And don’t forget California has a REPUBLICAN governor as it sinks into the morass. Never mind the fact it’s nearly impossible to increase taxes to pay for all the stuff they want their government to do.

They used to call Democrats, “tax and spend liberals.”

That’s no longer accurate. But “borrow and spend” seems to describe both parties these days.

Everyone likes to spend, but only true liberals like to also pay for it.

Texas is not lightly taxed either. While there is the Republican dream of no state income tax, the property taxes are high and depress house prices.

When I moved from North Carolia to Texase, North Carolina was more affordabe than Texas.

You’re being far to harsh on young Ross. He just needs a little seasoning. I suggest he be farmed out to the El Paso Times until he’s ready.

Another possibility is that all the conservatives who agree with Ross just move to Texas. Then the rest of us get to vote on whether to expel those nuts from the Union.

“Ross Douthat Douchebag Wants the Whole Country to Look Like Texas…”

Fixed it for ya.

I would argue the biggest obstacle to any kind of rational budget in Sacramento is the onerous constitutional requirement to get a super-majority on budgetary matters. For years, the Republican minority has used its hecklers veto to thwart the budget process. In addition, they blame the Democrats for problems that began under decades of Republican incompetence as the state’s chief executive.

A similar situation exists in Massachusetts where Duval Patrick is getting blamed for budgetary woes racked up during 16 years of Weld-Cellucci-Swift-Romney and the privatization scam that has ended up costing taxpayers billions.

Its unemployment rate and foreclosure rate are both well below the national average

“well below”, my chicken fried ass – no state is shedding jobs faster than TX.

guess those 14,000 Dell workers in Round Rock looking over their shoulders every friday should just relax, huh Russ?

don’t even get me started on foreclosures in Williamson county you puerile git !

ever tried to get unemployment benefits in texas ?? first you wait two weeks to even get to “sign up” .. then you wait another two weeks to file your first “claim” .. then ..two weeks later you finally get a check for your first week .. then two weeks after that you finally get caught up ..

the gist of it is .. even if you’re fully qualified and eligible to draw the benefit .. it’s eight weeks [two months] after the last day you worked before you get a single dollar out of the texas fund …

by then .. you’re starved out ..

[ex-whiskey-taw-faws guy ..]

Being liek Texas destroyed our economy. Now this asshat wants to double down on stupidity.

I can’t read Douchehat. Nothing he writes makes sense to me. His sentence structure and thought processes are all mangled.

I’ve really tried to make sense of it, but no can do.

I agree with you on the “super majority” thing. I would also add that creating laws with ballot propositions is akin to legislating by mob psychology. Any idiot with enough signatures can get just about anything on a ballot, no matter how mindless. Throw in enough advertising dollars and voila!, you’ve got another major clusterF.

I wonder if a ballot proposition can be floated to abolish ballot propositions, once and for all?

Owe you one.

Question: How much of my brain would I have to scoop out with a broken beer bottle before I’d be qualified to take Ross’s job from him?

No sweat. Happy to help out. We’re square.

O/T, but this just might get interesting:

http://mediamatters.org/press/…..0908030007

OT – BofA to pay $33M fine over Merrill bonuses

Chump change. BoA attorneys laughed all the way to the bank.

Too funny! I laughed so hard I almost fell out of my chair. I’ll send Douchehat the bill for damages.

That’s rough. I wonder if part of the fine is, “no TV for three nights”?

Geeez…

FTA ”Meanwhile, California, always liberalism’s favorite laboratory…”

FALSE! It was the right wing, anti-taxers abusing the Progressives initiative process to get their virus legislation passed, like Prop. 13, which has undermined the state’s financial health.

“Chump change. BoA attorneys laughed all the way to the bank petty cash box.

Fixed it for ya.

But Texas leads the nation in this very important statistic.

In 2008, 37 persons in nine states were executed — 18 in Texas; 4 in Virginia; 3 each in Georgia and South Carolina; 2 each in Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, and Oklahoma, and 1 in Kentucky.

What a great name! Haven’t seen you before – welcome.

And we lead the nation in total prisoners as well.

Suck it, New York!

Let’s not forget that for every tax dollar Californians send to DC, the state receives only about 80 cents in federal spending. Texas, by contrast, gets back almost as much as they put in.

In California’s case, we’re talking about tens of billions of dollars rerouted to Mississippi and Alabama and Alaska. It’s well more more than California’s budget deficit.

Very good handle, alright. Welcome!

Acutally Prop 13 is one of the only things CA did right. But that was a long time ago and since then they’ve only done things wrong. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

“Suck it, New York!”

Punch line after punch line this morning. I’m laughing so hard I’m crying.

Finally, the only reason Texas isn’t facing a budget deficit is because Obama’s stimulus bill bailed us out.

Oil at over a $100 a barrel what happened to all that cash Texas’s economy must have gone wild?

“Acutally Prop 13 is one of the only things CA did right.”

One question: What color is the sky in your world?

Ross Douthat argues that California’s financial woes discredit center-left economic policies.

What are Ross’s credentials to write about economics? Are they the same as Bobo’s?

Why is that tolerated? Doesn’t California have a respectable state university system? How is it getting outwitted by the backwoods gang from ‘Bama and Ole Miss?

I would argue the biggest obstacle to any kind of rational budget in Sacramento is the onerous constitutional requirement to get a super-majority on budgetary matters.

Didn’t Republicans push that?

backwoods?

Depends on what mushroom he chewed this morning.

Thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated.

I thought the reason why it was so hard to raise taxes and pay for stuff in California was because republicans pushed through barriers to raising taxes. Any California pups here who got inside details?

I don’t mean to imply that the two Deep South states aren’t abounding with scholars. I’m just surprised that they’re having such an easy time fleecing California.

More information if you please:)

I would argue the biggest obstacle to any kind of rational budget in Sacramento is the onerous constitutional requirement to get a super-majority on budgetary matters.

The GOP pushed for the super majority requirement in the first place?

If anyone that reads here still subscribes/buys the NYTimes, you must stop and make sure they know it was Douchehat as the last straw. You stuck through Bloody Bill Kristol, and now this?!?!

It’s not about left/right politics. It’s simply about complete inanity and stupidity. Just one after another with this clown. Yeesh.

This article makes no sense factually. Also who is this article written for I bet the Times has lots more readers in California than Texas lying and smearing about your readers does not seem like a good way to keep them. The Times has some very educated readers these facts Ross states seem at odds with what has been reported in the Times a regular reader of the Times would know this plus there is always google.
So what was this article trying to accomplish give the GOP some cover when they smear California by citing the Times?

No longer a reader except once in a while to see Krugman or looking to see what the *cough* Liberal papers are like

Not to mention having the most uninsured in the nation

Doesn’t Texas have some of the most expensive medicare areas with worst outcomes in the country?

“It’s not about left/right politics…”

I agree. In this day and hour, it’s not about Demo v. Repub, right v.left, liberal v.conservative. Simply stated, the distinctions are sane v. insane. That’s how I see it, anyway…

I’m, sorry, can I go off topic. It’s about health care. Two weeks ago I’m told I’m supposed to have a friggin biopsy and I’m sitting here scared shitless and I call today (again) to find out when TF is my friggin test and my friggin’ insurance company hasn’t approved it yet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, no. There’s nothing wrong with our healthcare system that a little malpractice reform won’t fix, right?

Piss me off.

Which insurance company, if I may ask?

Ever hear of United Health Care?

Why yes I have, they’ve been mentioned at this very blog have they not?

Piss me off.

Shit BFL if we went to another system you would have to wait for healthcare.

But, but, BF – don’t you know, if we had single-payer Government-Run healthcare, you’d Die in Line!!!!

So, mr foothillsmike, what are you drinking today? Appears I owe you a beverage. ; )

Gee, BFL, it’s a good thing there isn’t a government bureaucrat standing in the way of your insurance company gambling away your life.

(((BFL)))

Right… remember when the liberals shoved Prop 13 up California’s collective ass?

Me neither…

Just drinking water now

Yes, McAllan Texas, and it was described in a New Yorker article.

Prop 13 passed by 64.8%. It also contained that both houses of the lege must have a 2/3 majority to raise taxes.
One of the main reasons it passed was it was found that tax assessors were cheating big time and were perfectly free to do so. Major scandal.

Next time I see some jerkweed R like Douche-hat yapping about heaklthcare I’m going to throw something at the TV. It’s OK. I don’t have an HD TV yet, so i need a new one.

Mr. Douthat is as reliable and as glib with the facts and their conclusions as David Brooks. A few examples:

California is falling apart because its Republican minority controls just over 1/3 of the legislature and is as hell bent as its national parent on spiking government and precluding it from obtaining the tax resources it needs to pay for the infrastructure and social services a considerable majority of its citizens want. It has the governator instead of a competent governor because the GOP and its national parent launched a national PR drive to discredit the policies Schwarzenegger has since adopted. As a Republican, he still can’t get his minority GOP to play ball and actually govern the state. It’s also a state whose constitution make it easy for non-staters, like Nevada’s Utah’s Mormons, to influence policy with their pocketbooks.

Corporations may be leaving California in “droves”, but I’d like to see Mr. Ross’ stats and how they compare with the national average, since every large company from Walmart to Staples to GM to IBM is sending its jobs offshore as fast as it can. It’s the birthplace of high-tech and bio-tech, industries with a few successes and many failures. It is also home to a large venture capital industry all of whose funds are drying up or whose practitioners refuse to lend just now. For years, they wouldn’t lend unless their target’s business plan included relying on offshoring for a substantial portion of the target’s operations and growth.

California’s millionaires aren’t leaving; nowhwere else save Texas and Florida taxes them so leniently, has such good beaches or as many clinics that dispense plastic surgery and little blue pills. They’re just locking their gated communities while enjoying one of the most real estate and business friendly governments in the US, and enjoying the global produce locally picked by machines they love and the immigrant labor they detest.

California’s woes represent Republican excess and obstructionism more than “leftist” policies. As does Texas. It may have fared better during this recession, but again, where are Ross’ stats? Its legislature meets every other year, but that doesn’t mean it is an anti-government state or that “invisible hands” are not daily directing its course. It means that those hands belong to a few private families and corporate leaders who govern as openly as Dick Cheney.

State performance also masks the well being of groups and cities within the state, who are not fairing well. Texas, too, is home to considerable federal largesse, from massive oil subsidies to bank bail-outs to agriculture and grasslands subsidies to the military and aerospace firms. It is the direct beneficiary of hundreds of millions of federal aid, from help in meeting the needs of relocated Katrina victims, to the largest Border Patrol in the country, to an Israeli-like Great Wall separating Texicans from the source of the immigrant labor Californian Republicans despise, but whose fruits they are ready to digest. Wash a car, mow a country club green or fairway, garden in Park Cities, pick fruit, construct or clean houses or watch babies, and they are there, within a stone’s throw of Mr. Bush’s retirement cottage.

Texas does well not because its government is run better or more democratically – quite the opposite – but because its states area heavily influenced by the largesse from the big [GOP] government Ross’ ideology claims to despise.

Mr. Douthat, like David Brooks, is selective in his facts and blind to the implications that don’t favor his party. Just like his party.

Foothills Mike – if it’s not too late, here’s your glass of water. (I had to make little detour from fdl):

Does Douhat dream of being Jonah Goldberg when he grows up?

Doesn’t Texas have some of the most expensive medicare areas with worst outcomes in the country?

Yes, McAllan Texas, and it was described in a New Yorker article.

That article make me think of this guy who’s married to a cousin of mine. He’s a renal specialist, based in Houston, who made his fortune (and it is a fortune–you should have seen his daughter’s wedding) setting up dialysis clinics for small hospitals. At the time, it seemed plausible, but when I read the article, I wondered if he contributed to the conditions it describes–too many facilities competing for too few patients by overprescribing services.

Krugman drew him a dogggie picture !

What all y’all said upthread. Also, it should be pointed out that Douchehat simply lifted the entire premise for this piece of shite from an Economist cover article — similarly misguided and making the same arguments.

I agree the Republicans share some of the blame but California is one state that is primarily a Democratic disaster. Nobody wants to pay for anything out there.

Nobody wants to pay for anything out there.

That problem isn’t isolated to just California, I’m afraid.

Hope you don’t mind the amplification:

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6903

In addition to limiting the increase of property taxes, unless the property changed hands, Prop. 13 required that all state tax rate increases be approved by a two-thirds vote of the legislature and that local tax rates also have to be approved by a 2/3s vote of the people.

While this sounds great, what it did was ensure gridlock. It, as Grover Norquist would say, “starves the beast.” Not being able to increase revenue, the state would have to cut programs and/or go into debt. And it has.

The first part of the Proposition, about cutting property taxes, except if it is sold, shifted the tax burden from businesses and corporations to homeowners, since they move more frequently; thereby, triggering reassessments at current (higher) values. So, other than the people who have stayed in their same homes for the past 30 years, homeowners aren’t seeing any tax relief. This also puts them in a position to not favor any tax increases. And, the cycle repeats.

Orange.

Ross Doubt-that is Ann Coulter, without the balls.

By ‘cheating big time’, Twain means that some (not all) assessors were manipulating the assessed values of residential property. This was done in some cases to limit the property tax bill to elderly citizens, but it was done in many cases to limit the property tax bill for politically powerful individuals.

Needless to say, this was unconstitutional. Assessors were ordered to clean their acts up. The property tax bills for many people on fixed incomes skyrocketed. They screamed, and Jarvis and Gann saw their opportunity to strike. So they did.

And what exactly is the Taxcut/no new taxes! mantra of the Right supposed to accomplish? That would appear to be the unwillingness to pay for anything. The Right is stingy, so your lame attempts to place the blame on the left fall flat…

Sorry, man.

But of course it’s not a Democratic Party disaster. It is the GOP rump in Sacramento that stops effective measures from being enacted, such as actually paying for the state services California became known for. In fact, the GOP stops any measure if it can be shoe-horned into an anti-tax crusade. As Warren Buffett points out, he pays higher real estate tax on his modest house in Omaha than he does on his multi-million dollar pad in California, all because of Prop 13. And that’s only one misery Californians have not figured how to do without.

Californian Democrats, DiFi and Pelosi among them, are nothing to write home about. But it’s California’s Goopers that are dismantling a once great state. The parallels with how they spike federal efforts – health care and gasoline mileage standards, for example – are obvious.

Ross Asshat, more like it.