7 ms·

Philip Greenspun Visits Berkeley

91 points by rglovejoy 17y ago

timr 17y ago
"I pointed out that California collects a larger percentage of its citizens’ income than all but five other states (10.5 percent; source). Shouldn’t it be possible to run the state on 10.5 percent of income? Despite the fact that all of my interlocutors had university educations, sometimes including PhDs, all were so deeply invested in the idea that their insolvent state government is starved for revenue that they were unable to parse the information." Perhaps they were just stunned that someone with a PhD doesn't know that income tax isn't the whole story? California state revenue, 2009: $88 Billion (source: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pd..., chart SUM-01) California population: 36.8 million (July, 2008; source: US Census) CA Revenue per capita: $2391.30 Texas state revenue, 2009: $78 Billion (source: http://www.cpa.state.tx.us/taxbud/bre2008/BRE_2008-09.pdf http://www.cpa.state.tx.us/taxbud/bre2008/BRE_2008-09.pdf, page 3) Texas population: 24.3 million (July, 2008; source: US Census) TX Revenue per capita: $3209.88 "Conservative" Texas takes in almost a thousand bucks more per person in taxes and fees than does "liberal" California. UPDATE: I made a mistake. The numbers for Texas are reported on a biennial basis, whereas for California, they're reported on an annual basis. See my reply to cwan below for details. When you get the annual numbers from the Texas budget summary, they appear to take in about 32% less per capita than California.
- houseabsolute 17y ago
  I'm afraid you are incorrect. The link you put for California is just the general fund, which does not include special funds, bond funds, or federal funds like the Texas one does. After you add those in, California's count is $208 billion in 2008-2009. See this for more: http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/documents/CHART-B.pdf http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/docu... Edit: I should say though, right on for pointing out the material issue. You got the meat of it right in that it's overall spending that matters, not just income tax. You "showed your work" correctly, you just plugged in the wrong numbers. That means you get an 8/10 from me. Edit2: I read the parent's post too quickly in my haste to make a point. However, neither of us considered the contribution of local taxes, as discussed below. I believe that that definitively answers the question of which state spends more per capita.
  - emmett 17y ago
    And after you add them in for Texas, it's $158 billion. You're comparing apples and oranges. Additionally, timr was correct to restrict his numbers to state tax revenue, which is the total under discussion. If you do the math, it comes out to $6,500 per person in Teaxs, and $5,600 per person in California. So even considering the other sources of revenue (though it makes no sense to do so in this context), timr's point is still correct.
    - houseabsolute 17y ago
      You're right, I misread the parent's post. It's unclear to me at this point whether the sums actually account for the same basket of incomes, but even if they do you have to admit that after this adjustment timr's point is about 50% less correct than it was before.
    - cwan 17y ago
      Apparently still not true. Have a look here (California State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $4015; State+Local: $9050 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.htm... and here (Texas State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $2980; State+Local: $7041 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.htm... These tie better back to the US Census numbers (which are only as at 2004 but are on an apples-apples basis): http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html The problem is that states do not report revenues in the same ways and some are clearly more creative than others.
      - timr 17y ago
        Yes, there's a problem with my original post; no, it's not related to federal transfers -- it's correct to exclude them from the calculation. The problem is that Texas (bizarrely) allocates its budget on a biennial basis. I didn't read the documents closely enough, and had assumed that 2009-2010 meant fiscal 2009-2010. Oops. From the same Texas source, table A-12, the estimated total state revenue is $39.3 Bn for fiscal 2009. Thus, the per-capita revenue numbers for fiscal 2009 would be $1,617.30, versus $2,391 for California. So, I'm wrong. Texas takes in about 32% less per capita than California.
- holygoat 17y ago
  That doesn't address his point: "Shouldn’t it be possible to run the state on 10.5 percent of income?". I think it most certainly should. As a human being I'm responsible for managing my own budget: if I spend more than I earn, I suffer the consequences. Government, including California's, doesn't seem to view reducing outgoings as a possibility, and thus is obsessed with increasing incomings. One of its approaches to doing so has been to maintain a high tax rate.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - krakensden 17y ago
    Aren't they required by the California constitution to maintain certain percentages of spending for education? Among other things? You have to weigh reduced spending with the consequences of that, and sometimes maybe running a deficit is better. That's not to paint too rosy a picture- California is doing plenty of absurd things with its money, but much of that is mandated by the propositions, not a choice by the legislature (Three strikes means more, unavoidable, prison expenses, the high speed rail bond fiasco, the extravagant research bonds that inevitably get approved and squandered).
- pauldino 17y ago
  I could be reading this wrong but I believe the California figure is for a single year (fiscal year 2009-2010) while the Texas figure covers two years (the 2008-2009 biennial).
  - emmett 17y ago
    I believe you are correct! See http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/texas-budget-overview http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/texas-budget-overview
    - krakensden 17y ago
      The chart says 85.7 billion in 2008, 82.1 billion in 2009, and the text claims $167 for the 2008-2009 biennial. That's slightly higher than the per-year figure in the original comment: I don't think he's correct.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- cwan 17y ago
  I'm guessing there's something seriously different on the accounting between states (2004 Census - comparison between states): http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html Shows California State's per capita consumption/expense at $6,397.23 / $5,686.48 For Texas State it's $4,030.37 / $3,441.53 Granted, it's 2004 numbers but at least it's more certain the numbers are being compared on the same basis.
dasht 17y ago
As one small point, Greenspun waxes eloquent about the "big government" stupidity of the Berkeley Tool Lending Library. Well, what is the Berkeley Tool Lending Library? It's a couple of sheds and some low-hours guys there taking care of the equipment. We got wheelbarrows, we got various small power tools, we got rotor tillers, we got tree pruning equipment, some ladders, etc. Lots of people benefit but, by eye, I'd say the main beneficiaries are homeowners who otherwise would have to buy under-used equipment from Home Depot or hire a contractor. The budget is freaking small. The social benefits (including bottom-line contribution to the local economy) is freaking huge. He's talking through his hat on that point, at the very least.
- rglovejoy 17y ago
  What happens when someone gets injured or killed because he or she was improperly using a tool from the tool lending library? What if the low-hours guys you mentioned were cutting corners on the tools' upkeep? Or is this really an issue? I don't think that Philip is opposed to the idea of a tool lending library, he is merely questioning why the City of Berkeley needs to be running it. Why can't a group of citizens form a cooperative to do this, instead of involving the city government?
  - ojbyrne 17y ago
    Except that he never mentioned anything about the budget of the City of Berkeley, he just lumped them in with "big government."
  - count 17y ago
    The city government IS a cooperative formed by the citizens of the City of Berkeley.
    - frognibble 17y ago
      A cooperative is a group of people united voluntarily. A city is not voluntary (yeah, you can move. but it's not always possible or convenient until we have seasteading).
krakensden 17y ago
I've never seen someone so bitter about California weather.
lutorm 17y ago
About Berkeley's poverty rate, it doesn't seem like he considered that just like rich people can move to other states, poor people can move too. Maybe the poverty rate of Berkeley is high precisely because it's better to be poor in Berkeley than in Oakland or Emeryville? When a city cuts down on social services, they are just externalizing the costs onto neighboring communities. I know that Santa Cruz was trying to get rid of its reputation as "a good place to be homeless in" exactly because homeless people from all over the Bay Area came there.
- jdvolz 17y ago
  This is exactly why the population of homeless people is so high. It's always high near a university, and it's especially high in a city where the homeless are borderline actively encouraged - the city even fought the university on tearing down a park to build more student housing (note: university owns the land) because too many people were living in it.
- e40 17y ago
  Anyone who has lived in Berkeley/Oakland (right next to each other, for those that don't know) for any length of time will know what you say is completely true. Berkeley is far friendlier to homeless people.
lutorm 17y ago
I've always thought Greenspun's articles were interesting and well written, so I'm disappointed to see such a transparently ideological and sarcastic article.
- pchristensen 17y ago
  Really? It seems like at least 4 out of every 10 Greenspun posts are transparently ideological and sarcastic.
  - lutorm 17y ago
    Maybe it's because I've mostly read the ones about flying?
    - pchristensen 17y ago
      True, I subscribe to his blog and it's about 40% sarcastic ideology, 30% aviation, and 30% commentary and book reviews. Usually only articles from the 3rd category get posted here.
wandermatt 17y ago
His anecdote about Macintosh repair costs is excellent. Case closed, Californians, you should have gotten Dells.
gabrielroth 17y ago
Suggested subhed: 'Foolish Californians fail to recognize obvious superiority of writer's free-market views, invite him to dine with lesbians.'
tmsh 17y ago
One sentiment people in Berkeley would seem to share, however, is that they'd rather be naive about helping people than naive about being critical.
- dschobel 17y ago
  The argument is that the mismanaged spending and high taxation rate are actually pernicious to the community's welfare, this isn't just a matter of cynical reflex saying "look at those do-gooders thinking they're making a difference".
  - tmsh 17y ago
    But the argument hints that they are missing the big picture by, as you claim, 'mismanaged spending and [a] high taxation rate'. My point is that it's better to miss the big picture while helping people, than to miss the big picture while criticizing people. Greenspun visits Berkeley for maybe 3 or 4 days and he's now quite sure that people there have it wrong? He mentions Prop 13 in passing, as something that everyone in the East Bay keeps on talking about. Some might argue it's a much bigger issue than he realizes. Far from over-taxation being a problem, it would be that California has not taxed based on real property values for decades. I.e., Greenspun has side-stepped a large problem in the bigger picture by being hyper-critical. Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I was just getting a little tired of Greenspun's hints that there is a problem with being naive about 'doing good' -- as you mention (quite well said, that is sort of how I read Greenspun's attitude). My point was to hint that there is also a problem in taking one's 'cynical reflex' too seriously. After all, these actions, at a certain level, are really kind of similar movements. Hyper-taxation and hyper-criticism both attempt to optimize at the wrong time, too impatiently. However, in the former case, at least someone gets helped (though arguably by being critical Greenspun is helping eventually). At any rate, I don't think what he says is completely incorrect. There's just a flip side to it. E.g., in any sufficiently large Lisp program, a lot of time is spent in FFI.
- jacoblyles 17y ago
  There's an old saying about what they pave the road to hell with.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
100k 17y ago
I think it's clear that the problem with California is not the taxation rate (which after all at 10.5% is not much higher than the national average of 9.7% and ranks only 6th) but rather that the entire state government is incredibly broken. A big portion of the state's revenues are constitutionally mandated to go to certain programs via the ridiculously easy referendum process. Meanwhile, Proposition 13 requires a 2/3rds majority vote to pass any sort of budget, and a hardened radical element in the Assembly would rather see the state go down in flames than raise taxes (even when coupled with spending cuts). I think the very short term limits (3 terms) for assembly members feeds this tendency because they don't have enough time to get good at legislating and compromising before being kicked out of office. At the same time the (vast majority) Democrats in the assembly don't want massive spending cuts -- but you must admit they have the majority! A 2/3rd requirement to pass a budget is incredibly undemocratic. The result is unrestricted borrowing and inevitable collapse.
jacoblyles 17y ago
Do California residents get a greater than average amount of services for all their taxes?
- artsrc 17y ago
  That is an interesting question, but I don't think it is the right one. California can innovate and do better. Where there is waste it may be worth eliminating, even if it is a below average amount of waste. If you are talking about federal taxes, then the answer is certainly yes. Californian's pay a lot more in federal taxes than they receive in services from the federal government relative to other states. This may be related to the fact that they have less federal senate votes per resident than most states. Does incarcerating someone count as a service? California has a large prison population. I would argue that significantly as a result of federal drug policies. The article was pretty light on the detail of where the money goes.
iamelgringo 17y ago
Philip is so right. The Bay area stinks. Every body should move to Texas or to Boston where life is so much better. Real estate prices are way too high. The politics here are way to liberal. The government is way out of touch with what's realistic. The whole state is going to collapse any day underneath its own weight. </looks through San Jose real estate listings>
tallpapab 17y ago
Move over Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. The right has a new hero and it's ... Phil Greenspun? Who knew!? Now Phil is surely much smarter than I. No argument there. I would never have the confidence to go to Harvard and try to straighten out the PhDs there about how Massachusetts should be run. They would call me names like Carpetbagger and such. Where does Phil get his 10.5% tax rate number? From the Tax Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation. Where do they get their numbers? It's vague. Does it include sales tax and workman's comp etc.? The same foundation complains about California Corporate tax burden being the highest in the nation at an outrageous 8.3%. Hmmm. 8.3 < 10.5. And don't give me any of that trickle down baloney about not taxing corporations. Pensions are a great boogie man of the right wing. They cost so much. It's much cheaper to stop paying those folks. If they haven't amassed fortune enough to retire using that huge 40k salary by now, tough luck. I had better stop now before I get all worked up. After all I'm just a dumb old computer programmer who doesn't know much about economics. Phil's a s m a r t old computer programmer ... Sigh. I'm actually a bit of a fan of Phil's. It's just that the harsh conservative position is hard for an unemployed 50+ programmer to swallow these days. I don't have a "fat" pension. When I go for interviews I rarely see anyone over 40. Good luck to you all, and don't look down on us "over the hill" workers. Just look away.
ytinas 17y ago
"None could accept the idea that their state had a spending problem rather than a revenue problem" "For roughly 60 years, Berkeley has offered more services to its residents than virtually any other city in the U.S." This should point out to him his mistake, I would think. He is assuming that the correct answer is to lower taxes (or keep them the same) and spend less. But this isn't a correct (or wrong) answer, it is one option. Maybe people in California would rather pay higher taxes and get more services. It works pretty well for a lot of European countries.

91 points by rglovejoy 17y ago

timr 17y ago

"I pointed out that California collects a larger percentage of its citizens’ income than all but five other states (10.5 percent; source). Shouldn’t it be possible to run the state on 10.5 percent of income? Despite the fact that all of my interlocutors had university educations, sometimes including PhDs, all were so deeply invested in the idea that their insolvent state government is starved for revenue that they were unable to parse the information." Perhaps they were just stunned that someone with a PhD doesn't know that income tax isn't the whole story? California state revenue, 2009: $88 Billion (source: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pd..., chart SUM-01) California population: 36.8 million (July, 2008; source: US Census) CA Revenue per capita: $2391.30 Texas state revenue, 2009: $78 Billion (source: http://www.cpa.state.tx.us/taxbud/bre2008/BRE_2008-09.pdf http://www.cpa.state.tx.us/taxbud/bre2008/BRE_2008-09.pdf, page 3) Texas population: 24.3 million (July, 2008; source: US Census) TX Revenue per capita: $3209.88 "Conservative" Texas takes in almost a thousand bucks more per person in taxes and fees than does "liberal" California. UPDATE: I made a mistake. The numbers for Texas are reported on a biennial basis, whereas for California, they're reported on an annual basis. See my reply to cwan below for details. When you get the annual numbers from the Texas budget summary, they appear to take in about 32% less per capita than California.

houseabsolute 17y ago
I'm afraid you are incorrect. The link you put for California is just the general fund, which does not include special funds, bond funds, or federal funds like the Texas one does. After you add those in, California's count is $208 billion in 2008-2009. See this for more: http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/documents/CHART-B.pdf http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/information/docu... Edit: I should say though, right on for pointing out the material issue. You got the meat of it right in that it's overall spending that matters, not just income tax. You "showed your work" correctly, you just plugged in the wrong numbers. That means you get an 8/10 from me. Edit2: I read the parent's post too quickly in my haste to make a point. However, neither of us considered the contribution of local taxes, as discussed below. I believe that that definitively answers the question of which state spends more per capita.
- emmett 17y ago
  And after you add them in for Texas, it's $158 billion. You're comparing apples and oranges. Additionally, timr was correct to restrict his numbers to state tax revenue, which is the total under discussion. If you do the math, it comes out to $6,500 per person in Teaxs, and $5,600 per person in California. So even considering the other sources of revenue (though it makes no sense to do so in this context), timr's point is still correct.
  - houseabsolute 17y ago
    You're right, I misread the parent's post. It's unclear to me at this point whether the sums actually account for the same basket of incomes, but even if they do you have to admit that after this adjustment timr's point is about 50% less correct than it was before.
  - cwan 17y ago
    Apparently still not true. Have a look here (California State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $4015; State+Local: $9050 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/CA_per_capita_revenue.htm... and here (Texas State Per Capita Revenue numbers) 2010E - State: $2980; State+Local: $7041 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.html http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/TX_per_capita_revenue.htm... These tie better back to the US Census numbers (which are only as at 2004 but are on an apples-apples basis): http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html The problem is that states do not report revenues in the same ways and some are clearly more creative than others.
    - timr 17y ago
      Yes, there's a problem with my original post; no, it's not related to federal transfers -- it's correct to exclude them from the calculation. The problem is that Texas (bizarrely) allocates its budget on a biennial basis. I didn't read the documents closely enough, and had assumed that 2009-2010 meant fiscal 2009-2010. Oops. From the same Texas source, table A-12, the estimated total state revenue is $39.3 Bn for fiscal 2009. Thus, the per-capita revenue numbers for fiscal 2009 would be $1,617.30, versus $2,391 for California. So, I'm wrong. Texas takes in about 32% less per capita than California.
holygoat 17y ago
That doesn't address his point: "Shouldn’t it be possible to run the state on 10.5 percent of income?". I think it most certainly should. As a human being I'm responsible for managing my own budget: if I spend more than I earn, I suffer the consequences. Government, including California's, doesn't seem to view reducing outgoings as a possibility, and thus is obsessed with increasing incomings. One of its approaches to doing so has been to maintain a high tax rate.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- krakensden 17y ago
  Aren't they required by the California constitution to maintain certain percentages of spending for education? Among other things? You have to weigh reduced spending with the consequences of that, and sometimes maybe running a deficit is better. That's not to paint too rosy a picture- California is doing plenty of absurd things with its money, but much of that is mandated by the propositions, not a choice by the legislature (Three strikes means more, unavoidable, prison expenses, the high speed rail bond fiasco, the extravagant research bonds that inevitably get approved and squandered).
pauldino 17y ago
I could be reading this wrong but I believe the California figure is for a single year (fiscal year 2009-2010) while the Texas figure covers two years (the 2008-2009 biennial).
- emmett 17y ago
  I believe you are correct! See http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/texas-budget-overview http://www.texasbudgetsource.com/texas-budget-overview
  - krakensden 17y ago
    The chart says 85.7 billion in 2008, 82.1 billion in 2009, and the text claims $167 for the 2008-2009 biennial. That's slightly higher than the per-year figure in the original comment: I don't think he's correct.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
cwan 17y ago
I'm guessing there's something seriously different on the accounting between states (2004 Census - comparison between states): http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html http://www.census.gov/govs/state/04rank.html Shows California State's per capita consumption/expense at $6,397.23 / $5,686.48 For Texas State it's $4,030.37 / $3,441.53 Granted, it's 2004 numbers but at least it's more certain the numbers are being compared on the same basis.

dasht 17y ago

As one small point, Greenspun waxes eloquent about the "big government" stupidity of the Berkeley Tool Lending Library. Well, what is the Berkeley Tool Lending Library? It's a couple of sheds and some low-hours guys there taking care of the equipment. We got wheelbarrows, we got various small power tools, we got rotor tillers, we got tree pruning equipment, some ladders, etc. Lots of people benefit but, by eye, I'd say the main beneficiaries are homeowners who otherwise would have to buy under-used equipment from Home Depot or hire a contractor. The budget is freaking small. The social benefits (including bottom-line contribution to the local economy) is freaking huge. He's talking through his hat on that point, at the very least.

rglovejoy 17y ago
What happens when someone gets injured or killed because he or she was improperly using a tool from the tool lending library? What if the low-hours guys you mentioned were cutting corners on the tools' upkeep? Or is this really an issue? I don't think that Philip is opposed to the idea of a tool lending library, he is merely questioning why the City of Berkeley needs to be running it. Why can't a group of citizens form a cooperative to do this, instead of involving the city government?
- ojbyrne 17y ago
  Except that he never mentioned anything about the budget of the City of Berkeley, he just lumped them in with "big government."
- count 17y ago
  The city government IS a cooperative formed by the citizens of the City of Berkeley.
  - frognibble 17y ago
    A cooperative is a group of people united voluntarily. A city is not voluntary (yeah, you can move. but it's not always possible or convenient until we have seasteading).

krakensden 17y ago

I've never seen someone so bitter about California weather.

lutorm 17y ago

About Berkeley's poverty rate, it doesn't seem like he considered that just like rich people can move to other states, poor people can move too. Maybe the poverty rate of Berkeley is high precisely because it's better to be poor in Berkeley than in Oakland or Emeryville? When a city cuts down on social services, they are just externalizing the costs onto neighboring communities. I know that Santa Cruz was trying to get rid of its reputation as "a good place to be homeless in" exactly because homeless people from all over the Bay Area came there.

jdvolz 17y ago
This is exactly why the population of homeless people is so high. It's always high near a university, and it's especially high in a city where the homeless are borderline actively encouraged - the city even fought the university on tearing down a park to build more student housing (note: university owns the land) because too many people were living in it.
e40 17y ago
Anyone who has lived in Berkeley/Oakland (right next to each other, for those that don't know) for any length of time will know what you say is completely true. Berkeley is far friendlier to homeless people.

lutorm 17y ago

I've always thought Greenspun's articles were interesting and well written, so I'm disappointed to see such a transparently ideological and sarcastic article.

pchristensen 17y ago
Really? It seems like at least 4 out of every 10 Greenspun posts are transparently ideological and sarcastic.
- lutorm 17y ago
  Maybe it's because I've mostly read the ones about flying?
  - pchristensen 17y ago
    True, I subscribe to his blog and it's about 40% sarcastic ideology, 30% aviation, and 30% commentary and book reviews. Usually only articles from the 3rd category get posted here.

wandermatt 17y ago

His anecdote about Macintosh repair costs is excellent. Case closed, Californians, you should have gotten Dells.

gabrielroth 17y ago

Suggested subhed: 'Foolish Californians fail to recognize obvious superiority of writer's free-market views, invite him to dine with lesbians.'

tmsh 17y ago

One sentiment people in Berkeley would seem to share, however, is that they'd rather be naive about helping people than naive about being critical.

dschobel 17y ago
The argument is that the mismanaged spending and high taxation rate are actually pernicious to the community's welfare, this isn't just a matter of cynical reflex saying "look at those do-gooders thinking they're making a difference".
- tmsh 17y ago
  But the argument hints that they are missing the big picture by, as you claim, 'mismanaged spending and [a] high taxation rate'. My point is that it's better to miss the big picture while helping people, than to miss the big picture while criticizing people. Greenspun visits Berkeley for maybe 3 or 4 days and he's now quite sure that people there have it wrong? He mentions Prop 13 in passing, as something that everyone in the East Bay keeps on talking about. Some might argue it's a much bigger issue than he realizes. Far from over-taxation being a problem, it would be that California has not taxed based on real property values for decades. I.e., Greenspun has side-stepped a large problem in the bigger picture by being hyper-critical. Perhaps I'm overreacting, but I was just getting a little tired of Greenspun's hints that there is a problem with being naive about 'doing good' -- as you mention (quite well said, that is sort of how I read Greenspun's attitude). My point was to hint that there is also a problem in taking one's 'cynical reflex' too seriously. After all, these actions, at a certain level, are really kind of similar movements. Hyper-taxation and hyper-criticism both attempt to optimize at the wrong time, too impatiently. However, in the former case, at least someone gets helped (though arguably by being critical Greenspun is helping eventually). At any rate, I don't think what he says is completely incorrect. There's just a flip side to it. E.g., in any sufficiently large Lisp program, a lot of time is spent in FFI.
jacoblyles 17y ago
There's an old saying about what they pave the road to hell with.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

100k 17y ago

I think it's clear that the problem with California is not the taxation rate (which after all at 10.5% is not much higher than the national average of 9.7% and ranks only 6th) but rather that the entire state government is incredibly broken. A big portion of the state's revenues are constitutionally mandated to go to certain programs via the ridiculously easy referendum process. Meanwhile, Proposition 13 requires a 2/3rds majority vote to pass any sort of budget, and a hardened radical element in the Assembly would rather see the state go down in flames than raise taxes (even when coupled with spending cuts). I think the very short term limits (3 terms) for assembly members feeds this tendency because they don't have enough time to get good at legislating and compromising before being kicked out of office. At the same time the (vast majority) Democrats in the assembly don't want massive spending cuts -- but you must admit they have the majority! A 2/3rd requirement to pass a budget is incredibly undemocratic. The result is unrestricted borrowing and inevitable collapse.

jacoblyles 17y ago

Do California residents get a greater than average amount of services for all their taxes?

artsrc 17y ago
That is an interesting question, but I don't think it is the right one. California can innovate and do better. Where there is waste it may be worth eliminating, even if it is a below average amount of waste. If you are talking about federal taxes, then the answer is certainly yes. Californian's pay a lot more in federal taxes than they receive in services from the federal government relative to other states. This may be related to the fact that they have less federal senate votes per resident than most states. Does incarcerating someone count as a service? California has a large prison population. I would argue that significantly as a result of federal drug policies. The article was pretty light on the detail of where the money goes.

iamelgringo 17y ago

Philip is so right. The Bay area stinks. Every body should move to Texas or to Boston where life is so much better. Real estate prices are way too high. The politics here are way to liberal. The government is way out of touch with what's realistic. The whole state is going to collapse any day underneath its own weight. </looks through San Jose real estate listings>

tallpapab 17y ago

Move over Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. The right has a new hero and it's ... Phil Greenspun? Who knew!? Now Phil is surely much smarter than I. No argument there. I would never have the confidence to go to Harvard and try to straighten out the PhDs there about how Massachusetts should be run. They would call me names like Carpetbagger and such. Where does Phil get his 10.5% tax rate number? From the Tax Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation. Where do they get their numbers? It's vague. Does it include sales tax and workman's comp etc.? The same foundation complains about California Corporate tax burden being the highest in the nation at an outrageous 8.3%. Hmmm. 8.3 < 10.5. And don't give me any of that trickle down baloney about not taxing corporations. Pensions are a great boogie man of the right wing. They cost so much. It's much cheaper to stop paying those folks. If they haven't amassed fortune enough to retire using that huge 40k salary by now, tough luck. I had better stop now before I get all worked up. After all I'm just a dumb old computer programmer who doesn't know much about economics. Phil's a s m a r t old computer programmer ... Sigh. I'm actually a bit of a fan of Phil's. It's just that the harsh conservative position is hard for an unemployed 50+ programmer to swallow these days. I don't have a "fat" pension. When I go for interviews I rarely see anyone over 40. Good luck to you all, and don't look down on us "over the hill" workers. Just look away.

ytinas 17y ago

"None could accept the idea that their state had a spending problem rather than a revenue problem" "For roughly 60 years, Berkeley has offered more services to its residents than virtually any other city in the U.S." This should point out to him his mistake, I would think. He is assuming that the correct answer is to lower taxes (or keep them the same) and spend less. But this isn't a correct (or wrong) answer, it is one option. Maybe people in California would rather pay higher taxes and get more services. It works pretty well for a lot of European countries.