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Another Perspective
Jerry and Me
Those were the days, when Jerry Brown was fiscally responsible.
As we know from media reports, California is a fiscal mess. The fabled “Golden Land,” in Joan Didion’s phrase, is broke, currently running a projected $10 billion dollar deficit. Governor Edmund “Jerry” Brown — despite tough campaign rhetoric — recently punted on the state budget, bowing to pressure from the state’s powerful public sector unions, and seems to believe — like President Obama — that higher tax rates will solve the problem. According to the Economist, the governor cut some spending and attempted to extend some temporary taxes, the latter failing without Republican legislative support. Brown lately signed legislation taxing Internet commerce. This brilliant move will only hasten the brain drain to neighboring states. California’s 11.8% unemployment rate is already the second highest in the nation. And Governor Brown recently signed California’s version of the Dream Act, supporting education aid to illegal aliens. The Sacramento Bee tells us that beginning in 2012 California will close “70 of 278 state parks.” As on the national scene, the bad news seems to refresh itself daily.
And the Golden State is a cultural mess. Los Angeles — thanks to illegal immigration— now resembles the capital of a polyglot third world country. Beautiful San Francisco is fast becoming unlivable from a combination of heavy nanny-state regulation of its housing sector, and a homeless problem constantly dealt with by instituting more bad panaceas. The state legislature lately passed a bill calling for the teaching of “gay history” in California schools. This educational multicultural muddle mandates the expense for ordering new textbooks. The Berkeley City Council recently debated the merits of adding sex-change operations to the city employee medical insurance plan, and tabled the idea for future consideration. Berkeley City employees remain trapped in their gender until further notice.
Last fall California voters sent Barbara Boxer back to the U.S. Senate for a fourth term and, more interestingly, reelected Brown governor, 28 years after his last tenure in the office. The question is why in such economically perilous times did these two Democratic dinosaurs survive extinction, one closing the circle of a long progressive career. The pundits have certainly explained it ad nauseam: it seems that 1960s idealistic liberalism is tightly woven into the state’s political fabric. But it’s almost as if the California electorate momentarily experienced a collective acid flashback last Election Day. For me, well, it brought back memories.
The indulgence of following an historically apt metaphor of first traveling to the state on the fool’s errand of prospecting for gold in the mountains, left me a college student in Northern California in the mid-1970s, when Governor Brown first served. At the time California was in myriad ways a sunny place (Didion’s “Golden Land” again), the very air full of optimism (not to mention the sweet stink of marijuana) even in the Ford and Carter years, and able to smilingly absorb the cultural weirdness that seemed to permeate everyday life. As a student, I found it more than geographically far-removed from the upstate New York where I grew up. People wore different clothes, ate strange food (I’d never eaten an avocado until I lived in California; alfalfa sprouts? Forget-about-it), and listened to different music: On the East Coast it was Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones; in Northern California it was the Grateful Dead and whatever else was musically emanating from the distinctly countercultural Bay Area.
It was a politically crazy place. Patty Hearst was famously kidnapped. There were two attempts on the life of President Gerald Ford while he made separate California visits. San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered by Dan White. Congressman Leo Ryan was gunned down in Jonestown, Guyana, the site of the San Francisco-based Peoples Temple mass suicide in 1979.
The small two year “community college” that I attended was in Quincy, a town of 5,000 people in the Sierra Nevada. Most of the students were hip kids who had grown up in the Bay Area in the late 1960s-early '70s, which was a rather different experience than mine in exurban New York. These were kids who, if they didn’t march in anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, might have witnessed them. I heard stories of cutting school to hear Janis Joplin or the Jefferson Airplane play for free in Golden Gate Park on a weekday afternoon. Kids in high school took LSD every weekend as a recreational activity.
At the time a college education in the community college or California State University systems was free to state residents (the University of California system required tuition). I got a student loan to pay the roughly $1,000 tuition (it seems such a paltry sum today) for my first year until I achieved residency. In the end I never went on to a four year school for a bachelor’s degree, and I regret this because in the 1970s getting a college education in California was as easy as plucking an orange from a tree. Today that same educational system is in extreme fiscal distress.
Considering that these were the Carter years, I was relatively prosperous thanks to part time jobs, mostly in restaurants back in the day when they fed the help for free. I was a dishwasher, then a waiter, and then spent a summer working for the U.S. Forest Service. These jobs weren’t especially lucrative, but they kept a few bucks in my pocket. And things were cheap: rent, gas and groceries, a movie date, a six-pack of beer. I lived in a furnished trailer with giant Ponderosa pines in the backyard that rented for just $90 per month. California wasn’t the bread basket of the nation, but it was the produce section of the supermarket.
Meanwhile in Sacramento, Governor Brown lived an ascetic life. He refused to inhabit his predecessor Ronald Reagan’s recently constructed governor’s mansion, instead renting a small apartment near the state house. He eschewed the convenience of an official limousine, preferring to drive his Plymouth Satellite around town. “Governor Moonbeam” aside, Brown — especially in his 1975-‘79 first term — was very much a fiscal conservative. California at one point enjoyed a $5 billion dollar surplus, which in 2011 dollars is impressive. The passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 giving Californians property tax relief eroded that surplus. And yes, Brown was known for some wacky environmental ideas and judicial appointments (does anyone remember Rose Bird?), but it’s almost as if he started out center-right early in his career, and from then on moved progressively left. That’s it: I started out left and moved right, and Brown started right and moved left. At some point in the last thirty years we passed each other.
Jerry and I have come a long way. And I still have hair.
About the Author
Bill Croke, formerly of Cody, Wyoming, is a writer in Salmon, Idaho.
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Kitty| 8.3.11 @ 7:50AM
I was busy with babies and an anemic household budget back in the 70s. I didn't have much time to contemplate politics. In fact I didn't know what I was (politically speaking) until Carter became president. After a couple of years of that peanut farmer, I knew I wasn't whatever he was, because we were suffering under his policies. Then along came Reagan and I registered to vote for the very first time. What a shame the GOP didn't adopt Reagan's policies.
Jim| 8.3.11 @ 10:19AM
Property tax money goes to counties, not the state. Thus, your assertion that prop 13 eroded the state's tax surplus is, simply, wrong.
Ted| 8.3.11 @ 11:47AM
"California is a fiscal mess."
That is a wild understatement!
cowgirl| 8.3.11 @ 1:59PM
As a native Californian and San Francisco Bay Arean - you are dead on.
Quincy - Feather River College I presume? It is still around and has a lot of cowboys/cowgirls who participated in High School rodeo and wanted to continue doing so after High School. It is one of the last colleges in California that has a College Rodeo Team. Cal-Poly San Luis has one. Most country/cowboy types leave California for Texas, Oklahoma, Lousiana, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, South Dakata or Wyoming were they are more friendly to country/cowboys. When I was growing up the number one business in CA was oil and the number 2 was Agriculture. Both of those businesses have been destroyed by the radical, religious environmentalist. That is why California is often referred to as the Stupid State or the Linsday Lohan state - it is addicted to stupid.
Brittanicus| 8.3.11 @ 5:38PM
The Liberal progressives are at it again in looking for a motive to tax us even more, so we keep supporting illegal aliens. We were just diverted from a calamity, with the $14.5 trillion dollars treasury deficit, if it actually works? But every year and rapidly climbing is the cost of the $113 billion dollars we supplement for lawbreakers, who entered the United States without permission of the people. There is no excuse for our government or any previous administration to keep catering to these non-Americans, who have no right to be here. Eric Holder, a Justice Department Czarists in Obama’s Imperial Court, is currently serving papers on Alabama. This Southern State is trying to save its citizens and permanent residents, by enacting illegal immigration enforcement. Is the Obama administration so ignorant and indifferent to States suffering from this pestilence, that they encourage and place no real enforcement obstacles in the way of this occupation? The Tea Party does, Presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) that the Tea Party Caucus has full intentions of halting any types of Amnesty or anything that is tainted with CHAIN MIGRATION laws.
IN WHATEVER STATE YOU ABIDE, YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO FOR OVER THIRTY YEARS FROM EACH US ADMINISTRATION. YOU HAVE SEEN THE TENTATIVE COST OF $113 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR, THAT COMES FROM AMERICAN WORKERS SWEAT AND BLOOD. NEXT YEAR YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO COMPLETELY OVERRUN THE REPUBLICANS AND LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND VOTE IN MORE STRONG TEA PARTY LEADERS, WHO WILL NOT ONLY SHRINK THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY, BUT RETURN POWER TO EACH SOVEREIGN STATE. THE TEA PARTY WILL REVISE OUR TAX SYSTEM, SO EVERYBODY PAYS WITH NO EXEMPTIONS, AS WE HAVE TODAY. THE 1986 IMMIGRATION CONTROL & REFORM ACT WILL BE FULLY ENFORCED AND ONLY THE HIGHLY SKILLED PROFESSIONALS WILL RECEIVE ENTRY VISAS TO AMERICA. SIMILAR TO THE 1942 ”BRACERO" PROJECT TEMPORARY VISA WILL BE INTRODUCED, BUT WITH A TRACKING SYSTEM FOR THOSE WHO SNUB OUR LAWS; SAME WITH TOURISTS WHO OVERSTAY VISAS.
Should Obama win the 2012 election, he will return the favor to non-citizens and illegal aliens with the passage of another Amnesty. Another Amnesty similar to the 1986 Simpson/Mazzoli bill is projected to cost $2.5 Trillion dollars, according to the Heritage Foundation. Then there is the evident question why would the US government consider this, when every State is struggling to climb out of a financial hole? Every day billions of dollars are added to the US deficit, and still President Obama, Sen. Reid, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and Eric Holder and his Liberal friends, want to add even more dollars to the growing deficit. California now is carrying a $26 Billion dollar deficit neglecting its own legitimate citizen’s interests as a priority. If the Liberals sitting in Sacramento was ousted, then they would not be adding another $21.Billion and then Carson City, Nevada $1Billion, 191million dollars annually.
Both States have very high populations of illegal aliens and no State can survive this type of maltreatment. Welfare for illegal immigrants has got completely out of hand. American taxpayers are spending 3 to 4 dollars on these people, for just one dollar illegal aliens pay into the US Treasury and State general funds. These dollar figures are not speculation, but real numbers on years of calculation's, data and assessments contributed to the general public by (FAIR) Federation of American Immigration Reform, Robert Rector Chief analyst for the Conservative Heritage Foundation and NumbersUSA. I’m a TEA PARTY MEMBER, are you? The Leftists have been unable scare the TEA PARTY or come to that, average Americans; the Tea Party recognizes all racial groups or individuals religious conviction are welcome, as long as you came to the United States through the front door.
We as US Citizens, must be made aware that Liberals especially see no difference in who registers to vote. This has become even more predominant in the last decade, as illegal migrants and immigrants have been registering to vote, especially by forging "Absentee Ballots." Federal law is rather lax in this matter, with foreign nationals overcoming their reluctance of committing perjury. Many State are now demanding government picture ID as verification, but "Blue" states have ignored this enforcement, with only the minimum of election investigative checks.
Now the panicking Leftists are frantic, as now their calling me and multiples of millions Tea Party members –TERRORISTS. What a wretched lot, when they can’t fight you fairly and sink down into a cesspit of slurs, along with their radical reporters in the press. The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, aided in winning the first round, to a balanced budget amendment, but it’s a progressive uphill battle in opposition to the Tax and Spend Liberals. Every American who sees that this is a silent occupation by illegal foreigners should call their Washington Representatives. If they want stop the Obama federal government encroaching on State rights, your rights, that only the people's raised voice can halt this sham? This especially covers issues such as border fence remaining insecure and yet Americans still forced through federal law to pay for 300 thousand children who are smuggled across the border annually, that taxpayers must educate. Issues like the DREAM ACT or any action such as a Sanctuary States or Immigration Reform just encourages millions more to slip past borders, or enter by jet with a visa and then over-stays.
Courts have ordered that Taxpayers must cover costs for illegal pregnant Mothers, the whole family and their offspring for non-reimbursed hospital care. Then there are billions of dollars being spent, to cover Medicaid and other welfare programs. But the activist Liberal judges interpreting the law to their own advantage just dumped the free programs on state taxpayers, as the US government reimburses only a small portion to the respective states. Soon Georgia, Arizona, Utah could face similar court injunctions, from the communist ACLU, the radical La Raza organizations from saving their taxpayers from this disturbing situation.
Immigration news: A federal appellate court vacated its original ruling that found Hazleton's, Pennsylvania local ordinance requiring businesses to use E-Verify was unconstitutional. The court was instructed by the Supreme Court to revisit its ruling after upholding Arizona's statewide law earlier this year.
No COPYRIGHT. Please distribute freely.
The biggest lie ever told about illegal aliens is that their is a population of 12 million. That figure has been the official old tired statement of the Liberals and the open border zealots since 1987. The Undeniable fact that there are now close to 40 million illegals aliens here and that they've nearly bankrupted this sovereign nation. The authorities South of our border has admitted that 12% of their entire country now lives in the United States?
Milan Moravec| 8.3.11 @ 7:05PM
University of California Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau: sacrifices not warrented by UC Chancellors, Vice Chancellors Faculty.Californians face mortgage defaults, 12% unemployment, pay reductions, loss of unemployment benefits. UC share the sacrifices of Californians: No layoff or wage concessions for UC Chancellors, Faculty during greatest recession of modern times. Yudof curb wages, benefits for California Democrats, Republicans! If wages better elsewhere, chancellors, vice chancellors, tenured, non tenured faculty, UCOP apply for the positions. If wages are what commit employees to UC, leave for better paying position.
UC wages must reflect California's ability to pay, not what others are paid. There is no good reason to raise UC tuition, fees when wage concessions are available.
The sky will not fall on UC.
Share the sacrifices UC President, Faculty, Chancellors, Vice Chancellors, UCOP:
No furloughs
18 percent reduction in UCOP salaries & $50 million cut.
18 percent prune of campus chancellors', vice chancellors' salaries.
15 percent trim of tenured faculty salaries, increased teaching load
10 percent decrease in non-tenured faculty salaries, as well as increase research, teaching load
100% elimination of all Academic Senate, Academic Council costs, wages.
(17,000 UC paid employees earn more than $100,000)
However, rose bushes always bloom after pruning.
UC Board of Regents Chair Sherry Lansing can bridge the public trust gap with reassurances that UC salaries reflect depressed wages in California.
The sky will not fall on the 10 campuses of UC
POST American| 8.3.11 @ 11:23PM
----Lava lamps and '70's Show' DIS-traction
ALERT!----
MEANWHILE, as the cultural EUGENISTS
and USERERS inside the TAX FREE, ultra
rich Ford/ Rockefeller/ Carnegie 'benny violent'
foundations fund, push and direct 'La Raza'
and 'Reconquista' -----we're conditioned to
accept the RATION----ALL solution of
AWE---stare---IT----he.
Remember kiddies! ---we're the ITs.
Remember too that USURY = EUGENICS =
God mocking and creation hating FREEMASONRY.
As they sweep up the last of the poppers
and roaches from among the pine needles at Bohemian Grove
--------------REMEMBER.
Glein| 8.4.11 @ 10:28PM
Will you please try to make sense!