Political Situation - Disconnected from Reality
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10/8/2010
I do not want to move from the Los Angeles area but I believe I will be forced to move because of the unstable political situation and its impact on taxes and on the society in general. I wouldn't be against sticking it out and working through the difficulties if I believed that the voters were conscientious enough to realistically address the issues. They are not.
Essentially the problem is that the state (and also the city) has unfunded legal financial obligations that are not sustainable. These financial obligations are encoded in the law. Neither political party (especially the Democratic Party which dominates state politics) is willing to address these issues. The real problem is that neither are the voters. The state is at least 20 billion in the hole and everyone is standing around hoping for a miracle. It won't happen.
The major source of the financial obligations are an excess number of public employees with extremely good pensions and medical benefits. The deficits are so large that to try to solve this problem with tax increases will kill the economy of the state. The only real solution now is for the state to declare bankruptcy and for some bankruptcy judge to be the bad guy and make the budget cuts that the elected officials and the voters aren't willing to deal with. This will result in enormous turmoil with unpredictable consequences for people like me.
We have a governors race that reflects the problem. The Democrat is in bed with the public employees unions. The Republican has spent over 120 million of her own money to become governor of a bankrupt state. So we have a competition between a disconnected from reality, delusional democrat versus a republican who is either stupid or crooked. The basic campaign program of both candidates is that "the other candidate is worse than I am". Everything is negative. There is no direct, serious discussion of the issues.
Resbo | Los Angeles, CA