The Tarnished State

Stacy McCain on what effectively-one party rule has done to California:

The thievish, parasitical mentality of liberals, who view taxpayers only a source of plunder, eventually runs head-on into economic reality. Capital is portable, and predatory governments will eventually cause disinvestment, as investors seek opportunites elsewhere. As investment flees, private-sector employment stagnates and declines, and smart young people leave to find someplace where they have a chance to get ahead.

In all fairness, the people of California are as much to blame as the Democrats/liberals are. California’s idiot brand of “direct democracy” has put much of the state budget out of the hands of the Assembly and written it directly into the Constitution. Caveat voter, as the Romans would say if their Latin was really bad. Anyway.

On the larger theme, Stacy has it absolutely right. Sacramento has gotten, approximately, nothing right since around the time Reagan was governor, and even its Republicans behave more like Democrats than most western Democrats do. And it’s dragging the rest of the Western US down with it.