Some Sunshine From California – Bill Maher

I was going to post this on my blog but you beat me to it, Arb! :) A great one by Bill, for sure. I’m a big fan of his.

Even if someone called out California’s job rates and what may happen when further unfunded entitlements come home to roost to try to poke holes in his commentary, I think 99.9% of what Maher says still stands (and is great comedy to boot!)

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Sounds nice, Bleat, but it unfortunately is not that simple or even that accurate.

For one, Brown’s budget appears to be largely an “artificial” surplus that fails to mention or include a number of enormous debts which are conveniently NOT included in his budget (politically convenient, anyways), namely medical debts, pension debts, cap & trade costs and federal debts.

For another, if you look at where the huge debts and unfunded liabilities are incurred, they have very little to do with the corporate interests you speak of and very much to do with the liberal interests such as teachers pensions and unionized employee pensions that you don’t. These obligations are already largely unfunded and worse, considered very over-inflated. Not only that, but this unfunded liability gap is expected to grow, not shrink, over the next ten years. The Forbes article I mention on my blog has these liabilities estimated to be over $1 trillion and growing, and as far as raising taxes is concerned there’s only so much more of an increase in tax that people or businesses will take. There’s a number of articles left and right that I’ve reviewed on this, but the one I’ve found so far that talks specifically to the numbers is Forbes, here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2013/07/08/jerry-brown-stands-atop-californias-collapsing-house-of-cards/

That said, I agree with your thoughts on Schwartzenegger. The Governator was a RINO, and ended up being full of hot air when it came to any of his promises about reducing/ending government waste. I appreciate Brown’s approach to cutting, but as the Forbes article points out, neither Arnie or Brown have made any hard choices yet so to me, a “Mission Accomplished” banner is far too premature right now.

Brown is obviously off to a better start which I applaud, but to attribute early success here to some sort of romantic “rejection of corporate interests” seems both unfounded to me and I believe, unjustified. Besides, does it matter if it’s corporate interests or union interests that he ends up catering to, if either move brings the State fiscally to its knees?

Personally I think we need to throw the liberal/conservative romanticisms aside and stay focused on the hard math. It seems that Brown is at least on the right track, and I look forward to seeing how things end up. If he can strike that proper balance between public and private (see the Hyperloop) and continue to reduce government waste, he’ll have my vote no matter what party he aligns with.

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