First Republicans destroyed CA and now they will destroy the US. CA is America's future.
California: America’s First Failed State
In the latest Intelligence Squared US debate, the audience agreed that the Golden State has lost its luster.
Sometime last summer—around the time California's budget crisis led it to begin paying state workers in scrip—a meme took off in the media, that of California as a "failed state." Of course, it is nothing like the textbook definition of a failed state, a nation whose central government does not possess a monopoly on military force within its borders. But it was a humbling comedown for the Golden State to bear the stigma of the lowest credit rating in the nation, with a government virtually immobilized by its experiment with direct democracy, staggering under the incompatible demands of decades of citizen ballot initiatives.
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The latest Intelligence Squared US debate at New York University focused on the proposition: "California Is the First Failed State." Arguing for the proposition were Andreas Kluth, the California correspondent for The Economist; Bobby Shriver, a Santa Monica city councilman, activist and brother-in-law of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; and Sharon Waxman, journalist and founder of TheWrap.com. On the other side were former California Gov. Gray Davis, who lost his job in a recall referendum in 2003; Van Jones, a human-rights and environmental activist; and Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., a television writer and producer and MSNBC senior political analyst. The moderator was ABC correspondent John Donvan. Edited excerpts:
The Valley of Shadows
The roots of much of California's financial tangle are in the San Joaquin Valley. How it became the state's (and perhaps the nation's) economic ground zero.
Kluth: If a state can no longer address or solve the problems it faces, then it has failed. California easily meets that criterion. Prisons: California has the worst recidivism rate in the country. Water: it's an infrastructure and a climate issue but it's also a governance issue. Education: California built the best public university system in the country, which it is currently dismantling because it is now a failed state. Budgets: a state is supposed to have a budget, to pass it on time, and California never does. That started well before the recession. Our opponents may argue that as soon as there's a recovery these problems will recede. It's not true. Warren Buffett says it's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's swimming naked. Calfornia has been undressing since the 1970s…since the infamous Proposition 13. This is something called direct democracy that the founders of the nation were very afraid of. Twenty-four states have [citizen] initiatives. Only one does not allow its legislature to amend initiatives that its voters have passed, no matter how insane. In only one state do the inmates run the asylum.
Davis: Let me acknowledge there are problems in Sacramento. But the shortcomings of our elected officials should not detract from the creative contributions of our 37 million citizens. Our [gross domestic product] is $1.9 trillion, the eighth largest in the world, larger than Russia, India, or Canada. With all of its problems it still managed to nurture some of the most innovative companies in the world: Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Cisco, Intel, Disney, eBay, and many others. California is all about change: it likes to get there first, and it frequently does. It was the first state to regulate greenhouse gases, to allow full-scale stem-cell research, to establish renewable energy portfolio standards. Our electricity growth has been nada, zero, over 30 years as we became the largest state in America.
Waxman: Let's start with the area I know best, that I deal with every day, Hollywood, a symbol to the world of California's industry, creativity, prosperity, and the values of American culture. Here's the only problem with that. Hollywood's not in Hollywood anymore. It's gone to New Mexico, Arizona, New York, Vancouver, and London. Avatar, the movie breaking all box-office records, was filmed in New Zealand, and Twilight was filmed in Vancouver. Film production is down to half what it was in California in 1996.
One of my big observations about California, after having lived around the world for much of my adult life, is that there isn't a sense of connectedness, of community. In California we live largely in gated communities, we live in isolation. You can go to a place like Koreatown which has the largest ethnic community of Koreans outside Korea: 800,000 people. That community feels extremely Korean, connected to the country of their ancestors. I don't think they feel Californian. And I think that's true of many of the ethnic groups that have come to live in enclaves in California, and I see that as a failure of the state to create a sense of identity.
Jones: What our [opponents] haven't told you is that every single one of the problems, structural and otherwise, they have pointed to, have solutions, and the solutions are on the way. We are the biggest state, we have some of the biggest problems and we also have the largest number of problem solvers. To say that California is a failed state is different from saying it has some failings.
Shriver: I want to point out that the answers are on the way, they are not here now. In local government, where I serve, things are bad. In Santa Monica, our redevelopment agency had a budget this year of $30 million—the state took $22 million of that. How can you work on that basis?
There is no art education in the state in the public schools. We are the last among all the 50 states. We are below Guam in arts education.
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