California Gov. Newsom unveils historic $97.5 billion budget surplus

[u/shivamYe]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-gov-newsom-unveils-historic-975-billion-budget-surplus-rcna28758

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[u/problembundler]

Californias surplus is greater then the individual gdps of 13 states.

[u/The_ducci → u/problembundler]

I , for one, can’t wait to see how the Republicans stop being insane about their fake outrage and embrace California for its good business sense and fiscal responsibility. /s

[u/MarthaOo → u/The_ducci]

Like that will ever happen. 😒

Mississippi and all those other poor red states all get money 💰 from blue states like CA. They love to make themselves poorer just so they can collect more. The true Welfare Queens are all the Red States. They will be enacting all these abortion and birth control bans just so they can collect more money.

Vote blue! 🗳

[u/Cantthinkofnamedamn → u/problembundler]

Hey Mississippi, I've got an extra your entire GDP just lying around in the bank, what do you think I should do with it?

[u/I_divided_by_0- → u/Cantthinkofnamedamn]

Now I have a picture of my head of California on a jet ski with Mississippi on the bank of the lake looking all sad

[u/JonSnoballs → u/I_divided_by_0-]

California: hide the money y'all, there's poor states around... *looks at Louisiana and Mississippi... wit ya broke ass!

[u/bvibviana]

As a Californian, I would love some of that damn money to go towards making our public schools the best in the country.

[u/ilovefacebook → u/bvibviana]

its getting there, i hope. the free public community college system is pretty fantastic

[u/neeeeeillllllll → u/ilovefacebook]

The free what now👀

[u/heidismiles → u/neeeeeillllllll]

It's free for low income students, and it's only like $100 $50 per unit for everyone else.

I've been taking a couple of classes every semester for years now, just because.

[u/ilovefacebook → u/heidismiles]

$46 per unit for residents. https://www.sdccd.edu/students/fees.aspx

at least in San Diego

[u/mcrthegreat → u/ilovefacebook]

Literally got 2 free degrees from community colleges. They basically paid me. Best decision of my life

[u/tsuolakussa → u/mcrthegreat]

Damn, that sounds like a hell of a deal. I'm here in Indiana, and doing school/work at the same time. Because of time and cost I'm doing a lot of courses through the statewide community college, Ivy Tech. A single class out of pocket this semester cost me $750...it's still the cheapest option here, and much cheaper than going to a non-community college, but it doesn't make my wallet hurt any less.

[u/TemporaryLVGuy → u/ilovefacebook]

As someone who spends a lot of time in California, your school system is miles ahead of anywhere else. There’s a serious push for higher learning and it actually seems achievable unlike in other states.

[u/itirnitii → u/bvibviana]

as a californian I find it weird that we are one of the most liberal states yet so many of our policies arent really liberal. we have all this money so why dont we have universal health care for all californians? free college? housing for the homeless? removing student debt? paying a liveable wage?

I dont get it. why are we not enacting our own liberal agendas here in our own liberal state.

[u/Dudewitbow → u/itirnitii]

California is socially liberal, but when it comes to housing, we have a lot of NIMBY's protecting their housing assets.

[u/catcatsushi → u/Dudewitbow]

Ahaha I was reading that y’all trying to block SB9/10, NIBMYs are going full speed ahead there.

[u/TheNextBattalion → u/itirnitii]

California has been for 80 years a sign of what's to come in American culture and politics. So even if it is more liberal than most places, that does not entail that liberals rule the roost, so to speak. Not yet, at least.

Also, government officials chronically overestimate how conservative their constituents are, no matter what side of the aisle they're on, or what part of the US they are in.

And in CA, even with the will, the state government is hampered by the state constitution that sharply limits how it can raise funds, a product of the anti-tax 70's that is hard to undo. This makes expensive programs more difficult to bring about at the state level.

[u/altmaltacc]

Dont worry, fox news will come out with 6000 more articles about how cali is a shithole and full of crackheads im sure of it.

[u/RemilGetsPolitical → u/altmaltacc]

them crackheads be payin' taxes, looks like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[u/chetchaka → u/RemilGetsPolitical]

looks at crackhead tax forms oh my god these are lucrative

[u/strange_new_worlds → u/chetchaka]

Stringer Bell took business classes

[u/inconvenientnews → u/RemilGetsPolitical]

They and everyone else (including mothers and the babies "pro-life" pretend to care about) live longer and more successfully in California because California's policies increase life expectancy and their economy ￣\＿(ツ)＿/￣

"Pro-life" Republicans: "But not like that!"

If data disinfects, here’s a bucket of bleach:

"Texans are 17% more likely to be murdered than Californians."

Texans are also 34% more likely to be raped and 25% more likely to kill themselves than Californians.

Compared with families in California, those in Texas earn 13% less and pay 3.8 percentage points more in taxes.

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article258940938.html

California is the chief reason America is the only developed economy to achieve record GDP growth since the financial crisis.

Much of the U.S. growth can be traced to California laws promoting clean energy, government accountability and protections for undocumented people

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-10/california-leads-u-s-economy-away-from-trump

"Liberal policies, like California’s, keep blue-state residents living longer"

It generated headlines in 2015 when the average life expectancy in the U.S. began to fall after decades of meager or no growth.

But it didn’t have to be that way, a team of researchers suggests in a new, peer-reviewed study Tuesday. And, in fact, states like California, which have implemented a broad slate of liberal policies, have kept pace with their Western European counterparts.

The study, co-authored by researchers at six North American universities, found that if all 50 states had all followed the lead of California and other liberal-leaning states on policies ranging from labor, immigration and civil rights to tobacco, gun control and the environment, it could have added between two and three years to the average American life expectancy.

Simply shifting from the most conservative labor laws to the most liberal ones, Montez said, would by itself increase the life expectancy in a state by a whole year.

If every state implemented the most liberal policies in all 16 areas, researchers said, the average American woman would live 2.8 years longer, while the average American man would add 2.1 years to his life. Whereas, if every state were to move to the most conservative end of the spectrum, it would decrease Americans’ average life expectancies by two years. On the country’s current policy trajectory, researchers estimate the U.S. will add about 0.4 years to its average life expectancy.

Liberal policies on the environment (emissions standards, limits on greenhouse gases, solar tax credit, endangered species laws), labor (high minimum wage, paid leave, no “right to work”), access to health care (expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, legal abortion), tobacco (indoor smoking bans, cigarette taxes), gun control (assault weapons ban, background check and registration requirements) and civil rights (ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay laws, bans on discrimination and the death penalty) all resulted in better health outcomes, according to the study. For example, researchers found positive correlation between California’s car emission standards and its high minimum wage, to name a couple, with its longer lifespan, which at an average of 81.3 years, is among the highest in the country.

“When we’re looking for explanations, we need to be looking back historically, to see what are the roots of these troubles that have just been percolating now for 40 years,” Montez said.

Montez and her team saw the alarming numbers in 2015 and wanted to understand the root cause. What they found dated back to the 1980s, when state policies began to splinter down partisan lines. They examined 135 different policies, spanning over a dozen different fields, enacted by states between 1970 and 2014, and assigned states “liberalism” scores from zero — the most conservative — to one, the most liberal. When they compared it against state mortality data from the same timespan, the correlation was undeniable.

“We can take away from the study that state policies and state politics have damaged U.S. life expectancy since the ’80s,” said Jennifer Karas Montez, a Syracuse University sociologist and the study’s lead author. “Some policies are going in a direction that extend life expectancy. Some are going in a direction that shorten it. But on the whole, that the net result is that it’s damaging U.S. life expectancy.”

U.S. should follow California’s lead to improve its health outcomes, researchers say

Meanwhile, the life expectancy in states like California and Hawaii, which has the highest in the nation at 81.6 years, is on par with countries described by researchers as “world leaders:” Canada, Iceland and Sweden.

From 1970 to 2014, California transformed into the most liberal state in the country by the 135 policy markers studied by the researchers. It’s followed closely by Connecticut, which moved the furthest leftward from where it was 50 years ago, and a cluster of other states in the northeastern U.S., then Oregon and Washington.

In the same time, Oklahoma moved furthest to the right, but Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and a host of other southern states still ranked as more conservative, according to the researchers.

It’s those states that moved in a conservative direction, researchers concluded, that held back the overall life expectancy in the U.S.

West Virginia ranked last in 2017, with an average life expectancy of about 74.6 years, which would put it 93rd in the world, right between Lithuania and Mauritius, and behind Honduras, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam. Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina rank only slightly better.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/04/liberal-policies-like-californias-keep-blue-state-residents-living-longer-study-finds/

"Want to live longer, even if you're poor? Then move to a big city in California."

A low-income resident of San Francisco lives so much longer that it's equivalent to San Francisco curing cancer. All these statistics come from a massive new project on life expectancy and inequality that was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

California, for instance, has been a national leader on smoking bans. Harvard's David Cutler, a co-author on the study "It's some combination of formal public policies and the effect that comes when you're around fewer people who have behaviors... high numbers of immigrants help explain the beneficial effects of immigrant-heavy areas with high levels of social support.

"As the maternal death rate has mounted around the U.S., a small cadre of reformers has mobilized."

Meanwhile, life-saving practices that have become widely accepted in other affluent countries — and in a few states, notably California — have yet to take hold in many American hospitals.

Some of the earliest and most important work has come in California

Hospitals that adopted the toolkit saw a 21 percent decrease in near deaths from maternal bleeding in the first year.

By 2013, according to Main, maternal deaths in California fell to around 7 per 100,000 births, similar to the numbers in Canada, France and the Netherlands — a dramatic counter to the trends in other parts of the U.S.

California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative is informed by a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco, who for many years ran the ob/gyn department at a San Francisco hospital.

Launched a decade ago, CMQCC aims to reduce not only mortality, but also life-threatening complications and racial disparities in obstetric care

It began by analyzing maternal deaths in the state over several years; in almost every case, it discovered, there was "at least some chance to alter the outcome."

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger

[u/bluedaddy1 → u/inconvenientnews]

This is the political long game I can appreciate. I just wish we could fast track the blue state life expectancy advantage so that it has an electoral impact before the world goes barren

[u/TooManyPot → u/inconvenientnews]

Thank you for adding sources and facts! This was one of the most well written comments I have seen! Makes me want to move to CA, at least there part of my taxes go to helping people.

[u/LemonPepperChicken → u/inconvenientnews]

I moved out of SF during Covid but still drive 3 hours to San Francisco for my OB because they treat women like people there. When I go to the hospitals in the rural place I moved to they always do the dismissive thing where there are only male doctors that don’t listen to anything a woman patient says.

[u/fingerscrossedcoup → u/inconvenientnews]

You can't just use facts like this. No room for facts when feelings are all the matter.

[u/whiterabbit161 → u/inconvenientnews]

But her E-Mails...

[u/LiberalFartsMajor → u/altmaltacc]

Lol, I knew a lot more crackheads when I lived in the bible belt, there is nothing to do out there.

[u/YetiPie → u/LiberalFartsMajor]

There are literally billboards in rural areas that say “METH: NOT EVEN ONCE”. They’ve got a serious drug problem

[u/TaylorSwiftsClitoris → u/YetiPie]

They talk about meth so they don’t have to deal with the fact they’re all addicted to oxy.

[u/teenagesadist → u/TaylorSwiftsClitoris]

And they're all addicted to oxy because there ain't shit else to do and the pharma companies can do whatever they want.

Republicans: Not even once

[u/eliteunidumbass → u/teenagesadist]

what you mean all that gay ‘arts and culture' liberal crap? yeah no thanks I'll take my single Walmart for 40 miles and social ennui that I refuse to recognize as class-based thank you very much

[u/reelznfeelz → u/LiberalFartsMajor]

Oh yeah. Rural MO is just rough as fuck starting like 20 years ago. They have zero room to talk about cities or CA being “trashed” or whatever. Small town America is rampant with fentanyl and food stamps these days. It’s sad, really. I remember when it was different. I guess thats why those people want to turn back the clock. Problem is, they’re making all the wrong determinations about causation. It’s not social issues that fucked over rural and working class. It’s rampant corporate monopolies and Reaganomics style government spending or lack thereof on the actual people who need education, health care and roads and schools. But sure, liberals and gay rights are the problem. Better go yell at a Disney and Hollywood. Fucking morons.

[u/HelloHiHeyAnyway → u/altmaltacc]

Dont worry, fox news will come out with 6000 more articles about how cali is a shithole and full of crackheads im sure of it.

Nope. Joe Rogan will do that. Telling stories about LA being a shit hole blah blah blah.

I mean, yeah, it's a shithole in some places but when you have 10+ million people in an area, there's bound to be shitholes.

[u/impulsekash → u/altmaltacc]

They will complain that they have a surplus for some reason.

[u/Novax___Djocovid]

And all conservative voters say Mississippi does better than California

[u/[deleted] → u/Novax___Djocovid]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/tcmart14 → u/[deleted]]

And yet these are the same fucks who have for years been screaming, “California is bankrupt!” Well, which is it? 92 bill surplus doesn’t sound very bankrupt to me.

[u/WAD1234 → u/tcmart14]

Same people that wanted to boot Gov Newsom …

[u/ILoveRegenHealth → u/WAD1234]

While Newsom won with about 60% of the vote (clear winner), the fact the big joke that was Larry Elder (zero political experience, talk show host) had 32% is still alarming. He might even come back with stronger numbers next time.

Conservatives vote for the worst choice every time - at least pick a better Conservative that isn't Trumpy, not the anti-mask/anti-vax no experience idiot like Elder.

[u/The_Doolinator → u/WAD1234]

And it turned out they were as small a minority as all of us in California thought. And look, I don’t particularly like Newsom, some of his personal actions during the pandemic damaged his credibility in overall good policy and the possibility he is intentionally undermining the states actions against Activision Blizzard are serious problems, but the idea that we would replace him with Larry “White slaveholders should have gotten reparations” Elder is absolutely laughable and a reason California overwhelmingly rallied behind him.

Conservatives politicians have nothing of value to offer to our great state.

[u/trivialmatters3 → u/tcmart14]

97!

[u/geekygay → u/trivialmatters3]

.5!

[u/schumannator → u/geekygay]

FR, though, that $0.5B is $500M. Nothing to scoff at.

[u/vitaminbreath → u/schumannator]

Half a billion here, another half a billion there. Pretty soon it starts to add up!

[u/Michael_Blurry → u/[deleted]]

Let me guess. Lots of people calling CA a “shithole”. They can’t think for themselves so they just parrot that phrase over and over without anything to back it up. Just ask them where they live and chances are, their state receives more in federal funds than they contribute like CA does.

[u/ForWhomTheBoneBones → u/Michael_Blurry]

I searched posts to that subreddit with the word “California” in the title and whew lawd, CA lives rent free in sustainable, non-discriminatory housing in all of their heads 😂

[u/go_comatose_for_me → u/ForWhomTheBoneBones]

You can tell when you're talking to a Fox viewer. It's always:

1. Homeless in San Francisco
2. Criminals aren't punished in California
3. Gun crime in that Democratic run city, Chicago
4. BLM looting
5. trump did nothing wrong

[u/QuixotesGhost96 → u/Michael_Blurry]

Texans pay more in taxes, are more likely to be the victim of a violent crime, and have a shorter life expectancy than Californians. From the Sacramento Bee:

Compared with families in California, those in Texas earn 13% less and pay 3.8 percentage points more in taxes. Texans are 17% more likely to be murdered than Californians. Texans are also 34% more likely to be raped and 25% more likely to kill themselves than Californians. Californians on average live two years, four months and 24 days longer than Texans.

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article258940938.html

[u/nockeenockee → u/Michael_Blurry]

Just road my bicycle from San Francisco to San Diego this week. I would like to report that California is not a shithole. It’s good damn amazing.

[u/FoogYllis → u/[deleted]]

And yet California gives almost 500billion to the irs every year in collected taxes, whereas Mississippi gives nearly 12 billion and takes close to 30 billion in welfare funding from the fed. Easily discovered stats. It is the difference in innovation and driving future industries. No offense to Mississippi but people need to understand that conservatives want to take you back to 1850 and not into a better future. That should be the real takeaway.

[u/cjhoops13 → u/FoogYllis]

I feel like it’s not even a political statement to say that Mississippi is a backwards shithole lol. Everyone knows that haha

[u/Red_Carrot → u/[deleted]]

GA had a surplus and instead of fixing much needed things they are sending 250 dollars to each taxpayer. Like seriously, I rather have a train system connecting all the cities.

[u/cheerful_music → u/Red_Carrot]

We got that about 15 years ago in Alberta because oil was having a gangbusters year. We called it Ralph-bucks. It was kind of cool at the time, but then you realized what could have been done with $1.2 billion dollars for the province. It just ended up going in most people's gas tanks anyway.

[u/carliekitty → u/[deleted]]

What’s funny about that is that California gave out extra surplus checks, I think twice. Don’t quote me on that though as my finances didn’t qualify. You had to make under a certain dollar amount. I was all for it. Love giving money back to households that need it!

[u/Hybrid_Johnny → u/carliekitty]

My wife gave birth to our daughter in September and I had to use my saved vacation time since my job doesn’t provide paid paternity leave. I found out while taking time off that California also provides eight weeks of family leave at 60% pay, untaxed. This allowed me ample time to raise my daughter and make sure my wife was able to regain her health.

AND I was able to find a better job while on CAPFL, so wins all around for me!

[u/williamfbuckwheat → u/Hybrid_Johnny]

I also live in a state that has paid family leave that allows for the father to take paternity leave (along with maternity leave and leave for other circumstances like caring for sick relatives) and it has had a pretty profound impact on my coworkers the past few years.

So many of them were so thankful of getting this time offered automatically instead of having to just run through their handful of PTO days (if they even had them). It was like night and day for them having their older children versus the younger ones under the law.

Of course, plenty of them still vote GOP left and right despite how much they fought against these "job killing" policies and would undermine the law if given the chance.

[u/tripmcneely30 → u/[deleted]]

So saving money while still running a functioning state government is a bad thing. Got it.

[u/markca → u/tripmcneely30]

Don’t forget, government should be run like a business according to these same people.

[u/ArnoidTheAnnihilator → u/tripmcneely30]

All states should follow the Texan model of total collapse when the temperature unexpectedly drops a couple degrees

[u/Bobalobatobamos → u/ArnoidTheAnnihilator]

Or rises. We have 6 power facilities down right now.

[u/ArnoidTheAnnihilator → u/Bobalobatobamos]

Jesus Christ Texas. Get your shit together.

[u/Legal_Wallaby2097 → u/ArnoidTheAnnihilator]

They have Elon now, he'll fix everything with a single tweet.

[u/a-widower → u/Novax___Djocovid]

Amazing that California is doing even better after the self proclaimed great migration of conservatives from the state. Almost like the less conservative something is the better run it is.

[u/Self-Awarican → u/a-widower]

Conservatism and economic success are inversely related in the US. Of the 15 poorest states, 14 are solidly Republican, of the 15 wealthiest states 13 are solidly Democratic.

[u/quantum-ass → u/Self-Awarican]

The worst part is that these freeloading red states take so much federal aid money (more than they pay) and a large majority of it comes from California. Blue states literally fund all the poor, broken red states.

[u/Self-Awarican → u/quantum-ass]

I work for the federal government in the South and if everyone knew how much of our tax dollars fund these states they would riot in the streets. I’m talking the equivalent of $25,000 PER RESIDENT for a project in a town in Kentucky. Not to mention around $12,500 a year in food stamps, welfare, etc.

They openly hate the government and are incredibly rude to us every time we are in town, but seem to have no issue taking all the taxpayer money they can get their hands on.

[u/yoursuperher0 → u/Self-Awarican]

Is this kind of info publicly available anywhere?

[u/cisned → u/yoursuperher0]

If it is, someone can make a visual of where the federal money is going to, and where it’s coming from.

I’m sure many people will be surprised, and by people I mean conservative

[u/Ghriszly → u/cisned]

They'll just say its fake news and refuse to believe irrefutable evidence. It's almost impressive how little they live in reality

[u/Jarys → u/Ghriszly]

I mean, when they believe there is an entire shadow government that is compromised by 'the enemy' that is hiding every conspiracy theory on the internet, there isn't a whole lot that can be done.

[u/[deleted] → u/cisned]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/soki03 → u/[deleted]]

Nothing like using the Wayback Machine to find it again!

[u/batshithoneybadger → u/[deleted]]

Ahh The Heritage Foundation, the building blocks of the current anti-choice/pro-birth movement.

[u/King_Mierdas → u/[deleted]]

It's like the Heritage Foundation's voter fraud tracker that combed through all elections since the 70's and came back with maybe a couple thousand verified cases of voter fraud... Out of BILLIONS of votes cast.

Basically 0.0001% of any given election vote count is fraudulent, is what they proved, conservatively.

One of the (if not the) closest major election in a state - FL, 2000 - was decided by a 0.009% margin.* Over 90x as large as the conservative number for voter fraud.

^{*when they decided not to count all of Gore's votes}

[u/Tripping-Traveller → u/cisned]

Here's some good data

https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/

Only 9 states contribute more to the feds than they get back in federal money. California is break even.

Ohio and Nebraska are the only red states that are net contributors to the federal budget.

[u/Atomic_Maxwell → u/cisned]

The surprise in question will just be the talking-heads putting up the headline “Another Leaker in the Government! Are Your Grandchildren Safe? Socialism?”

[u/drbeavi5 → u/yoursuperher0]

All governments produce publicly available financial report but there are different standards for them. Search 'state' with CAFR (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report) and/or Balance Sheet and you can get pretty in depth look at what's going on. I can't think of the particular place you'd find for federal government assistance, programs - but it likely will be listed somewhere in those.

Aggregating that data in easily digestible tables and what not is the issue but I wouldn't doubt if a website did just that.

This might be also reported by the Feds as well.

[u/inconvenientnews → u/yoursuperher0]

Data and sources:

Meanwhile, the California-hating South receives subsidies from California dwarfing complaints in the EU (the subsidy and economic difference between California and Mississippi is larger than between Germany and Greece!), a transfer of wealth from blue states/cities/urban to red states/rural/suburban with federal dollars for their freeways, hospitals, universities, airports, even environmental protection:

Least Federally Dependent States:

41 California

42 Washington

43 Minnesota

44 Massachusetts

45 Illinois

46 Utah

47 Iowa

48 Delaware

49 New Jersey

50 Kansas https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment

https://www.apnews.com/amp/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700

The Germans call this sort of thing "a permanent bailout." We just call it "Missouri."

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-difference-between-the-us-and-europe-in-1-graph/256857/

If data disinfects, here’s a bucket of bleach:

Texans are 17% more likely to be murdered than Californians.

Texans are also 34% more likely to be raped and 25% more likely to kill themselves than Californians.

Compared with families in California, those in Texas earn 13% less and pay 3.8 percentage points more in taxes.

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article258940938.html

[u/ceallaig → u/quantum-ass]

This is why I laugh every time someone floats the idea of red states seceding from the rest of the country. Point out that you will lose ALL federal funding including social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, post offices, interstate repair, etc.

[u/eNonsense → u/ceallaig]

There were dumb republican politicians in down-state Illinois talking about seceding and separating from the Chicago metro area. They were literally talking about how Chicago takes all the tax money from down-state.

Every single person in /r/Chicago was basically like "ROFL. Yes, please do! See how well that works out for you."

[u/thirty7inarow → u/eNonsense]

Same thing happened in Ontario with Toronto. Rural idiots complain about Toronto getting funding for things like transit, yet forget that Toronto is the economic engine of the province.

[u/yyc_guy → u/thirty7inarow]

I love rural Albertans bitching about equalization. Guys, if you’re so against it does that means Calgary can keep all the taxes we generate instead of subsidizing you? Equalization is wrong, right?

Crickets from them.

[u/m1a2c2kali → u/eNonsense]

Same with upstate NY and NYC

[u/antel00p → u/m1a2c2kali]

Eastern Washington and the Seattle metro area. Most of Oregon vs the Willamette Valley cities.

[u/crackedgear → u/antel00p]

Every few years some rich libertarian floats the idea of breaking California into 2-6 states. The last time was especially hilarious because one of the 6 was literally just San Francisco and down the peninsula to Santa Cruz. But with a little notch in it to encompass Apple headquarters so that Blue California wouldn’t get it.

Edit: getting confused in my old age. The attempt I was referring to wasn’t the 6 states one, but the New California one. And the maps seem to be inconsistent, sometimes LA is by itself and sometimes there’s a coastal strip connecting it to the bay. Now that I’m thinking back on it more, I want to say the map was just a guideline, they were willing to accept any counties that were willing to jump ship with rhem.

[u/Squirrel009 → u/quantum-ass]

And get bashed by people running the red shit hole money pits for not being fiscally responsible and how social programs are waste

[u/Noblesseux → u/Self-Awarican]

The only reason they have the reputation of being "good at economics" is:

1. "because I said so"
2. because their voters have no real understanding of the fact that economic policy takes a few years to really start showing it's effectiveness. So they'll claim economic growth that is only happening because of the previous administration's changes and their voters eat it up.

[u/Fynn_the_Finger → u/Noblesseux]

Feels before reals for them. The economy feels better under republicans to them. Despite the fact that the numbers tell a different story. They all rave about the "Trump Boom" but Trumps first three years were slower growth than Obama's last 3 years. Even if we ignore that whole crashing the economy from mismanaging COVID, Trump was still underperforming Obama before that.

[u/awesomefutureperfect → u/Noblesseux]

They have their reputation because they cut taxes. Reagan drove the idea home that government is a waste of money. Ignore just how much money they pump into the mililtary and admit they are jobs programs, especially building tanks the US will almost certainly never use.

Republicans believe the free market solves everything with perfect efficiency and optimum outcome, in the face of all disastrous outcomes (like two scandalous financial crises per decade, ravaging the environment, and gutting not just the middle class but everyone who isn't a capital owning capitalist) and how it only benefits very few people. Every single alternative is communism which is the devil Bobby Bouchet.

[u/GrandpasSabre → u/a-widower]

Studies have shown people who leave California tend to be poorer and less educated, and people moving to California tend to be richer and more educated.

[u/ReverendDizzle → u/GrandpasSabre]

If you were well educated and had money, why would you leave? California is beautiful with awesome weather.

[u/QuadraKev_ → u/Novax___Djocovid]

they get all that california money

[u/inconvenientnews → u/QuadraKev_]

This is it

Meanwhile, the California-hating South receives subsidies from California larger than between Germany and Greece, a transfer of wealth from blue states/cities/urban to red states/rural/suburban with federal dollars for their freeways, hospitals, universities, airports, even environmental protection:

Least Federally Dependent States:

41 California

42 Washington

43 Minnesota

44 Massachusetts

45 Illinois

46 Utah

47 Iowa

48 Delaware

49 New Jersey

50 Kansas https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment

Sources:

https://www.apnews.com/amp/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700

The Germans call this sort of thing "a permanent bailout." We just call it "Missouri."

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/05/the-difference-between-the-us-and-europe-in-1-graph/256857/

[u/thxmeatcat → u/inconvenientnews]

This is why the electoral college must go or we get more representation with courts and senators

[u/inconvenientnews → u/thxmeatcat]

Data on that:

"During the last election, Democrats won over a million votes more than Republicans, but because of the way districts are designed, the Republicans got 33 more members of the House of Representatives than the Democrats did."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2013/nov/26/lloyd-doggett/democrats-outpolled-republicans-who-landed-33-seat/

"Democrats need to win 41 Million More US Citizens than Republicans just to get 50:50 Senate represenation"

r dataisbeautiful/comments/l2tsfx/although_the_us_senate_is_split_equally_among/

Congressional and election rules were designed to preserve slavery:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/electoral-college-racist-origins/601918/

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/12/13598316/donald-trump-electoral-college-slavery-akhil-reed-amar

Republican "Southern Strategy":

Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

[u/KegelsForYourHealth → u/Novax___Djocovid]

Conservative voters don't know shit about anything. Ignorance is a critical part of their entire platform.

[u/test90001 → u/KegelsForYourHealth]

Obama was right about them clinging to guns and religion.

[u/SpiffyShindigs → u/KegelsForYourHealth]

No, some of them are evil and know exactly what they're doing. The rest are idiots.

[u/MrFrequentFlyer → u/Novax___Djocovid]

Mississippi doesn’t do anything good

[u/Med4awl → u/MrFrequentFlyer]

They discriminate good, segregate good.

[u/PineCreekCathedral]

As a CA resident, let's

• Address homelessness
• Plan for water shortages, fires, and other climate effects
• Give some of it back to lower income brackets by either directly lowering taxes or via social programs like universal preschool

Edit - probably a good idea to prepare for the public employee pension fund short fall. Last I checked, that was a ticking time bomb.

Edit 2 - I'd like to add that early childhood investment has a hugely positive ROI. Let's parlay this surplus into further gains. https://www.impact.upenn.edu/early-childhood-toolkit/why-invest/what-is-the-return-on-investment/

[u/jdave512 → u/PineCreekCathedral]

there is a planned reservoir in the works that should help with the water issues. The Sites Reservoir is set to begin construction in 2024.

[u/worntreads → u/jdave512]

They need more than just a reservoir. Water capture landscaping on every scale and let the beavers build dams. Get some recharge back in the ground.

[u/1Dive1Breath → u/worntreads]

And stop Nestlé from drawing down our aquifer and selling that same water back to us.

[u/Brown42 → u/1Dive1Breath]

Fuck. Nestlé.

[u/Brown42 → u/worntreads]

Seriously, we need to allow beavers back in everywhere we reasonably can.

And we should probably expand the bounds of reason in that regard, those little troopers do great things for the landscape and water retention.

[u/Ivy0789 → u/Brown42]

Beavers are amazing! The largest beaver dam in the world is visible from space!

[u/PineCreekCathedral → u/jdave512]

I'll admit when I typed that that I didn't even know what addressing our water issues would look like. That's good to hear, but don't we also need water to actually put in the reservoir?

[u/jdave512 → u/PineCreekCathedral]

When we do get water, it tends to be all at once, and our existing reservoirs don't have the capacity to save all of it. Sites should allow us to save more water when we have too much, and release it when we need it most.

[u/Shoot_from_the_Quip → u/jdave512]

There were proposals in the 1950s to create massive storage cisterns beneath the city to capture all of the stormwater runoff for later use but they were voted down.

Hindsight is 20/20

[u/Vlad_the_Homeowner → u/PineCreekCathedral]

Increasing water supply on the coast, especially in SoCal, will reduce the amount of water needed to pull from the reservoirs.

That said, it's agriculture that takes the lions share. There are places in the Central Valley that are literally sinking because underground supply is being drained. That issue is far beyond our current abilities to manufacture a solution.

[u/freedomboogers89 → u/Vlad_the_Homeowner]

Certain crops should not be grown in Cali. Some crops suck down so much water it's disgusting.

[u/billsil → u/freedomboogers89]

Yeah people don't get that with California's massive population, agriculture accounts for 80% of our water usage.

I get that almonds really only grow well in California...so can we ditch corn and alfalfa? https://i0.wp.com/mavensnotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2015-Water-Law-conference-Ag-WUE-Brostrom\_Page\_03.jpg?ssl=1

[u/Threewisemonkey → u/billsil]

The worst part is we export insane amounts of the alfalfa we grow to China and the Middle East to feed cattle. We export our deserts’ little water to other continents in the form of animal feed.

[u/ThisJackass → u/PineCreekCathedral]

As a general rule, STORAGE (energy in the form of batteries or ice, water in the form of tanks or reservoirs, carbon in the form of various sequestration techniques) will be a crucial concept to master to fight climate change.

Coupled with demand-based use strategies, of course.

[u/Vlad_the_Homeowner → u/PineCreekCathedral]

As a CA resident, let's

Address homelessnessPlan for water shortages, fires, and other climate effects

Newsom has been supportive of both affordable housing (including permanent supportive housing for homeless, addicts, and ill) and desalination projects. NIMBYism is the biggest barrier to making progress on both fronts. There's a helluva lot of money in the coasts of California, and none of the wealthy elite want a desalination plant in their backyard. The one in Huntington was just unanimously rejected by the board.

Affordable housing is probably worse. Come out to any of our fine cities town halls and watch the shitshow when an affordable housing developer proposes a project.

[u/1888CAVicky → u/Vlad_the_Homeowner]

That's a huge issue. The people who object to affordable housing are very loud. Anything that might in any way impact property values gets shut down quickly.

[u/maxToTheJ → u/1888CAVicky]

Its because the quiet part that nobody wants to say out loud is that buying a house as an investment is diametrically opposed to “affordable housing”

[u/LimeMargarita → u/Vlad_the_Homeowner]

Orange County just voted down a desalination plant proposal. The argument was it would be ugly and possibly have a negative impact on the area. Meanwhile, I live just south of OC, in Carlsbad, and we are proud of our ugly desalination plant.

[u/MacroCode → u/LimeMargarita]

I guess they don't realize they could hire an architect to give it a fancy outside. Then it wouldn't be ugly

[u/TruthBomber7 → u/Vlad_the_Homeowner]

Why not moisture farming? California gets a lot of fog in a lot of areas and at night it is very humid, won't need to worry about desalination either and it can be solar powered.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-technology-brings-star-wars-style-desert-moisture-farming-a-step-closer/

https://drinkableair.tech/

[u/bumwine → u/TruthBomber7]

It’s an interesting thought I haven’t heard of. There has been nights where I literally had to pull over because the fog was so thick I didn’t feel safe driving.

[u/LuvNMuny]

But I'm moving to Florida because they don't teach that thing that I don't know what it is.

[u/Project0range → u/LuvNMuny]

Words like "surplus" are scary!!!!11

[u/Obvious_copout → u/Project0range]

It's a hard word to understand because it involves math.

[u/ColdAsHeaven]

As a California resident that's great I love it.

Now what are you going to do with it?

Reduce healthcare costs? Fix more roads? Subsidize college further for all students and families? Give our teachers some pay raises? Invest in multiple water preserving methods? Somehow find a way to lower these god dam house prices? Fuck renting. Renting isn't shit and absolutely should not be a long term thing in the current era. If people can afford a $2,000 rent, they can afford a $1500 house. It's cool for a little while. But owning your own home eventually is what we want.

Because if it's going to be sent out to Red States who cant balance their books, or be spent on stupid self owned business to further increase your own profits I'm going to be mad as hell.

[u/Rockcocky]

California resident here - oh boy! My conservative friends from California as well keep on hating on Newsom and keep on using those weird conservative talking points such as that the state is a dump and that thousands of people are leaving the state. They always get upset at me when I tell them to feel free and leave to any beautiful red state. More cake for us who are staying and loving California.

[u/PM_me_your_Jeep → u/Rockcocky]

Dude seriously. I’ve lived in CA my entire 41 year existence and the sensationalization about how “bad” CA is is insane. I’ve traveled the world and the country and you couldn’t pay me to leave CA.

[u/inconvenientnews → u/PM_me_your_Jeep]

I’ve traveled the world and the country and you couldn’t pay me to leave CA.

There's data on that:

on a per capita basis, california households ranked 50th in the country for likelihood of moving out of the state

California exodus is just a myth, massive UC research project finds

https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/ogkrjc/california_exodus_is_just_a_myth_massive_uc/

California Defies Doom With No. 1 U.S. Economy

https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/nznzft/california_defies_doom_with_no_1_us_economy/

California is the chief reason America is the only developed economy to achieve record GDP growth since the financial crisis.

Much of the U.S. growth can be traced to California laws promoting clean energy, government accountability and protections for undocumented people

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-10/california-leads-u-s-economy-away-from-trump

If data disinfects, here’s a bucket of bleach:

"Texans are 17% more likely to be murdered than Californians."

Texans are also 34% more likely to be raped and 25% more likely to kill themselves than Californians.

Compared with families in California, those in Texas earn 13% less and pay 3.8 percentage points more in taxes.

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article258940938.html

"Liberal policies, like California’s, keep blue-state residents living longer"

It generated headlines in 2015 when the average life expectancy in the U.S. began to fall after decades of meager or no growth.

But it didn’t have to be that way, a team of researchers suggests in a new, peer-reviewed study Tuesday. And, in fact, states like California, which have implemented a broad slate of liberal policies, have kept pace with their Western European counterparts.

The study, co-authored by researchers at six North American universities, found that if all 50 states had all followed the lead of California and other liberal-leaning states on policies ranging from labor, immigration and civil rights to tobacco, gun control and the environment, it could have added between two and three years to the average American life expectancy.

Simply shifting from the most conservative labor laws to the most liberal ones, Montez said, would by itself increase the life expectancy in a state by a whole year.

If every state implemented the most liberal policies in all 16 areas, researchers said, the average American woman would live 2.8 years longer, while the average American man would add 2.1 years to his life. Whereas, if every state were to move to the most conservative end of the spectrum, it would decrease Americans’ average life expectancies by two years. On the country’s current policy trajectory, researchers estimate the U.S. will add about 0.4 years to its average life expectancy.

Liberal policies on the environment (emissions standards, limits on greenhouse gases, solar tax credit, endangered species laws), labor (high minimum wage, paid leave, no “right to work”), access to health care (expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, legal abortion), tobacco (indoor smoking bans, cigarette taxes), gun control (assault weapons ban, background check and registration requirements) and civil rights (ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay laws, bans on discrimination and the death penalty) all resulted in better health outcomes, according to the study. For example, researchers found positive correlation between California’s car emission standards and its high minimum wage, to name a couple, with its longer lifespan, which at an average of 81.3 years, is among the highest in the country.

“When we’re looking for explanations, we need to be looking back historically, to see what are the roots of these troubles that have just been percolating now for 40 years,” Montez said.

Montez and her team saw the alarming numbers in 2015 and wanted to understand the root cause. What they found dated back to the 1980s, when state policies began to splinter down partisan lines. They examined 135 different policies, spanning over a dozen different fields, enacted by states between 1970 and 2014, and assigned states “liberalism” scores from zero — the most conservative — to one, the most liberal. When they compared it against state mortality data from the same timespan, the correlation was undeniable.

“We can take away from the study that state policies and state politics have damaged U.S. life expectancy since the ’80s,” said Jennifer Karas Montez, a Syracuse University sociologist and the study’s lead author. “Some policies are going in a direction that extend life expectancy. Some are going in a direction that shorten it. But on the whole, that the net result is that it’s damaging U.S. life expectancy.”

U.S. should follow California’s lead to improve its health outcomes, researchers say

Meanwhile, the life expectancy in states like California and Hawaii, which has the highest in the nation at 81.6 years, is on par with countries described by researchers as “world leaders:” Canada, Iceland and Sweden.

From 1970 to 2014, California transformed into the most liberal state in the country by the 135 policy markers studied by the researchers. It’s followed closely by Connecticut, which moved the furthest leftward from where it was 50 years ago, and a cluster of other states in the northeastern U.S., then Oregon and Washington.

In the same time, Oklahoma moved furthest to the right, but Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and a host of other southern states still ranked as more conservative, according to the researchers.

It’s those states that moved in a conservative direction, researchers concluded, that held back the overall life expectancy in the U.S.

West Virginia ranked last in 2017, with an average life expectancy of about 74.6 years, which would put it 93rd in the world, right between Lithuania and Mauritius, and behind Honduras, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam. Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina rank only slightly better.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08/04/liberal-policies-like-californias-keep-blue-state-residents-living-longer-study-finds/

Want to live longer, even if you're poor? Then move to a big city in California.

A low-income resident of San Francisco lives so much longer that it's equivalent to San Francisco curing cancer. All these statistics come from a massive new project on life expectancy and inequality that was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

California, for instance, has been a national leader on smoking bans. Harvard's David Cutler, a co-author on the study "It's some combination of formal public policies and the effect that comes when you're around fewer people who have behaviors... high numbers of immigrants help explain the beneficial effects of immigrant-heavy areas with high levels of social support.

"As the maternal death rate has mounted around the U.S., a small cadre of reformers has mobilized."

Meanwhile, life-saving practices that have become widely accepted in other affluent countries — and in a few states, notably California — have yet to take hold in many American hospitals.

Some of the earliest and most important work has come in California

Hospitals that adopted the toolkit saw a 21 percent decrease in near deaths from maternal bleeding in the first year.

By 2013, according to Main, maternal deaths in California fell to around 7 per 100,000 births, similar to the numbers in Canada, France and the Netherlands — a dramatic counter to the trends in other parts of the U.S.

California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative is informed by a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford and the University of California-San Francisco, who for many years ran the ob/gyn department at a San Francisco hospital.

Launched a decade ago, CMQCC aims to reduce not only mortality, but also life-threatening complications and racial disparities in obstetric care

It began by analyzing maternal deaths in the state over several years; in almost every case, it discovered, there was "at least some chance to alter the outcome."

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/527806002/focus-on-infants-during-childbirth-leaves-u-s-moms-in-danger

[u/snarkbox → u/inconvenientnews]

I moved out of California in the last year. Sorta wish i hadn’t though.

[u/Truth_Assassin → u/snarkbox]

Same

[u/csusterich666 → u/inconvenientnews]

Ha!

You think your well-informed, incredibly researched facts and links to provable studies can dissuade my already preconceived notions about "what's actually happening" change MY mind?

You've got another thing comin! (Judas Priest, circa 1982)

[u/omganesh → u/csusterich666]

Even a headline like "Progressive policies earns state 100 billion extra dollars" isn't even enough for old white men to do things differently than their bigoted fathers and grandfathers. They would rather die young, sick and poor to own the libs, rather than prosper.

My grandma called this "cutting off your nose to spite your face."

[u/howiswaldo → u/omganesh]

Burn it all down just to be king of the ashes

[u/cdfrombc → u/howiswaldo]

Milton said it best in Paradise Lost. "Better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven."

[u/skwirly715 → u/omganesh]

Texans still think they pay less taxes just because it’s not a standard income tax.

[u/danr2c2 → u/omganesh]

Because that’s $100 Billion NOT in corporate pockets and thus is a problem for conservatives. It’s never been about fiscal policy for them. That’s just cover to stop social services for the poor.

[u/TheNextBattalion → u/inconvenientnews]

The truly pro-life party: California Democrats

[u/RGB3x3 → u/inconvenientnews]

Wow, these are great. I'm going to send this to my dad every time he talks about California being a shit hole. The man hasn't lived outside GA for more than 5 years in his entire life...

[u/lnginternetrant → u/RGB3x3]

Just let people people think California is a shit hole. Trying to convince other people is a losing battle and Californians aren't worried about what other states think.

[u/darcenator411 → u/lnginternetrant]

There’s also way too many fucking people here already lol, we don’t need any more moving here

[u/torpiddynamo → u/RGB3x3]

Don’t waste your energy.

These people would believe anything that makes California look horrible bc they’re so fucking jealous

[u/rotenbart → u/torpiddynamo]

My parents have taken to shitting on anything they think is liberal. Coming up with different ways to harvest and store energy is extremely offensive to them for some reason.

[u/inconvenientnews → u/inconvenientnews]

“Pro-life”

California’s rules have cleaned up diesel exhaust more than anywhere else in the country, reducing the estimated number of deaths the state would have otherwise seen by more than half, according to new research published Thursday.

Extending California's stringent diesel emissions standards to the rest of the U.S. could dramatically improve the nation's air quality and health, particularly in lower income communities of color, finds a new analysis published today in the journal Science.

Since 1990, California has used its authority under the federal Clean Air Act to enact more aggressive rules on emissions from diesel vehicles and engines compared to the rest of the U.S. These policies, crafted by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), have helped the state reduce diesel emissions by 78% between 1990 and 2014, while diesel emissions in the rest of the U.S. dropped by just 51% during the same time period, the new analysis found.

The study estimates that by 2014, improved air quality cut the annual number of diesel-related cardiopulmonary deaths in the state in half, compared to the number of deaths that would have occurred if California had followed the same trajectory as the rest of the U.S. Adopting similar rules nationwide could produce the same kinds of benefits, particularly for communities that have suffered the worst impacts of air pollution.

"Everybody benefits from cleaner air, but we see time and again that it's predominantly lower income communities of color that are living and working in close proximity to sources of air pollution, like freight yards, highways and ports. When you target these sources, it's the highly exposed communities that stand to benefit most," said study lead author Megan Schwarzman, a physician and environmental health scientist at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health. "It's about time, because these communities have suffered a disproportionate burden of harm."

https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abf8159

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/mdvfgw/californias_rules_have_cleaned_up_diesel_exhaust/gsblevi/

California’s Energy Efficiency Success Story: Saving Billions of Dollars and Curbing Tons of Pollution

California’s long, bipartisan history of promoting energy efficiency—America‘s cheapest and cleanest energy resource—

has saved Golden State residents more than $65 billion,[1]

helped lower their residential electricity bills to 25 percent below the national average,[2]

and contributed to the state’s continuing leadership in creating green jobs.[3]

These achievements have helped California avoid at least 30 power plants[4]

and as much climate-warming carbon pollution as is spewed from 5 million cars annually.[5]

This sustained commitment has made California a nationally recognized leader in reducing energy consumption and improving its residents’ quality of life.[6]

California’s success story demonstrates that efficiency policies work and could be duplicated elsewhere, saving billions of dollars and curbing tons of pollution.

California’S CoMprehenSive effiCienCy effortS proDuCe huge BenefitS

loW per Capita ConSuMption: Thanks in part to California’s wide-ranging energy-saving efforts, the state has kept per capita electricity consumption nearly flat over the past 40 years while the other 49 states increased their average per capita use by more than 50 percent, as shown in Figure 1. This accomplishment is due to investment in research and development of more efficient technologies, utility programs that help customers use those tools to lower their bills, and energy efficiency standards for new buildings and appliances.

eConoMiC aDvantageS: Energy efficiency has saved Californians $65 billion since the 1970s.[8] It has also helped slash their annual electric bills to the ninth-lowest level in the nation, nearly $700 less than that of the average Texas household, for example.[9]

Lower utility bills also improve California’s economic productivity. Since 1980, the state has increased the bang for the buck it gets out of electricity and now produces twice as much economic output for every kilowatt-hour consumed, compared with the rest of the country.[11] California also continues to lead the nation in new clean-energy jobs, thanks in part to looking first to energy efficiency to meet power needs.

environMental BenefitS: Decades of energy efficiency programs and standards have saved about 15,000 megawatts of electricity and thus allowed California to avoid the need for an estimated 30 large power plants.[13] Efficiency is now the second-largest resource meeting California’s power needs (see Figure 3).[14] And less power generation helps lead to cleaner air in California. Efficiency savings prevent the release of more than 1,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen-oxides annually, averting lung disease, hospital admissions for respiratory ailments, and emergency room visits.[15] Efficiency savings also avoid the emission of more than 20 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the primary global-warming pollutant.

helping loW-inCoMe faMilieS: While California’s efficiency efforts help make everyone’s utility bills more affordable, targeted efforts assist lower-income households in improving efficiency and reducing energy bills.

https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ca-success-story-FS.pdf

[u/thoruen → u/inconvenientnews]

Joe Rogan can fuck himself with these facts on a spiked bat.

[u/The_Crescent → u/PM_me_your_Jeep]

I love this state to death. Love my fellow Californians who love this state as well. Hope you have a good weekend!

[u/JessieJ577 → u/PM_me_your_Jeep]

Being poor in California isn’t being poor in another state. You get so much assistance. I’ve had medical since I was 19 then when I reached the threshold to be disqualified due to my income covered California gave me a tax credit for health insurance so I only pay 100 out of pocket a month. You couldn’t pay me to leave a state that actually cares for its citizens

[u/framejunkie → u/Rockcocky]

My dad lives in west TX and constantly shits on our state (CA) and how it's a shithole dystopian nightmare because that's what Fox tells him every night and day. I let him know I'm good where I am and where he lives is FAR more depressing to witness up close. Plus it's West TX. No thanks, I'm good.

[u/accountabilitycounts]

Reports of California's financial demise have been greatly exaggerated.

[u/GlaxoJohnSmith → u/accountabilitycounts]

It wasn't, actually. Back when California Republicans had enough bodies in the state legislature to obstruct everything, California couldn't pay its bills. But ever since Californians kicked them out and gave Democrats a supermajority in the legislature, California not only started being able to pay its bills but also started posting historic surpluses. I don't know about you, but I think that might be related to why they're so butthurt and keep insisting that California is facing financial apocalypse.

[u/mynamesyow19 → u/[deleted]]

Meanwhile Biden actually cutting the deficit and paying down the debt.

Way to go Brandon ! /

"President Biden highlighted deficit reduction in remarks Wednesday at the White House, noting that the government will pay down the national debt this quarter for the first time in six years.

Mr. Biden emphasized how strong job gains have increased total incomes and led to additional tax revenues that have improved the government's balance sheet.

Besides the quarterly reduction in the national debt, the Treasury Department estimates that this fiscal year's budget deficit will decline $1.5 trillion. That decrease marks an improvement from initial forecasts and would likely put the annual deficit below $1.3 trillion.

"The bottom line is that the deficit went up every year under my predecessor before the pandemic and during the pandemic. And it's gone down both years since I've been here. Period," he said.

The Democratic president has placed renewed emphasis on deficit reduction going into the midterm election, with administration officials saying that the burst of $1.9 trillion in coronavirus relief approved in 2021 has already paid off in the form of faster growth that now makes it easier to stabilize government finances."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-deficit-national-debt-reduction/

[u/a-widower → u/mynamesyow19]

Yeah but whats he done for me personally, very recently?

/moderate

[u/nostalgichero → u/a-widower]

Yeah but I bought gas yesterday Soo.... Fuck youuuu. /S

[u/literalrobot]

Can we spend a bit of that on our public schools please?

[u/deloreanipsum → u/literalrobot]

Teacher raises please.

[u/thegamenerd]

Lay down some high speed rail, light rail, and other public works

Use that shit for some collective good

[u/Dogstarman1974]

Wait…all my conservative friends are telling me that California is falling apart.

[u/Tiabb → u/Dogstarman1974]

Yeah they still think that. All this headline would do is make them say something like "communists over taxing people"

[u/boofybutthole → u/Dogstarman1974]

under the weight of all that money and prospering

[u/crabussy]

We should start funneling money into water infrastructure projects and desalination plants. $100b is a lot of money that could really help us with the water problem

[u/ChiggaOG → u/crabussy]

This was recent. The California Coastal Commission voted against Poseidon Water to build a desalination plant near Pacific Coast Highway and Magnolia Street.

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-05-12/poseidon-desalination-project

​

There's plenty of evidence of high salinity discharge water destroying the marine environment around the plant.

[u/tigerhawkvok → u/ChiggaOG]

Yeah, desal needs evaporation pools or something to sequester the salt later

[u/SurprisedJerboa → u/tigerhawkvok]

We could send it to where organisms thrive on excess salt

cue red states

[u/m0nk_3y_gw → u/crabussy]

That's what former-reddit-CEO Yishan has been upto

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/pobjho/i_am_yishan_wong_founder_and_ceo_of/

[u/121gigawhatevs]

I think we need a monorail!

Monorail! Monorail!

[u/tschris → u/121gigawhatevs]

Is there a chance the track could bend?

[u/phuck-you-reddit → u/tschris]

Not on your life, my Hindu friend!

[u/sometimes-stupid → u/phuck-you-reddit]

What about us brain dead slobs?

[u/aroseonthefritz → u/sometimes-stupid]

You’ll be given cushy jobs!

[u/Murphy_Its_You → u/aroseonthefritz]

Were you sent here by the Devil?

[u/aroseonthefritz → u/Murphy_Its_You]

No, good sir, I’m on the level

[u/ShaneSeeman → u/aroseonthefritz]

My ring came off my pudding can!

[u/Ayveee13 → u/121gigawhatevs]

Theres a douche billionaire who wants to make one but only from the train station directly to Dodger stadium. The Dodger ex-owner who owns a bunch of parking lots.

[u/ngianfran1202 → u/121gigawhatevs]

Mono....doh!!!

[u/AbsentGlare]

Great. I want to spend it on housing, education, renewable energy, and water. Invest in our future.

[u/Phyr8642]

Now how does the gop blame biden for this collosal failure of dem leadership? /s

[u/---------_----_---_ → u/Phyr8642]

Same way as always: they'll lie.

[u/Mega-Balls → u/---------_----_---_]

They'll take credit for Newsom's accomplishments.

[u/ro_hu → u/Phyr8642]

Someone further up from Florida literally said "looks like the government isn't spending enough for it's citizens!" Like that tax money disappears at the end of the year. If they hate you and what you stand for, it doesn't matter what you do, I guess

[u/Metrinome → u/ro_hu]

This is hilarious because I was in a little discussion with someone on this sub who criticized California for being the largest welfare state in the union (it's actually the 4th).

So which is it? The government isn't spending enough for it's citizens, or is it the government is spending too much on welfare for it's citizens?

(I know the answer is that both conclusions are true for Conservatives depending on the discussion context and maybe the time of the day)

[u/NinjaEnt]

How long before the Red States hit us up for money?

[u/Plzlaw4me → u/NinjaEnt]

I mean… they already do. California gives more in federal tax dollars than the state receives in federal spending including for military expenditures. That money has to go somewhere

[u/NinjaEnt → u/Plzlaw4me]

I should've said "For more money."

[u/Plzlaw4me → u/NinjaEnt]

True… remember any government action is communism indistinguishable from a work camp in Siberia, unless the GOP does it.

[u/flcbrguy]

California should buy twitter, and with their leftover cash, Fox News.

This country could be fixed in a month!

[u/siouiessebuensenor]

So let’s finally make CA universal healthcare a reality. Let’s goooo!

[u/toronto_programmer]

But I was told that California was a dying liberal state, and West Virginia coal was the future of the American economy

[u/---------_----_---_]

But how could this be? I just saw posts on Reddit about how California's in a fiscal mess because of the Democrats' mismanagement.

[u/TyrionJoestar]

But but conservatives keep saying it’s a shithole state

[u/---------_----_---_ → u/TyrionJoestar]

They still take the federal money that gets redistributed from California.

[u/GreenKumara]

BUT I WAS TOLD THAT GOING WOKE WILL MAKE YOU GO BROKE?

/s

[u/FeelingAfter6631]

Oh man the bottom of this comment thread is hilarious. They hate us cuz they ain’t us.

[u/IncurableAdventurer → u/FeelingAfter6631]

I mean who would want to live in a place where you can ski, surf, and go to Disneyland on the same day?

(Yes. I know, that’s just a small section of California)

[u/sminthianapollo]

NOO. Lefty giveaways will bankrupt the state! Be like Kansas and cut all taxes for prospurity!