4 ms·

Why the state feels a need to have a surplus of 31 billion when most of it's residents are struggling is entirely beyond me. I wish California could attract go

Why the state feels a need to have a surplus of 31 billion when most of it's residents are struggling is entirely beyond me. I wish California could attract governors who have no presidential ambitions.

pm90 5y ago
Or just progressive governors instead of centrist ones. There’s a lot of political talent in the state but also a lot of rich, powerful people who want to preserve the status quo.
mywittyname 5y ago
> I wish California could attract governors who have no presidential ambitions. Like the one you had who was constitutionally prohibited from being president?
TameAntelope 5y ago
Are most of its residents "struggling"? What is the definition of "struggling" you're using here?
swatcoder 5y ago
I don't follow. California is a industrious state with a diverse portfolio of large industries: from agriculture, resource extraction, entertainment, aerospace, defense, tech, real estate speculation, etc. Depending on how the market moves for those industries, the state can easily end up with a big surplus or big deficit in any given year. Surpluses and deficits have almost no inertia and aren't very meaningful on their own. There's naive political pressure to react to them immediately (everybody wants a slice of the surplus; everybody wants to use a deficit to undermine governing party candidate) but it's not responsible governance. If anything, I'd expect politically ambitious governors to take the bait and spend surpluses immediately on programs or tax cuts that win them attention, which sounds like the opposite of what you're saying.
ravenstine 5y ago
Sacramento has done an astounding job at selling its image to the population. Though I think part of it does come from the psychology of good weather all year. If it's always sunny and there's palm trees everywhere, rather than cold and rainy all the time, aren't you gonna be less interested in politics and more so in just chilling out? If California's climate was harsher, I believe the hogs would have been slaughtered years ago.
thehappypm 5y ago
Isn’t that ~$1000 per resident? Cut the income tax by ~1% and that vanishes

pm90 5y ago

Or just progressive governors instead of centrist ones. There’s a lot of political talent in the state but also a lot of rich, powerful people who want to preserve the status quo.

mywittyname 5y ago

> I wish California could attract governors who have no presidential ambitions. Like the one you had who was constitutionally prohibited from being president?

TameAntelope 5y ago

Are most of its residents "struggling"? What is the definition of "struggling" you're using here?

swatcoder 5y ago

I don't follow. California is a industrious state with a diverse portfolio of large industries: from agriculture, resource extraction, entertainment, aerospace, defense, tech, real estate speculation, etc. Depending on how the market moves for those industries, the state can easily end up with a big surplus or big deficit in any given year. Surpluses and deficits have almost no inertia and aren't very meaningful on their own. There's naive political pressure to react to them immediately (everybody wants a slice of the surplus; everybody wants to use a deficit to undermine governing party candidate) but it's not responsible governance. If anything, I'd expect politically ambitious governors to take the bait and spend surpluses immediately on programs or tax cuts that win them attention, which sounds like the opposite of what you're saying.

ravenstine 5y ago

Sacramento has done an astounding job at selling its image to the population. Though I think part of it does come from the psychology of good weather all year. If it's always sunny and there's palm trees everywhere, rather than cold and rainy all the time, aren't you gonna be less interested in politics and more so in just chilling out? If California's climate was harsher, I believe the hogs would have been slaughtered years ago.

thehappypm 5y ago

Isn’t that ~$1000 per resident? Cut the income tax by ~1% and that vanishes