More California Lessons

            Lesson number one from California is that there is no magic.  When you do things that cost money, somebody has to pay.   And it can’t always be somebody way off that you don’t know, like the idle rich who won’t notice a few million extracted from their purses.

If you don’t realize this, you can just keep getting more generous all the time.  There are really endless things that might be of use to somebody.  There are always the problems of the dividing line between needs and wants.  Of course services for children and others who can’t take care of themselves are easier to define as needs.  But you then have to answer the question of who should be responsible for these needs.  The first source of services for children should always be their parents.  It’s easy to say that it isn’t the fault of the children if parents had more children than they can afford.  But if this course is followed with no restraint, the well is eventually going to run dry.

                It’s also easy to say “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” about criminals.  But that means the state is taking on their upkeep for the rest of their lives, including the stage where they have Alzheimer’s and need constant care they couldn’t afford if they were out.  I have read that California already has plenty in this category.  So California is now thinking of turning loose about 27,000 prisoners. 

    While California property taxes are a little lower because of the voter initiatives that have limited them, their income and capital gains taxes are already among the highest.  This means they are already getting the money they might go after with any kind of reasonable tax increase.

Maybe their problems came because things were going so well for so long out there, they thought the good times would never end.  But nobody can predict the future with any certainty.

           Of course I’m not getting around saying we should sympathize with their plight and I’m certainly not saying we should help them out.  What I am saying is that we should learn what we can from the state that often prides itself on leading the way in so many areas.  Both in our own states and at the federal level, we need to realize that spending can’t continue unrestrained just because we think we need things.  If the California Dream is now so expensive that even the Californians can’t afford it, the rest of us probably can’t either.  There is a long list of things that President Obama says we absolutely must do.  They all cost a lot of money.  I hope he keeps getting reports on how things are going in California.