Matt Welch on Fox News Talking About California's Implications for the Rest of the Country

Matt Welch | June 4, 2009

Three-plus minutes of video:

Click here for a list of my recent California-related commentary, here for Brian Doherty's breakdown of the state's finances, and here for our May cover story on "Failed States."

Comments

Chad|6.4.09 @ 1:55PM|#

Baah, quit whining. California can fix its problems with $1000 per person per year in new taxes. For the average Californian, that's hardly a major deal.

In the long run, the California government unions need to be smashed into the dirt, but the pensions already on the books should be lived up to.

Jon|6.4.09 @ 2:07PM|#

9.5 state employees per California resident, up from 8.5?

I assume you mean 8.5 residents per state employee, down from 9.5.

That's insanity. We don't need a bureaucrat for every 10 people. However, I wonder what non-anarchists think the right number is.

Matt Welch|6.4.09 @ 2:09PM|#

Jon -- I was garbled. It's 9.5 workers per every 1000 residents.

Citizen Nothing|6.4.09 @ 2:33PM|#

Somebody throw Chad's grandma out in the street already.

|6.4.09 @ 2:35PM|#

California can fix its problems with $1000 per person per year in new taxes.

Or it could cut expenditures all the way back to what it spent a few years ago.

And that $1000/year is just the new baseline. California's problem is that its spending is out of control, and will continue to escalate. It'll be another tax increase next year, and the year after, ad infinitum.

Or is that not a problem, Chad?

Mike M.|6.4.09 @ 2:36PM|#

Baah, quit whining. California can fix its problems with $1000 per person per year in new taxes.

Only in a mindless, static analysis. In the real world, if California jacks up their already insanely high taxes by that much, what's going to happen is that the current flood of middle and upper middle class taxpayers leaving the state for places like Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon will turn into a tidal wave.

Your sort of thinking will accelerate the turning of California into a kind of Banana Republic with a small class of the very rich, tons of poor, and no middle class base to speak of.

|6.4.09 @ 2:39PM|#

the current flood ... leaving the state ... will turn into a tidal wave.

the only problem is when there are no more low tax places to go. the whole country is tending toward tax rate = 100%.

Rhywun|6.4.09 @ 2:44PM|#

Your sort of thinking will accelerate the turning of California into a kind of Banana Republic with a small class of the very rich, tons of poor, and no middle class base to speak of.

Like New York City with palm trees and no one smokes.

|6.4.09 @ 2:45PM|#

"Only in a mindless, static analysis. In the real world, if California jacks up their already insanely high taxes by that much, what's going to happen is that the current flood of middle and upper middle class taxpayers leaving the state for places like Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon will turn into a tidal wave."

Kind of like white-flight (which was followed by middle-class black-flight) from the ghettos. California will become one big ghetto state.

|6.4.09 @ 2:46PM|#

Each ten people in California should be regulated by a government nanny. This nanny will control all aspects of the citizens' lives under his/her control, and will redistribute income as the need of each member of the commune requires. Each ten communes will be under the supervision of a senior nanny, with structure all the way up to the Executive Nanny of California. Except for the nannies, no other government officials will be required.

Citizen Nothing|6.4.09 @ 2:50PM|#

P.L., Chad figures he'll be at least a fourth-degree nanny, so it's cool.

|6.4.09 @ 2:55PM|#

Nanny - ten citizens
Senior Nanny - ten groups of ten
Major Nanny - ten groups of one hundred
Serious Nanny - ten groups of one thousand
General Nanny - ten groups of ten thousand
High Nanny - ten groups of one hundred thousand
Most High Nanny - ten groups of one million
Mary Poppins - everybody

Jon|6.4.09 @ 3:15PM|#

9.5 nannies/1000 residents, so about 1 state worker for every 100 people.

My state appears to have at least 54k state workers (http://db.lsj.com/community/dc/som/index.php), and the rough estimate is 10 million people. That comes out to about 1 nanny/185 people.

Though we're probably losing residents in the wake of the auto collapse, I bet we'll gain state workers, pushing the number of people supporting state workers lower.

Maybe 1/300 would suffice? 1/500?

|6.4.09 @ 3:17PM|#

I know we're supposed to appreciate Reason writers for their minds (and I do, I do!) but I just have to comment on how handsome Matt Welch is. I mean, seriously. Rowr.

Okay, back to the issues.

|6.4.09 @ 3:18PM|#

I prefer my ratio(s). Ten people with one nanny is more like a large family. And it allows a large number of people to serve the state, with large pensions and special perks.

|6.4.09 @ 4:44PM|#

Yeah, Matt is looking totally cute. New specs?

Nice how the Fox guy aided and abetted him on every point, not that he needed any help.

|6.4.09 @ 5:00PM|#

Are you saying you want to cut spending right now?

What, do you think there's some other leg propping us up in the current depression or something?

I thought you people believed in growing your way out of a tight spot. Point to some other growth prospects and I'll start listening now that Fox News cares a whit about spending suddenly.

|6.4.09 @ 5:04PM|#

Most civil treatment ever of a male Reason writer on Fox News. I wonder why that happened this year.

24AheadDotCom|6.4.09 @ 5:12PM|#

I saw this live, I don't need to see it again especially since MattW wasn't intellectually honest enough to discuss one of CA's root problems: MassiveImmigration.

P.S. In case anyone (except for MattW) replies to this, their responses will almost assuredly be ad homs, thereby conceding my points and showing the childish, anti-intellectual nature of libertarians.

|6.4.09 @ 5:29PM|#

Are you saying you want to cut spending right now?

Yep.

What, do you think there's some other leg propping us up in the current depression or something?

The notion that government spending is a support for, rather than a drag on, the economy as a whole is amusingly ignorant.

I thought you people believed in growing your way out of a tight spot.

We do. First, of course, we need to prune the deadwood in our economy (which the government is interfering with). Then, we need to reallocate resources to productive uses (which the government is interfering with). We especially need to reward the productive aspects of the economy (which the government is interfering with).

How a massive and economically distorting spending spree, which, among other things, raises the cost of capital, is supposed to help us grow the productive economy, I can't imagine.

|6.4.09 @ 7:08PM|#

=The notion that government spending is a support for, rather than a drag on, the economy as a whole is amusingly ignorant.


Long term, perhaps, but point to another source of plausible growth.

Come on now, you understand why growth is important, right?

|6.4.09 @ 9:25PM|#

Yo. Shut the fuck up. 24AheadDotCom

|6.5.09 @ 11:23AM|#

Long term, perhaps, but point to another source of plausible growth.

I'm not interested in leveraging up another credit-driven bubble to set up yet another bigger, harder crash.

Sustainable growth will come from where it has always come from - the private sector.