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California is spending and regulating itself to death.  Their dual solution?  Raise taxes to the Kuiper Belt, and empty all their prisons!  What will the Golden State do with all that freed-up prison space?  DiFi has a suggesti…

Seeing even YAHOO (CRAP) NEWS report a spike in early retirements has me repeating this. America can come back. We have to sit and wait three more years and hope there’s something left to put back on the road.

By the way, if anyone can suggest a good state to move to – I’m considering CO or UT – I’m all ears. Anything to get away from the craziness here next year.

Suihei Deloi on September 25, 2009 at 11:24 PM

I escaped Colorado in 2006 for Texas. I FINALLY got out of there, and it is the best thing my family and I ever did! Colorado is becoming more liberal, especially because Californians are moving in there. The government doesn’t understand about what to do to bring in jobs or encourage growth. Rather they are preoccupied with “no growth” policies and every social engineering idea you can think of while neglecting the proper role of government. Companies are leaving and jobs sent overseas. Nothing new coming in to replace them. Many of my friends from where I use to work are unemployed now and looking for work, but to no avail. I can see Colorado becoming another California shortly unless the people there wake up and realize that the liberal policies are a recipe for disaster.

Utah may be better, but I don’t have personal experience with the situation in Utah.

http://www.mercatus.org/PublicationDetails.aspx?id=26154

Texas, for example, is one of most free states, and CA is one of least free, and we all know the huge gulf between how TX and CA are doing economically now.

e-pirate on September 25, 2009 at 6:10 PM

Do you now, or have you ever owned a small business, let alone a small business in California. Since the answer to that is indisputably No you seriously need to STFD and STFU. And yes I have, twice.

My colleagues were so happy to find a printer that has enviro-approved government-regulated paper but can’t figure out why there is only one of them left in the whole state! D-oh!

It cost me $4,000 to get a building permit from the city to replace my garage (a utility structure). No way did it cost them $4.000 to process the permit

Congratulations, you have demonstrated the utter futility of Proposition 13, indeed any tax measure that restricts one tax without restricting all of them.

We’re so jaded that even $ in the billions goes right through us.

Point is, that money is going somewhere and it sure as hell doesn’t go to the “poor” (because in that case the poor would no longer exist) nor to make society better.

By the way, if anyone can suggest a good state to move to – I’m considering CO or UT – I’m all ears. Anything to get away from the craziness here next year.

Suihei Deloi on September 25, 2009 at 11:24 PM

Depending on how conservative you are. CO, Denver is fairly liberal. Utah is pretty conservative in most aspects.

It depends on your job and where you see yourself.

Actually, ladies, the Feds create nothing except an opportunity at a cost. It’s still the private company doing the drilling, and the Feds merely collect lease fees and taxes from that activity. If it weren’t for the oil company, the Feds collect nothing. Yes, the Feds own the land- but it lies fallow until some private company comes in and actually does the work. If the Feds will allow it.

BillH on September 25, 2009 at 6:54 PM

Bill I have to respectfully disagree on some things you have mentioned. Yes the lease is a “one time only” but in the contract with the BLM Dept of the Interior (and depending on the State) the Companies do in some realm have to pay a percentage of oil revenue, if the company does find oil or gas. The Feds do not own the gas or oil, but they can get as much as they can from you. I do know this is a real item as I have worked with the BLM, USGS, and such. But that also depends on what areas of the country and if it is offshore in many cases. Trust me.

Now if it is a project via the USGS on certain State lands… the State’s regulations may regulate that the Federal government has to give them a stipen as it is NOT the feds mineral rights. Alaska has such a clause and the Federal Government who let companies drill have to “give back” to the Alaskans. Yes it is weird, but it is the Alaskans who own the land…

There is much more involved in this then I could explain on here. I don’t totally disagree with you, I just know that not everything you said was correct.

And Ed is making the reasonable argument that there is an excessive amount of regulation. Regulation to fund roads, etc isn’t the issue. A lot of regulation is there because it’s a another revenue stream for the government or it’s designed to curtail behavior that isn’t illegal.

gwelf on September 25, 2009 at 6:27 PM

To add to your argument, a lot of the money that’s collected here for certain things is not even be going to the tasking it’s meant for. For example, the aforementioned roads.

Maintenance for roads doesn’t come out of DMV fees. Here, it’s supposed to be coming from a funding stream provided by gas taxes. About every year without fail however, the CA Legislature raids said funding stream to paper over shortfalls in the General Fund. Said roads don’t get maintained. People complain, then next thing you know a jack@** from Sacramento proposes a new fee to “maintain roads.” Never a dull moment, here in the “City of Pothole,” CA.

Madness. And the fact bureaucrats will save their jobs over saving their state is another indictment of their entrenched insanity.

That’s not what makes a fee necessary or unnecessary. The fee for registering my car is not supposed to literally cover the cost of processing my registration!

The idea is that the government does a lot to ensure that I can drive (builds and maintains the roads, enforces safety laws, keeps track of car ownership for all sorts of reasons, etc.), so if I want to drive my car, I need to pay a fee to support what the government does.

In fact, fees can be seen by conservatives as a preferred alternative to taxes. Rather than taxing everyone to pay for a certain government function (for example, transportation), you put more of the burden on the people who actually benefit from that function.

This doesn’t mean that DMV fees, or your permit fee, or fees in general, aren’t too high. But it does mean that deciding whether a given fee is “necessary” requires more than a simply outsider’s analysis.

tneloms on September 25, 2009 at 6:09 PM

I think the determination as to whether a given fee is “necessary” doesn’t require any more than a disinterested observer’s analysis.

The fee for registering your car should cover nothing more than the cost of processing your registration. It shouldn’t be a recurring tax on the value of your car, which is what it turns into in California.

Any fee should cover only the cost of providing the service for which the fee is charged. The moment they become greater than that, they are a hidden tax, which is exactly what the post on which all these comments are based is addressing.