out as Governor. So then, we get this has-been famous actor, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger who vowed to stop State spending and cut taxes.
What in the hell happened?
Schwarzenegger did absolutely nothing. He campaigned as the new 'Reform' Governor, and all of his reforms have proven to be total failures. He did not cut taxes, he raised them. In February, 2009, he joined Democrat Karen Bass, the Speaker of the State Assembly, Republican State Senator Dave Cogdill, Republican State Assemblyman Mike Villines and Democratic State Senator /President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg all came together in what they called a "bi-partisan compromise" to help close a portion of California's $42 billion shortfall.
How did they do this? Well amid the fact that entire State, being the seventh largest in the world's economy was pretty much (and continues) to tedder on the verge of bankruptcy, they all elected to raise everyone's taxes, after they pledged in 2006, that they would NEVER do such a thing to the people of California.
Instead of Governor Schwarzenegger asking the Democratic controlled Assembly to reform pension funds to the unions, and maybe do something about the illegal immigration crisis in California which in 2005 alone, the State spent nearly $12.5 billion in the costs of illegal immigration; they all decided to raise everyone's taxes. As a result, those four State representatives, two Democrats and two Republicans were awarded the John F. Kennedy Profile and Courage Award by Caroline Kennedy earlier this year. It's disgraceful.
Some of the other elected State representatives we've had in recent years have demonstrated that they are also a complete, utter embarassment. In addition to the traitors mentioned above, why don't we all have a flashback for a moment for some of the other corrupt politicans in California:
- Fabian Nunez (former Democratic State Assemblyman, former Speaker of the State Assembly): In October, 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that Nunez spent tens of thousands of dollars of our tax payer money for his own personal use including vacations, luxurious meals and entertainment. Despite an investigation, he was not convicted. Well, what a surprise.
- Anthony Adams (former Republican State Assemblyman): He also took a tax pledge, vowing to never increase anyone's taxes in his district, but did it anyway. The people in his district started the recall paperwork, but failed.
- Michael Duvall (former Republican State Assemblyman): He was caught on tape in July, 2009 to admitting he had affairs with two women and even went into details about the sex with both of them. He resigned in disgrace.
- Roy Ashburn (Republican State Senator): He represents my district in Kern County, and I actually know Roy Ashburn very well and was a political friend of my family. Well, despite the fact that he was married and has two daughters, people always accused Senator Ashburn of being gay. After campaigning against the Same-Sex marraige proposition in 2008, Ashburn was arrested in March of 2010 for driving drunk after he left a gay-night club in Sacramento. After making bail, he admitted that he was indeed, gay. He should resign.
- Pat Wiggins (Democratic State Senator): She is apparently not fitted to continue to serve as State Senator in California any longer, and did not seek re-election this year. At least on two different occasions in the couple of years, Wiggins has had behavioral outbursts on the Senate floor, at one point scolding an aide and yelling obscenities at people testifying before the State Senate. They kept her on just to have a majority vote, despite the fact that she apparently has been diagnoised with dementia.
Those are just a few of the corrupt politicans that have been elected to serve our State in recent years, and this is what they do up there.
Since neither party is committed to helping California, the deficits continued to rise in California, it continues to suffer from a $20 billion budget gap and the unemployment rate is about 12.5%, and businesses and corporations are leaving every other week because of the unfriendly business environment and high fees. It is virtually unsustainable. One would think by now that the people in California would finally revolt and ask for something to be done, but that was simply not the case in last night's election in California.
California has already had Jerry Brown as a Governor back in 1975, and turning his tenure then, California's $6 billion surplus, was turned into a $1 billion deficit. Of course, in retrospect, that is nothing compared to what Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger have done.
Brown, who also served as State Attorney General in recent years, had been quoted as saying "we need to live within our means". What a load. The fact is very clear that now Governor-elect Brown, will favor special interest groups, the unions and all of their pension plans and most likely, do nothing about the illegal immigration crisis. The fact that Democrats won largely last night here in California, should send disturbing messages to everyone, but perhaps I'm speaking too soon. After all, a majority of Californians voted these people into office because they're all liberals, but maybe in the next year or so, they will see the writing on the wall, and see that they made a significant mistake.
Please do not get me wrong, I did not think too highly of Meg Whitman in the last month of her campaign. While I agreed with her notion of creating jobs, cutting spending and fixing education and all of the works, she did come from a business background, but unfortunately, she knows nothing about the political system in California and what the people really wanted. Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, changed her campaign several times, and embarassingly contradicted herself when it came to the issue of illegal immigration, for example, at one point saying she was "tough as nails on illegal immigration... to end sanctuary cities like San Francisco...", then deciding to set up bill board ads in Spanish saying she supported immigration reform in an attempt to garner more Hispanic voters... and that took votes away from her.
Additionally, Barbara Boxer retained her U.S. Senate seat, even though it would have only taken a few more votes to get her the hell out of office; and we have this sanctuary city supporter/mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom to become Lieutenant Governor. Is he going to favor shutting out sanctuary policies in cities like the one he ran which violates federal law...? Probably not. So instead of California voters, wanting to initiate change like pension reform for State workers, solving illegal immigration, fixing education and cutting spending... instead we all decided to vote for this freak show.
Maybe I can understand slightly why Jerry Brown won the Governor's race. People were tired of Schwarzenegger. So instead, they vote for the liberal candidate. I decided to vote for neither in the end... I voted for the Libertarian candidate Dale Ogden.
Now that the election in California is over, I can honestly say that nothing is going to be done. There will be absolutely no improvement in California's political system because the people that vote in this State are obviously arrogant, favor left-leaning ideaology that has proven to be a failure, they don't get the facts correct on the issues and continue to support huge salaries and pension funds for unions and State workers.
If Jerry Brown actually has any guts, he will address those matters laid out above. Stop the immigration crisis and reform pension funds and salaries, instead of focusing on a decision to possibly repeal Proposition 13 and raise everyone's property taxes. Those two issues are critical with relation to spending as to why California has suffered for so many years. Solve those problems, and we will be on the road to financial recovery.
But I honestly cannot see it coming into fruition, because nobody wants to hear it.
Now get ready for more problems in California. Proposition 23, which challenged the Global Warming Final Solutions Act signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, failed last night. This means more than likely, more jobs will decline, and taxes for gasoline prices will rise. Also Proposition 19 failed to legalize marijurana. Not entirely surprised, except the fact it would have put criminal drug cartels out of business and the State maybe would have generated tax revenue, although I understood the notion of wanting to keep it away from children... of course.
Nevertheless, this State is in some really hard times and it can only get worse. This State is going to get ugly real fast. They better do something soon to solve our financial problems, otherwise, California may as well just go bankrupt and maybe decide turn itself back over to Mexico.
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