No Longer Golden?

George Will predicts California voters May 19 will reject several California propositions designed to raise revenue by upping taxes, extending tax increases, and raiding the lottery fund. We’ll see. But Will seems right about how things have gone wrong in the Golden State:

➢ Since 2004, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in. In the last decade, net out-migration of Americans—as opposed to immigrants—has been 1.4 million.

➢ California's business costs are over 20% higher than the average state's. California's business conditions among the worst, as measured by 16 variables directly influenced by the Legislature. California's income and sales taxes are among the nation's highest; in 2006, the top 1% of earners paid 48% of the income taxes. Unemployment, the nation's fourth highest, is 11.2%.

➢ If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. Under Schwarzenegger—since 2003—per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20%.

➢ California teachers -- the nation's highest paid, with salaries about 25% above the national average -- are emblematic of the grip government employees unions have on the state, where 57% of government workers are unionized (the national average is 37%).

To Will, “California's perennial boast -- that it is the incubator of America's future -- now has an increasingly dark urgency.” He ironically concludes, “California has become liberalism's laboratory, in which the case for fiscal conservatism is being confirmed.”