Welcome to the January Business and Nonprofits: A Winning Partnership issue of NorthBay biz. We’re very pleased to say that 2011 marks the beginning of our 36th year of publishing. The magazine looks forward to continuing its mission of serving the best interests of the business community in the North Bay as we go forward into a new decade.
As we begin the new year, I’m happy to announce the addition of two new columnists in the magazine. Bob Andrews, a native Santa Rosan and graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Law School, will be penning a column titled “Open Trench.” Bob’s background includes working for a number of years at Exchange Bank as a pension trust officer and then as the long-time co-owner of a local retirement plan administration firm. Expect to be entertained with Bob’s irreverently cynical critiques of government foibles. Susan Teel is also joining the esteemed ranks of local columnists at NorthBay biz. She’s a senior counsel at Dickenson, Peatman & Fogarty in the trusts and estates department and a member of its wealth management group. She’s specialized in estate planning, trust administration and probate for more than 25 years. Susan will be taking over our “Simply Legal” column. You can expect insightful commentary on these subjects and more as she’ll inform and enlighten you with her legal expertise.
Here we go. In addition to the almost record number of Republican gains in the House and Senate in the November election, the GOP also gained a record 680 seats in statehouses nationwide. Clearly, a strong message was being delivered by the electorate across the country. Driven primarily by economic issues, they indeed voted for change. Talk about bucking a trend. In California, a strong message was delivered too. With nary a GOP gain statewide, the voters clearly voted for more of the same. My head-shaking question is: Why?
With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country (12.5 percent), representing almost 2.5 million people without jobs, how can anyone be content with the status quo? With approximately 12 percent of the nation’s population, California has more than 30 percent of the nation’s welfare recipients. The state budget is a joke with deficits of $20 billion annually that never get addressed and are perpetually kicked down the road with gimmicks and more debt. In poll after poll and report after report, California is ranked at the bottom when compared with other states for sales taxes, income taxes, job creation, business friendliness, state competitiveness and regulations. More than 600,000 manufacturing jobs alone have been lost in California since 2001. Is the winning formula for any politician running for election in California a platform of high taxes, stifling regulations, anti-growth job creation and perpetual deficits? Spending undeterred by economic reality? Seems like a pretty strange formula, but that’s what gets people elected in California.
The core of the state’s problems are rooted in Sacramento, where special interests rule. Beholden to the public employee unions, the state legislature has sold out. What’s really in the best interests of the state becomes secondary to feeding the beast. Currently, as best as anyone can tell, the unfunded liabilities for California’s state and public employees union pension fund is $500 billion. How will this debt be serviced? Who knows? Who actually cares? The unions finance campaigns backing candidates who are in their pockets. Once elected, they vote for high salaries, great benefits and obscenely rich pension benefits.
The beauty of this symbiosis is that it’s all being done with OPM (other people’s money). Unions spend millions of their members’ dues, and the politicians pay for it all with money taken from all of us. Pretty slick, huh? When the rubber finally hits the road, all the politicians who created this mountain of debt will be long gone. It’ll be some other elected official’s problem. Nothing however, will ever change it from being our problem. And it’s a problem that will potentially bankrupt the state and us.
This is the fruit of one-party rule. Believe me, I harbor no allusions that Republicans are somehow purer than Democrats. Both parties have proved time and time again that, left to their own devices, they become drunk with their own power. Maintaining that power and influence becomes their primary motivation. They’re empowered only when the electorate permits it. California voters have been seduced over time to believe they can have—in fact, deserve—something for nothing. Empty promises. Program after program enacted in the state not to truly benefit anyone long term but, in actuality, to perpetuate the status quo. Never solving problems for individuals, but trying to classify everyone into groups and then pitting those groups against one another. Rich against poor, old versus young, and on it goes down to ethnicity, sexuality, gender and beyond. You name it, there’s a group that fits you. Just encourage differences, promote class warfare and there’s a group to pander to for the politicians. Melting pot—that’s old-school claptrap. Embrace your diversity; champion your differences, that’s the ticket. Carry flags of other countries in rallies. That’s what makes you a great American these days. And behind the scenes, the politicians snicker about how easy it is for them to pit each of these groups against one another with the only beneficiary being them.
A final, somewhat unrelated thought: All the heated rhetoric revolving around the Bush tax cuts is ridiculous. Extending the current tax rates is not cutting taxes for anyone, but simply keeping the rates the same as they’ve been for the past seven years. Failing to extend them is a tax increase on all. But if you’re to believe some politicians, that’s exactly what the economy needs right now. Taking more money out of the pockets of the companies hoping to hire more people and from the few people who still have a job. Genius.
That’s it for now. Enjoy this month’s magazine.
