William Voegli contrasts the models that have been used to govern California: high taxes and higher benefits with Texas's model: low taxes and lower benefits. Basically, it is the contrast between liberal and conservative policies. So which has been more successful?
It's not surprising, then, that there's an intense debate over which model is more admirable and sustainable. What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit/low-tax package not only succeeds on its own terms but also according to the criteria used to defend its opposite. In other words, the superior public goods that supposedly justify the high taxes just aren't being delivered.Under one measure, people are voting with their feet as there is more out-migration from California to other states and in-migration from other states to Texas.
California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau's latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas: $10,070 per person compared with $6,858. Only three states and the District of Columbia saw higher per capita government outlays than California, while those expenditures in Texas were lower than in all but seven states. California ranked 10th in overall taxes levied by state and local governments, on a per capita basis, while Texas, one of only seven states with no individual income tax, was 38th.
But California is also losing when contrasted on the delivery of public policies....
Betsy Newmark and William Voegli both note that where California does supercede the other 49 states (besides the growing season, the weather, and the scenery, which is really lovely) is in the size of the taxpayer's burden and the number of government employees the taxpayers support.
Unfortunately, the only reason California hasn't gone broke yet is that it's being supported by government subsidies from Washington. D.C. basically needs to underwrite California and prop up its failing economy because the California model of government is Washington's model. Higher taxes, more bureaucracies, more government intervention, and an increasingly bloated, top-heavy political class is exactly what the politicians in D.C. want to see. It's not sustainable, but they can't let California fail because they don't want you to see the evidence of that unsustainable reality.
Especially now, when Pelosi is trying to palm off her own version of the health care plan which is so expensive that it's making even the AP swallow hard and try telling the truth instead of the Democrat talking points. Pelosi looked at the cameras and without blinking claimed her bill would cost 894 billion. But the AP looked harder:
The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan.
While the Congressional Budget Office has put the cost of expanding coverage in the legislation at roughly $1 trillion, Democrats added billions more on higher spending for public health, a reinsurance program to hold down retiree health costs, payments for preventive services and more.
Many of the additions are designed to improve benefits or ease access to coverage in government programs. The officials who provided overall cost estimates did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them.
And Republicans found that Pelosi created over a hundred new bureaucracies in her $120,000,000,000 bill. Read more here.
California, Pelosi's homestate, is a failing model, and now she's trying to give us more of it in gag inducing portions. Pin It
