California: The ungovernable state | Hacker News Reader

California: The ungovernable state

economist.com

15 pointsrms24 comments

As a non-American, it seems strange to me that such a successful centre of innovation -- the bay area -- can survive within what is, from all reports, an utterly dysfunctional state. Can someone here with more understanding of US politics explain how this is possible?

It wasn't always as dysfunctional, or the debts as yawning. CA's fortunes tend to swing with the economic winds. When things are good, you can make a ton of money here, and that tends to make people forget what it's like when things are bad. This is also how our property market came to be sooo overheated.

As a wiser man once said, "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

California has big problems, but remember that it is also the 10th largest economy in the world (at least it was in 2007 according to the CIA factbook). These problems, given the scale of California's operations are never fatal, and usually quite temporary hiccups.

The state also tends to march to the beat of its own drum, which is not entirely unique coughTexascough, but this intensifies the criticisms of California's idiosyncrasies, and it's left leaning government expenditure programs.

The Bay Area, for all its business hustle and bustle, owes its origins to this, dare I say, quite Commie mentality. It's the blend of this socialist and capitalist ideology that creates an original mix of creativity and business sense.

it's left leaning government expenditure programs. [...] Commie mentality. It's the blend of this socialist and capitalist ideology

I keep reading similar sentiments, but I don't really understand it. I believe the tax rate is basically on par with Canada's (so, pretty high). However, to give two counterexamples, California obviously doesn't have universal health care, and I've never seen as many homeless people as in the Bay area (the weather might have something to do with it). So what does all that money get spent on, compared to other states which might be more right-leaning or have lower tax rates?

The prisons. Three strikes means we have an awful lot of prisoners.

There's also a lot of dysfunctional allocation- in the school system, for instance, a majority of funds are earmarked for specific purposes, like special ed, regardless of local conditions. Which leads to bizarre things like bankrupt districts embarking on multi-million building projects.

I think California succeeds in spike of its political system, not because of it. The bay area has fantastic weather, a cultured urban center, plenty of nearby outdoor activities, and a climate of technological innovation that predates many of the problems with the political system. I have never personally visited L.A. but it is also reported to have excellent weather, and is clearly a center of the entertainment industry (this development once again occurring before their problems got really bad). I've lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle for most of my life, and have wanted to move to California, but have not done so precisely because of the high taxes and the dysfunctional politics, which make some sort of disaster seem almost inevitable. The question is not how it survives, but how much better it could be if the system worked properly given the number of advantages that the state enjoys.

The article says that direct democracy in California is dysfunctional just because people don't approve new taxes and more spending. Therefore direct democracy is good only when the people just agree with politicians.

Actually direct democracy seems to be working. Cutting spending is the right thing to do instead of increasing taxes:

How rich countries die http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/03/16/how-rich-count...

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonge...

On the other hand, I find chocking how a lot of libertarians say democracy and freedom aren't compatible (I'm thinking of an interview with one of the founders of Paypal that was recently in HN). You get actually the opposite: the more democracy, specifically the more direct democracy, the less oppressive a government can be.

Without taking a position, I will point out that in a pure direct democracy, it is possible for 49% of people to be enslaved.

And that percentage goes up to 99.9% for non-direct democracy and other forms of government.

Well, I don't think a representative democracy like the US has could really result in enslavement of 99.9% of people.

In any case, I am no fascist (or anarchist). I don't know who first said this, but the only thing worse than democracy is every other alternative.

And I don't think a direct democracy like California or Switzerland could result in enslavement of 49% of the people like you suggested in your comment.

the only thing worse than democracy is every other alternative

I agree, although I'm not sure if with democracy you're counting both representative and direct democracy as I am.

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." - Thomas Jefferson

I really don't know anything about the economics of the Great Depression, but the opinion of two extremely outspoken economists does not (at all) serve as conclusive evidence of the failure of Roosevelt's policies.

I'll go ahead and link you to the only thing I've ever read on the subject, just to provide another opinion: http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=82c53220-7594-4ec...

Interesting that they cite California's long constitution as a problem, since Texas is in the exact opposite position as California (budget balanced), and yet has a longer constitution (second only to Alabama).

"California’s current constitution rivals India’s and Alabama’s for being the longest and most convoluted in the world"

It's the fact that it is both long AND convoluted that causes the problem. Convolution is the major problem. Length makes convolution much easier to pull off (How complex can you really make a 1-page constitution?), but it doesn't guarantee it.

That said, Texas's may be just as crazy, just in a crazy way that somehow works. That's unlikely though. It's pretty hard to make an extremely complex governing document that will stand the test of time and still function properly as Texas's apparently does.

The reason it works is because it requires a balanced budget. However, Texas' constitution is still rather confusing and can be frustrating for law-makers - it just doesn't suffer the budget problems.

I thought I remembered Texas have a budget disaster eight years ago...

The main problem in CA is that the voters can make policy through ballot initiative, and get it into the constitution, where the normal legislative process can’t touch it. That leaves all kinds of inflexibility that ties the legislature down and prevents the give-and-take and adaptation-to-changing-circumstance of good policymaking.

"he voters can make policy through ballot initiative, and get it into the constitution"

This is the same case in Texas.

"Because in the primaries they have run on extremist platforms against other Republicans, they have no incentive to be pragmatic or moderate, and tend simply to balk."

Yes, let's knee-jerk blame Republicans. Obviously cutting spending is out of the question, even though other states somehow manage.

The Economist is traditional a fairly conservative organization, it's hard to call their critique of Republicans knee-jerk.

Except they're /right/. The state Democrats are corrupt and ineffectual, but at least they're not insane like our Republicans, who refuse to even consider ideologically impure things like ``compromise to pass a budget''.

The Repubs have compromised. They only slowed, somewhat, the growth in spending. Do you really think that CA would be better off if spending had grown faster?

If not, then you get to explain how letting the Dems get more of their way would have helped. Be specific. (Surely you're not going to argue that Repubs forced significant new spending or that Repubs forced Dems to spend more money than the revenues.)

I was just there. The people I talked to about this feel that (a) politicians have talked up the crisis to such a shrill level for so long that trust has almost completely been lost and (b) cost cutting is a desired outcome, although I don't think the people I talked to are clear on what that means to them in the day to day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com