George Will has penned an analysis of the state's finances that is as astute as it is scathing...Here are some of the highlights from today's Washington Post.
"If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent."
"What actually ails California is centrist evasions. The state's crisis has actually been caused by "moderation," understood as splitting the differences between extreme liberalism and hyperliberalism, a "reasonableness" that merely moderates the speed at which the ever-expanding public sector suffocates the private sector."
"California has become liberalism's laboratory, in which the case for fiscal conservatism is being confirmed."
-George F. Will
