We have seen the future and it is Detroit.

Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2011 at 04:44 PM

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Citizens are fed up with runaway expenditures and want to rein them in, including taking back some of the power that public sector unions have over the states. Wisconsin and other states hired Governors and legislators to do just that when they elected conservatives into office.

Other states throughout the U.S. including Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana, Idaho, Tennessee, Kansas and others have voted and are attempting to rein in expenses including trimming the power of public employee unions. Their backs are against the wall as they are faced with cataclysmic deficits. Although the left and their political allies would have you believe it is about union busting in general, but private sector unions are not a part of this battle.

In the conservative tidal wave that rolled through the U.S., California seemed to buck that trend. This state not only returned it's very liberal legislators, the voters even decided to vote back the very person who started California's downward spiral over 30 years ago, Governor Jerry"moonbeam" Brown....Could it be to return to the "Golden State" that he mortally wounded those many years ago and give it a final bayonet thrust?

While Governor Brown was in office the first time, he set a Utopian course for California by canceling dam projects and new aqueducts. He established the California Energy Commission to block new power plants. He put the brakes on new highway construction. He established the California environmental protection agency that required bakeries to put scrubbers on their exhaust in order to protect the public from the smell of freshly baked bread!

But the most damaging was the 1978 legislation signed by then Gov. Brown allowing collective bargaining for public employees. No single act has changed California for the worse more than this one. No political faction wields more power than California's Public employee unions and the resultant 500 billion pension deficit.

California once the envy of the world with modern freeways, cheap and abundant power, plenty of clean water, a welcoming business climate and sound fiscal policies. Is now facing constant drought, power shortages, clogged/ antiquated freeways and a very unfriendly business climate, with radical environmentalism being a major theme.

Governor Brown now has a chance to redeem himself and change his legacy. He can navigate a Chris Christie-like course of tax cuts, smaller government and confront the public employee unions....Will he have the vision and sense to do this? Or will he continue to preach the "moonbeam"vision he started and the policies that will ultimately make California what Detroit has become.

Governor Brown, we have seen the future and it is Detroit.

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susanna | Mar 21, 2011, 12:47 PM EDT

DLW12183 & allentown - Even with the problems California has, it has the largest economy of any state in the U.S. and is the 8th largest economy in the world, jealous? Let us not forget that it was Republican idiot Schwarzenegger who drove CA into the ground. He, like Reagan should have stuck with B movies.

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pugsmom | Mar 21, 2011, 12:17 PM EDT

California is the "welfare state" of the world. Want money for nothing, other than having a kid every 6 months? Move to California!

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susanna | Mar 21, 2011, 11:39 AM EDT

New ABC/Washington Post Poll Shows Lack of Faith in Republicans - not Governor Brown. When it comes to dealing with issue No. 1, the economy, Obama has an advantage: 46 percent say they put more faith in the president, 34 percent say so about congressional Republicans. Obama has a similar 12-point lead on the question of who better understands the economic problems people face, and a nine-point edge on dealing with the deficit.... You should change your by line to "Americans Have Seen the Future and It Was Destroyed By the Bush Administration."

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allentown | Mar 21, 2011, 11:29 AM EDT

Let's hope that when California defaults, we have a Republican administration that will not put California's burden on the taxpayers from the 49 other States.

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DLW12183 | Mar 21, 2011, 09:29 AM EDT

No Way. California is a looney land all its own filed with the most liberal and illegals that its only choice is to default on its loans.

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