The Golden State with its beautiful beaches from Malibu to San Diego that gave rise to the surfing culture of “catch a wave” and the body building craze of Venice Beach in Los Angeles. The magnificent mountain ranges of the Sierras beckon people from around the world to first class snow skiing. National parks and campgrounds boast majestic lakes of all types for fishing and boating pleasure. California truly earned the nickname “The Golden State” as people migrated west to work in the fields and orchards of the “breadbasket of the world,” carving out a new life of prosperity for themselves and their families.
Life has been good for California since the gold rush of 1849 when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the foothills east of Sacramento. In fact the phrase “California Dreaming” is the psychological motivation to gain fast wealth or fame in a new land. As a result of the California Gold Rush after 1849, California’s name became indelibly connected with the Gold Rush, and fast success in a new world became known as the “California Dream.” That dream resulted in wealth generated by industries ranging from oil, seaport facilities, aircraft and defense firms, technology, to the entertainment empires that dominated California’s financial system. The state’s finances operated with resulting surplus balance sheets. California’s schools were first rate, their roads the envy of other states; It’s been a place where the ordinary man or woman could realize the “California Dream,” which reflected the American dream, through hard work, thrift and desire.
Somewhere along the way that dream has become a nightmare! Yes, California still has its beautiful surfing beaches, mountains, parks and lakes and highways––that is when they are not polluted by an oil spill or mountains of trash along the sides of the freeways or crumbling from years of political neglect to repair the infrastructure.
Crime is an absolute nightmare with gangs dominating the cities; Gangs like Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a transnational criminal organization dubbed “the most dangerous gang in the world.” The gang was formed in the 80s and has its roots in the fertile gang soil of Los Angeles. “Kill, rape, control” is the motto of MS-13, who actively recruits elementary school students in the inner cities. And it is only one of many, many similar gangs freely operating within California’s borders. So much for safety in the Golden State!
It’s difficult to believe now, but there was a time––through the eras of flower children, bell bottoms and disco––when the Golden State was widely seen as the gold standard on education spending. Class sizes were low, schools were well maintained. Textbooks and other instructional materials were new. Back then, California ranked in the top 10 nationwide in per pupil education spending.
The abundance made an impression on Michael Kirst, now the president of the California State Board of Education, when he moved to California from Virginia in 1969. “There was free summer school for every kid that wanted it,” he said. “I’d never heard of such a thing.” A multitude of factors have caused California’s relative standing in school spending to sink like a gold coin in a swimming pool.
The state now ranks 35th in per pupil spending, according to the latest figures from the US Census Bureau. Factor in cost-of-living considerations and California’s place in the pecking order among all 50 states and the District of Columbia is a dismal 49. That’s ahead of only Nevada and Utah, according to a widely cited annual January report by Education Week. (Per-pupil spending figures from Education Week include state and local funds, but not federal money, or funds for capital improvements. Census figures include federal dollars but also exclude capital outlay.) However, California’s teachers are the fifth highest paid in the nation, says the National Education Association. (Los Angeles Daily News––California Education Spending: 49th In the Nation, July 27, 2014)
In 2014, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced a spectacular improvement in its graduation rate: Fully 77% of students who had come in as 9th graders four years earlier were now going to graduate as seniors. But there was a bit of a trick behind the number: It included only students who attended what are called “comprehensive” high schools. Those who had been transferred to alternative programs, the students most at risk of dropping out, weren’t counted. If they had been factored in, the rate would have been 67%, still good, but not nearly as flashy a number. Here’s another example of a misleading number: In May of this year, the California Department of Education reported a rise in the statewide graduation rate, to 82%. But one reason for that was the cancellation of the high school exit exam, which used to be required for graduation and which students could pass only if they had attained a modicum of understanding of algebra and English skills (Los Angeles Daily News––In the search for better graduation rates, schools are fudging the numbers, Monday, February 20, 2017). So much for the first rate schools California once enjoyed!
One of the reasons the citizens of the Golden State are not enjoying their upward progress is the onerous tax regulations imposed on them. California has among the highest taxes in the nation. For instance, the Property tax: 0.81% average effective rate. Gas tax: 45.39 cents per gallon. Its base sales tax rate of 7.5% is higher than that of any other state, and its top marginal income tax rate of 13.3% is the highest state income tax rate in the country. California Household Income according to the Census ACS 1-year survey, the median household income for California was $64,500 in 2015, the latest figures available. Compared to the median US household income, California median household income is $8,725 higher. 2016 Census ACS data (including 2016 California household income numbers) will be released in September of 2017. Annual income needed to cover all basic household expenses in CA (before taxes) for two adults with three children is $77,497.00 (the Living Wage Calculator created by Amy K. Glasmeier).
That is $77,497.00 each adult for a total of $154,994.00 (before taxes). Factor in the tax structure of California and one sees the reason the good people of the state are not making financial progress; they are actually regressing, and they are angry for good reason. So much for the fine incomes California families once depended on!
And then there is the social welfare, and illegal alien amnesty policy of California’s government in Sacramento, the state’s capital. On the social welfare front, in California a mother with two children under the age of 5 who participates in these major welfare programs – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), housing assistance, home energy assistance, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children – would receive a benefits package worth $30,828 per year. Using a similar measure, Cato found that benefits in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in Denmark to just $1,112 in Romania. The California benefits package is higher than in well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany ($23,257) and even Sweden ($22,111). In fact, California’s welfare system can be more generous than every country included, except Denmark. Moreover, this benefit package doesn’t include Medicaid, which would be worth roughly $4,459 for this household. This brings the example’s total to $35,287.00 annually.
One of the problems with these welfare systems is that they can create situations where participants have little incentive to increase work effort because they would lose most of their earnings through lower benefits or higher taxes, while also having to bear the costs, like transportation, associated with going to work. These people would see little tangible improvement in their standard of living by taking up a job, working more hours or moving up the job ladder. People in these programs are not lazy, but they also are not stupid. Like everyone else, they respond to incentives. If welfare pays better than work, people on welfare will be less likely to work (The Orange County Register––California More Of A Welfare State Than Most Countries In Europe, August 29, 2015).
On the illegal alien amnesty policy front, California gives immigrants here illegally unprecedented rights, benefits, protections like no other state.
It started with in-state tuition. Now driver’s licenses have new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. Next came a new law which would erase the word “alien” from California’s labor code. Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual parts; a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the country illegally.
The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of California citizenship. The changes have occurred with relatively little political rancor as Democratic lawmakers and immigration activists, with diminishing opposition from the GOP, continue to seek new laws and protections. These measures include cracking down on employers withholding pay from low-wage workers and expanding state-subsidized healthcare to adult immigrants without papers.
What is emerging is called “the California package”––an array of policies that touch on nearly every aspect of immigrant life, from healthcare to higher education to protection from federal immigration enforcement agencies. All the while the crimes committed by these illegal aliens continues to soar; the government, headed by Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, looks the other way and offers the cities of California to become “Sanctuary Cities” to shield the illegals from deportation out of the country. So much for the rights of natural California citizens!
“California Dreaming” is the long ago dream that built the state, but is now fading into only a memory of what once was “The Golden State.” Now it has become “California Screaming.” Some citizens are banding into movements to actually secede from California proper and establish the “State of Jefferson” in the Northern California area; While southern California dissidents along with San Francisco and Silicon Valley liberals are pushing for the entire state to secede from the United States and establish “The California Republic,” a nation of its own. Each has its own reason for doing so and each is the exact opposite of the other.
When you come to a nondescript gas station in the northern California town of Redding, you notice the first sign of the breakaway movement: a rack of forest-green sweatshirts bearing a yellow seal marked with a bold black double X. It’s the seal of the “State of Jefferson,” an idea that dates back more than 70 years and is currently being revived by a passionate group of separatists. They are pushing to split from the Golden State and form a new state roughly the size of North Carolina, but with one-fifth of the population. It’s a move that would require approval from both the California Legislature and the US Congress.
There have been more than 200 proposals for the secession of California over the state’s history. The last instance of secession in the United States happened in 1861, when 11 states left the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. These states returned to the Union in 1865 after the Confederacy was defeated in the American Civil War.
The Supreme Court decided in Texas v. White in 1869 that no state had the right to unilaterally leave the Union. Secession would thus require the approval of 38 state legislatures and two-thirds majorities in both the US House of Representatives and Senate to pass a Constitutional amendment, as the Constitution provides no mechanism for state secession. Analysts consider California’s secession improbable.
The fight to create Jefferson is the longest of long shots, a Hail Mary pass made by folks who are sick of being underrepresented in the state legislature and ignored by California’s urban centers. Cut off from the seats of power by geography, alienated by the state’s left-leaning politics and tendency toward regulation, enduring stubbornly high unemployment, facing the decimation of traditional industries such as logging, and harboring few prospects for economic growth. These disaffected citizens, overwhelmingly white and mostly conservative, share many of the concerns about central state overreach as the militia members who recently took control of a wildlife refuge in Oregon. They, however, are committed to a political solution rather than an armed rebellion.
Meanwhile, on the liberal side is a group known as Yes California. Yes California is collecting the 585,407 signatures necessary to place a secessionist question on the 2018 ballot. Its goal is to have California become its own country, separate and apart from the United States.
Their recruiting pitch goes something like this: California, the most populous state with nearly 40 million residents, subsidizes other states at a loss, is burdened by a national trade system, doesn’t get a fair say in presidential elections, is diverse and disagrees with much of the rest of the country on immigration, is far ahead of other states on environmental policy and, for the most part, is diametrically opposed to newly inaugurated President Trump’s positions. Therefore, the argument goes, conditions are perfect for the Golden State to secede.
In the words of one of their most staunch advocates, Sue Hirsch, 46, said she is “ashamed to be an American” in the wake of the presidential election. “I want to be no longer American, but Californian,” said Hirsch, who voted for Hillary Clinton and said she has at least seven professions, including psychic, Uber driver and hypno-transformative masseuse. “I hate what the rest of America has become.”
“California is different from America,” said Marcus Ruiz Evans, one of the movement’s co-founders. “California is hated. It’s not liked. It’s seen as weird.”
Threats to secede from the United States have been a part of American politics almost since the nation was founded. The most serious attempt came before and during the Civil War, when 11 Southern states left to form the Confederacy. All came back into statehood following the war’s end.
Another hurdle would be the US Constitution, which does not provide for state secession. The ardent backers and fervent–at times screaming–rhetoric of each side will continue without either getting their way. It’s been over 150 years since secession was taken off the table by Uncle Sam and the only state that kept its options open was NOT California. Much to the chagrin of the supporters of “The State of Jefferson” and “The California Republic.” That prize goes to Texas. So much for the seccession movements in California!
As far as still being “The Golden State,” Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers hit song of a few years ago put it well: “All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name. So if you’re dreaming about California, it don’t matter at all where you’ve played before; California’s a brand new game.”
