California Stupidity

By Charles M. Phipps on September 9th, 2011

Today being the 161st anniversary of California’s admittance to the Union, I thought it would be a good time to see how things are going on the left coast. Not very well, it appears.

California has recently made the news for a bill expected to become law that would require parents to provide workers’ compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for…babysitters!

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers’ compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.

This is just one item on a long list of California stupidity I read recently:

#1 For seven years in a row, a major survey of U.S. CEOs has ranked California as the worst state for business. Yet California lawmakers continue to pile on the rules, regulations and taxes.

#2 Businesses are fleeing the state in droves and the leadership of the state doesn’t seem to care too much. Unemployment in many areas of California is over 20% and the state has lost 1.2 million jobs over the last three years. The number of people unemployed in the state of California is approximately equal to the populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined. Last year, only about 37 percent of the population of the entire state of California had a job.

#3 Residents of California get absolutely hammered by taxes. The state of California currently has the third highest state income tax in the nation: a 9.3% tax bracket at $46,766 and a 10.3% tax bracket at $1,000,000. California also has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation by far at 8.25%. Indiana has the next highest at 7%. In addition, residents of California pay the highest gasoline taxes (over 67 cents per gallon) in the United States.

#4 The politicians in Sacramento love to pass more laws. At this point, just about everything is illegal in California. The number of new laws is absolutely mind blowing. For example, 725 new laws (most of them either completely pointless or completely stupid) went into effect in the state of California on January 1st alone.

#5 Thanks to endless taxes and fees, people that live in California seem to pay more for just about everything. For example, residents of California pay some of the highest electricity prices in the entire nation.

#6 As businesses flee and the economy decays, many California towns are being transformed into hellholes. The following is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article that describes what is going on in Vallejo, California….

Vallejo is still in bankruptcy. The police force has shrunk from 153 officers to 92. Calls for any but the most serious crimes go unanswered. Residents who complain about prostitutes or vandals are told to fill out a form. Three of the city’s firehouses were closed. Last summer, a fire ravaged a house in one of the city’s better neighborhoods; one of the firetrucks came from another town, 15 miles away. Is this America’s future?

#7 California has some of the worst public schools in the nation. In the late 70s, California was number one in per-pupil spending on education, but now the state has fallen to 48th place. Instead of focusing on the basics, lawmakers keep passing bills requiring even more hardcore “politically correct” indoctrination of California’s young children. In one school district in California, children as young as five years old are being forced to watch propaganda films that tout the benefits of “alternative lifestyles”, and parents are being told that no “opting out” will be permitted.

#8 As bad as things are now, the future looks even worse for California. The problems are obvious but nobody seems to want to fix them. Forbes recently compiled a list entitled “Cities Where The Economy May Get Worse“. Six of the top seven spots were held by cities in California.

#9 The state of California is now dealing with millions upon millions of people that have developed an “entitlement mentality”. Incredibly, 60 percent of all students attending California public schools now qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.

#10 Huge numbers of poor people and illegal aliens are taking advantage of “free” medical care at hospital emergency rooms and this has caused dozens of hospitals across the state of California to completely shut down. As a result, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

If you’re not already disgusted enough, reasons #11 through #20 can be found here.