Life in "Progress" State

They called it paradise,
The place to be
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea

From the Golden State of California who hasn't had a conservative in state government since the Hell's Angels doubled as security guards.....

Once the envy of the other 49 states, California has become the measure of failure. Historically a trend-setter, once again, as California goes, so may go the nation.

The Pew Center on the States recently completed an extensive study of the 50 state governments and found California in the worst straits, but also discovered nine other states have joined us in a condition of "fiscal peril."

"The same pressures that drove the Golden State toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country," concluded the study, "Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril."

Those states – Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin – share many of California's maladies. Some, the study found, suffer from economies that disproportionately rely on particular industries, such as housing in Florida or auto manufacturing in Michigan. California, Illinois and New Jersey repeatedly have used borrowing or accounting schemes to put off tough budget decisions. Like California, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Oregon are restricted in raising taxes or cutting spending because of voter initiatives and constitutional restraints, Pew noted.

"The recession put almost all states in a bind," the study observed, "but California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Wisconsin have a history of persistent shortfalls."

The Pew study was based on data up to July 31 of this year and bluntly forecasted "states' fiscal conditions are widely expected to worsen even when the national economy starts to recover." Indeed, that seems to be the case. Unemployment in California was 11.7 percent and nationally 9.2 percent as of the study's completion, the study reported. In the scant months since, California's jobless rate has risen to 12.5 percent in November, and the national rate has hit 10.2 percent.

What's so "progressive" about being a third world country?

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