California: We are fucked

[purplkat]

God, I'm feeling chatty, lately.

Really, I kinda need to vent. I realized that after I spent god knows how long practically yelling on the phone to nickel -- not because I was remotely mad at him, but because I was mad at my state, and my state government, over the budget fiasco. Specifically, I'm mad about what they're cutting. And you should be, too.



Before we begin with the screaming, let's look at some of the things that the administration is talking about cutting:

• Cutting Medi-Cal (medical care for the poor)
• Cutting the Healthy Families program, leaving over 200,000 kids without health care
• Cutting child welfare programs (investigation into child abuse and foster care monitoring).
• Increasing class sizes and shortening the school year
• Cutting Cal-grants, which help people afford college

Now let's look at what ISN'T on the table:

• Repealing Prop 13
• Imposing a hazard tax on people who insist on living in fire and floodprone areas, to help pay for all of the firefighters and rescue operations that the state gets stuck mounting when, inevitably, these people are in trouble.
• Using increased tolls and more toll booths to pay for road repairs and public transportation.
• Raising taxes of any sort

There's a good reason why the poor are going to bear the brunt of this crisis: The poor do not get out and vote. There are a -lot- more poor people in this state than rich, and if they all turned up at the polls, you can bet that politicians would be falling over themselves to provide aid. But they don't, in general, make themselves a force to be reckoned with to the extent that they can combat the steady voting habits of the middle class boomers, and the deep pockets of the rich.

This entire crisis was caused, 100%, by prop 13.

For those who don't know, prop 13, passed in 1978, effectively freezes property taxes to whatever the assessed value of the house was when you bought it. (They can go up a maximum of 1% a year, and even then, their assesed value is not allowed to increase more than 2% a year, so that 1% isn't gonna happen much.) This caused a huge, huge dip in revenue for communities. So as a result of this, the sorts of things that would normally be financed by the communities, like education, were financed by the state, which didn't have any additional revenue to cover that. Also, because the money was coming in from a place that didn't know what was going on in the individual communities, it wasn't spent nearly as wisely. Prop 13 also contained language requiring a 2/3 majority in the senate and assembly in order to raise taxes, which, as you can probably guess, almost never happens.

Prop 13 vastly favors the boomers over the younger generation. The boomers have been in their houses forever, seeing their property taxes staying low as real estate values in the state have skyrocketed. Younger people, just starting out, with jobs that do not pay as well and young families to take care of, are stuck paying higher tax rates.

Only the wealthy own houses out in those wildfire-prone grasslands (hell, the poor tend to not own houses at all), and the wealthy do a hell of a lot more driving than the poor, who usually rely on public transportation. And of course, raising taxes is much more detrimental to the rich than to the poor, since the poor don't have to pay income tax, since they hardly make any money.

... But what people don't realize, the rich and the boomers, is that they're better off with Prop 13 going away and their taxes going up than with what is going to happen to the state now. Here are some examples:

Medical cuts. When they have that heart attack...

• They won't get good care in the emergency rooms, which will be overcrowded by the poor, who, lacking insurance, won't see docturs until their health problems become emergencies.
• Their care will be much worse, as hospitals, wrestling with more and more unpaid medical bills, will have to cut nursing staff, and cut other corners, so they'll have less of a chance of surviving that heart attack.
• And if they do, it will be more expensive, as insurance premiums will skyrocket, and coverage will lessen, due to increased medical costs.

What about their kids and grandkids?

• All the pedophiles not caught due to less funding to look into molestation and oversee foster care? Free to roam about, threats to children everywhere.
• Their classes, yes even in the suburban neighborhoods, will be overcrowded, the teachers overworked, and the materials and funding lessened. Private schools are an option, except those will get more expensive due to the wealthy all putting their kids and grandkids in them.
• And when they're ready for college, good luck getting into a state school, as slashed funding means slashed enrollment.
• It also means increases in tuition.
• Good luck getting into Harvard, too, since they'll know how short the school year here is, and how bad the school system is.

What about everyday life?

• Disease rates will skyrocket, and some diseases that have been all but eliminated will be back thanks to decreased vaccinations.
• Crime will skyrocket, as people, deprived of their safety net, take what they need.
• Homeless rates will skyrocket, which, as we all know, is -so- unattractive.
• The burden of the poor in our state will increase, as people are unable to attend college and are thus forced to repeat the cycle of poverty.
• There will be riots, driven by general deprivation and rage at the social injustice.

In the end, I think that the rich will find that the costs of these measures far outweigh the costs of the alternatives. And you and I, no matter our ages or income levels, will suffer with them. But you know what? The people get exactly the kind of government that they deserve. Here in California, we, blinded by our greed, thinking that the magic money fairy has been providing us with our law enforcement, our roads, and our schools with money she pulled out of our butt, are no exception.

So we're fucked, and fuck us.