Authored by Richard Truesdell and Keith Lehmann via American Greatness,
As we outlined in Part One, here in California, we have an economy that would be the fifth largest in the world if it were to be separated as a standing nation. Home to Silicon Valley, Hollywood, world-class agriculture, and medical schools, California is an economic powerhouse.
Yet we, in California, have the highest poverty rate in the nation. We have a majority of the nation’s homeless people. We have the highest overall tax rates in the nation. Our energy costs are double that of the national average. Our per-student spending in schools is well above the national average, yet our students consistently have below-average grade-level test scores. Our major cities are crime-ridden, our power grid is woefully vulnerable, and our beaches are regularly closed due to raw sewage contamination.
We are a one-party state. Democrats have a supermajority hold in California politics, meaning that there is no Congressional opposition to whatever they wish to do. They are in charge.
California’s economy serves every Democrat’s whim and desire.
These policies are simply crazy.
California’s economy and the vast amounts of revenue generated by millions of citizens and their businesses allow for every bad left-wing idea to be realized, tried, failed, and then tried again. In this economy, taxpayer money is not used to provide a better quality of life to its population; it is a tool to be squandered repeatedly in pursuit of a leftist utopia while lining the pockets of favored industries, activist groups, and entrenched political players. Nancy Pelosi is the poster child for the power of the elite political class.
It does not matter if these programs fail. There is no accountability for failure, only praise for intentions. In California, those in power wield it aggressively while demanding to be worshipped for their generosity with taxpayer dollars. In essence, they’re control freaks with unlimited funding.
When Democrats are in charge, the quality of life for ordinary citizens plummets. Almost every major city in America is under Democrat control and are disasters—Chicago, Baltimore, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Detroit, Seattle, Portland (we could go on and on)—all due to far-left control freaks using taxpayer funds to use as they see fit.
News of Democrat public officials directing tax dollars to friends and family is so common that, unless it is too egregious to cover up, the legacy media doesn’t qualify it as news anymore. The California news media considers this graft and corruption as business as usual. There’s a reason why many of the state’s more fiscally responsible residents have long called it the “People’s Republic of Kalifornia.”
The worst thing about corruption as a system of government is that it works so well. With so much consolidation of power and personal enrichment at stake, it’s no wonder why politicians work so hard to stay in office. It’s the cottage industry of the so-called Golden State and the power-intoxicated elites that have run the state into the ground over the last 50 years.
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Richard Truesdell is a former consumer electronics retail executive and automotive travel photojournalist. In the last 25 years, he has visited more than 35 countries on six continents. A former high school history teacher with a BA in Political Science from Waynesburg University, he is a lifelong Conservative moderate who has turned his thoughts and keyboard to political commentary and popular culture. A cross-section of his writings can be found here.
Keith Lehmann is a retired consumer electronics industry executive who has written extensively on technology, transportation, and international travel. Living in Southern California for over fifty years, he has first-hand exposure to societal and cultural happenings of the left and submits decidedly realism-based, Conservative viewpoints, much of which can be found on his Substack.