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Maysho
climber
Soda Springs, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 3, 2009 - 09:30pm PT
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California's Deficit Of Common Sense
L.A. Times-11/1/09
By Rebecca Solnit
Opinion
California is rich. Even in the midst of a drought, we have lots of water, and in the midst of a recession, we have lots of money. The problem is one of distribution, not of actual scarcity.
This is the usual problem of the United States, which is not just the richest and most powerful nation on Earth now, but on Earth ever, and one of the most blessed in terms of natural resources. We just collectively make loopy decisions about how to distribute the money and water, and we could make other decisions. Whether or not those priorities will change, we could at least have a reality-based conversation about them.
Take water. My friend Derek Hitchcock, a biologist working to restore the Yuba River, likes to say that California is still a place of abundance. He recently showed me a Pacific Institute report and other documents to bolster his point. They show that about 80% of the state's water goes to agriculture, not to people, and half of that goes to four crops -- cotton, rice, alfalfa and pasturage (irrigated grazing land) -- that produce less than 1% of the state's wealth. Forty percent of the state's water. Less than 1% of its income.
Meanwhile, we Californians are told the drought means that ordinary households should cut back -- and probably most should -- but the lion's share of water never went to us in the first place, and we should know it.
Americans usually have fantastic visions of where our resources come from and go. A lot of Americans seem to believe that the federal government spends tons of money, rather than a small percentage of the federal budget, on the arts and foreign aid; but in fact, about half of discretionary spending goes to the military -- the largest and most expensive military the world has ever seen, one that costs nearly as much as all the other militaries put together.
In discussing the national financial crisis, the military was never really on the chopping block, even though its budget could, with a little paring, provide healthcare, education, environmental restoration, some cool climate-change adaptation and all the other pieces of a good society and a great nation. Do we really need several hundred military bases in more than 125 countries?
And all those expensive toys? And the research programs to do things like weaponize insects? Do we need them more than we need to keep children healthy?
Speaking of poor children reminds me of Sitting Bull, as good an authority on our economy as anyone, even if he wasn't an economist and even though he died in 1890. After the Lakota were defeated, he joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show for a season, but he never got ahead financially. He gave the bulk of his earnings to the street urchins who hung around the show.
He was shocked that a nation powerful enough to conquer his people couldn't or wouldn't feed its own future. The white man was good at production, he concluded, but bad at distribution.
It's the same today. We have enough in this nation to feed, clothe, shelter, educate and provide medical care to everyone. If the will was there.
In California, the story is the same in spades. Take our state budget crisis. A British newspaper recently ran a rather melodramatic piece about California as a failed state and compared us to Iceland. It was a wacky comparison. Iceland went bankrupt because its bankers spent lots of money they didn't have. California is in conniptions because it has lots of money it won't spend.
I'm not talking about raising individual taxes, though it would certainly make sense to revisit Proposition 13, and we'd have an extra billion dollars if we hadn't phased out estate taxes.
But look at corporate taxes! According to the nonpartisan California Budget Project, if we taxed corporations the way we did in 1981, we'd have $8.4 billion more coming in. That would wipe out more than a third of the budget shortfall that led to the draconian cuts (and cover about what we spend annually on the world's second-biggest prison system).
We're home to the fifth-largest corporation in the world, Chevron, whose profits were $24 billion last year. Chevron has lobbied to keep corporate taxes low and to avoid paying an oil severance tax -- a tax on oil taken out of the ground (and we're abundant in oil too, for better or worse). Texas charges one, but we don't. A few years ago, Chevron worked hard to defeat Proposition 87, which would've levied a severance tax capped at 6% of the oil's value -- but Sarah Palin's Alaska raised its severance tax to 25%, a figure that would bring in an estimated $4 billion or more.
Examine the way that we changed corporate income tax policy in the crisis years of 2008-2009 to give a small number of corporations tens of millions of dollars a year in tax breaks -- $33.1 million apiece, on average, for nine corporations; $23.5 million to six others, according to the California Budget Project. There's money there, ripe for the picking, and powerful forces to prevent that from ever happening -- or maybe weak forces, because it's our Republican legislative minority that prevents us from ever achieving the supermajority to raise taxes (and our weak Democratic majority that goes along with crazy tax cuts amid a crisis).
Turning California into a Third World nation where the environment is neglected, a lot of people are genuinely desperate and a lot of the young have a hard time getting an education or just can't get one doesn't benefit anyone.
We're not poor in money or water. We've just chosen to allocate them in ways that benefit tiny minorities at the expense of the rest of us. We should at least have a conversation about how we distribute our abundant resources. Derek is right: California is a place of abundance, except when it comes to political sense.#
Rebecca Solnit, a product of California public schools from kindergarten to graduate school, is the author most recently of "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-solnit1-2009nov01,0,881907.story
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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good luck with this thread bro.
we're about to pass a $10 billion dollar water bond to build the peripheral canal.
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Jim Herrington
Mountain climber
New York, NY
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She's one of my favorite writers out there today. Just worked with her on a San Francisco atlas project. Brilliant lady.
My photo of her from earlier this year:
©2009 Jim Herrington
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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The writer of that piece clearly doesn't understand the fundamental reality of California: "Water flows uphill toward money." It's been that way since before most of us were born, and will likely be that way long after we're all dead.
I wish it weren't so -- in California or anywhere else. I wish it were as simple as throwing out the current bums and electing the good guys. But that's just a pipe dream. This has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. It is, and always has been, about the ease with which money will buy politicians of any party.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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I always thought it was crazy that it was Okay if Texas taxed oil production, but not okay for California to do it. If we do it, we are raising taxes. If Texas does it, well thats just smart business boys. Some day we have to wake up. And Ghost is right, money won that battle. How much did the oil companies spend to stop Californians from voting to tax oil production? It was mind boggling.
Awesome read Peter. Thanks for posting it.
Beautiful picture Jim. Your life certainly has allowed you to meet some cool people. Thanks for sharing the photo.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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The reason why money flows toward hack politicians is because we've ceded way too much power to the Government.
If the Government didn't have the power to pick the winners and losers among us, nobody would ever even think of buying off a politician.
Now, because so many people have so much money riding on which way Government policy goes, bribing officials is smart business.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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If California has so much water to spare, then how about returning some of what you take from Colorado every year that your clever politicians negotiated away from us so many years ago?
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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How does California take water from Colorado?
That can't happen.
Water flows downhill. Remember?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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But agreements were made that Colorado had to let a certain volume flow downhill which it could now use itself.
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Ray Olson
Trad climber
Imperial Beach, California
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good thread Peter -
ask around and its pretty clear Cali
has a poor reputation as a place to
start/run a small business, light industry,
etc.
some have said: don't do it, go to another state.
high crime, also sited as a regional issue.
hope this thread doesn't get toxic,
sure seems like some relevant stuff.
good luck :-)
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Higher business taxes, as advocated by Rebecca Solnit would fix that, wouldn't they?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Higher taxes on the big companies with the big profits and lower ones on the small businesses would be the key.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Not if they re-locate to one of the other states who are smart enough to have lower - or no - taxes.
Then California kills the Golden Goose and gets nothing (which is about what California Government deserves for being stupid)
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Taxing businesses will make them move to another state? Absent spending billions and billions on a pipeline, how is Chevron going to relocate all that oil it pulls out of the ground?
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Ray Olson
Trad climber
Imperial Beach, California
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and socal is front and center on the immigration "issue"
read an interesting book about this,
in a nuthell, seems "illegal" immigrants
are subsidizing our salad bowls, pretty much.
I have no issue/stance on any of this, really.
but I did grow up within eye shot of the border,
my words for it: kinda heart breaking.
the "gang phenomena" (sp?) gang problem, is another...
ok, I'm better duck out cause the sh*t
might just start to fly and I forgot my flak jacket :-)
cheers
Ray
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overit
Trad climber
Boulder
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Texas doesn't have a state income tax. They have to get it somewhere. Californias income tax rate is about the highest in the nation.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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And the highest bracket kicks in at the lowest income, about $45,000.
People who make $45,000 a year in California pay the highest state income tax rate in America, the same rate as millionaires.
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adam d
climber
closer to waves than rock
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Why are we talking about the article when we can talk about Jim's amazing photo of the writer?!
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Probably the same reason all the cool TR's only gather a few posts. No controversey.
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Ray Olson
Trad climber
Imperial Beach, California
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ok,
this relates to some Cali common sense,
Peter, if this is drift, sorry.
its been on my mind a while
and I wanna put it in here now.
immigation, and "illegal" immigrants are a common topic
in socal, ok?
and my point saying this isn't to point a finger
or come down on anyone.
but I hear this line a lot:
"immigrants are gonna come and "take" the jobs..."
ok, first off, its pretty hard for anyone to "take" a job.
you ever "take" a job?
employers "hire" people, and saying that shifts the
accountability a little bit, you see?
why do farmes etc.need to subsidize by hiring under the table?
I don't know, my point is, that this word usage seems to
kinda stigmatize a conversation, and its so common
I'm not even sure people realize what they're sayiing.
ok, hopefully no hard feelings.
I'm pretty much a humanitarian, full on.
and simply wanted to slide that in "for the record"
Now I'm going to re-read the article Peter posted,
maybe we can have a productive discussion.
thanks again.
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