Academic

THAT?LL HELP: Obama: Washington Needs To Be More Like California. Matt Welch comments: While I?

By Glenn Reynolds

THAT’LL HELP: Obama: Washington Needs To Be More Like California. Matt Welch comments:

While I appreciate any shout-out to my home state, what California’s Democratic elite are “about” is enabling their union backers to drive a once-thriving economy into a bottomless pit of unemployment, perennially busted budgets, and unfunded pension contributions that transcend most human comprehension. This is not a spirit Washington should try to “recapture,” unless the goal is 12.6 percent unemployment (with a bullet!), a credit rating hurtling toward junk-bond status, and a perpetual round of bailouts from a faraway government entity.

And here’s the kicker?Obama in his speech said that “one of the main reasons our economy faltered was because some on Wall Street made irresponsible bets, with no accountability.” The exact same language could be used, with 100 percent accuracy, to describe public officials all over California?including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who just today is unveiling his latest too-little, too-late package of reforms. All of these labor-backed bureaucrats bet irresponsibly that they could more than double pension promises to state employees over the past decade, because the “accountability” moment was deferred to when those payments came due. Well, they’re only beginning to come due now, and it’s a damnable mess.

Indeed. And that doesn’t even count the CalPERS scandals.

Plus, from Tim Cavanaugh: Why California Will Get Even Sicker.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on April 20, 2010 (boomark / email).