Posted by
Patrick Henry on Wednesday, June 16, 2010 2:24:12 PM
Forget the movie in which patch-eyed swashbuckler Snake Plissken made his way
through the post-apoclayptic city to retrieve classified information. Think instead about
how the entire United States of America manages to avoid the awful plight of the
southern California metropolis and the degraded state of which it is a part.
Los Angeles, the nation's second biggest city is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.
It is not at all hard to see why. In a place where the median income is $26,000 annually,
city workers aveage $76,000 and more than 100 top $200,000. Exhorbitant taxation and
licensing fees have earned L.A. the odious distinction of being among the worst places
in the nation to do business. And while the city crumbles around them, Angeleno
authorities can't find anything better to do than rant against Arizona's new immigation
law and contemplate how best to boycott a valued business partner.
But it's not just the city, it's the whole state. Legislators faunch daily at Republican
Governor Arold Schwarzenegger's moves to cut state jobs and entitlement spending.
The unions, whose egregious demands share responsibility for putting California in
the fiscal mess it's in, show no intention of renegotiating their Cadillac contracts, while
people and jobs are streaming out of California for friendlier climates in droves. The
state has hit upon the ingenius formula of exporting talent while importing poverty in
the form of illegal immigrants. It boasts two of the nation's largest "sanctuary cities"
in L.A. and San Francisco and is generally uncooperative with Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officials.
Make no mistake, the Democrats have made California what it is today. At the time
when they gained control of the governorship and the entire legislature, they were
rubbing their hands together with glee and spouting about how they would show
everyone how Democrats govern and turn the state into a utopia. They embarked
on a bloodbath or taxing, spending and regulation, gave the powerful public
employees' unions carte blanche, reined in law enforcement and welcomed illegals.
Now we see how that worked out. The state is broke, its citizens (those that are
left) are angry, and the only apparent solutions are painful.
Zoom out to the national picture. Democrats control the Senate, the House and
the presidency. They are spending like drunken sailors, piling entitlement on
entitlement, seeking to increase taxes at every turn and regulating businesses to
the point that they can lo longer operate at a profit. Their failure to enforce even
the immigration laws on the books results in thousands of illegal northbound crossings
daily which drain resources of the states and jeopardize American national security.
Now we see how Democrats govern -- in spades! So how does Everytown America
escape from becoming another Los Angeles, and your state from emulating the
utterly failed California model? Common sense lights the way.
First, the Democrats have to go -- from congressional ascendancy and from the
White House. Their slavish devotion to socialism and cruel prosecution of legislation
Americans don't want will only continue to make things worse. And their delusion
of creating a Super Party by encouraging illegal immigration and then granting them
blanket amnesty will, in combination with reckless deficit spending, bankrupt the
nation well before their goal is realized. History is replete with the rubble of failed
socialist states, and the only way America can avoid becoming another is to force
those who are in love with Marxism from power.
Second, America must balance its national budget and establish a clear plan for
paying down its thirteen-trillion-dollar deficit. Pay as you go should only be set aside
in the case of a true national emergency, not simply for bailouts of businesses that
messed up and can't make it without bailouts. This means basically wars in which
America has been attacked and national disasters like Katrina and BP -- PERIOD.
No one has ever spent their way out of debt, and the country can't either. When an
entire poltical party refuses to accept such an obvious truism, one has to believe that
they are either all drunk or insane.
Third, government must return to its constitutional roots, do away with so-called
"czars" who operate a shadow government absent congressional approval, and
return powers not specifically delegated to the federal governments to the states
where they belong. This will have the effect of withdrawing government from the
lives of individual citizens, no longer telling them what they can earn, what they
must drive, when they can turn on the lights and what they should eat. When people
realize that they are responsible for themselves for better or for worse, and that
government will not care for them from cradle to grave, they will begin to make
equally responsible decisions, corrected by the consequences if they err.
Fourth, only strong, competent, visionary leadership can bring America safely
through the recessionary wilderness into which undisciplined and profligate spending
has led it. This means setting aside whimsy, looks, personality, racial, ethnic or
religious identity, and disciplining ourselves to vote against those who posture and
promise against a track record of non-accomplishment, and for those with proven
real world problem solving skills who actually talk practical common sense. It means
that America's government is not Hollywood where actors are awarded on the basis
of who is well-liked and puts on a good show, but a hard, cruel reality in which
terrorists double down daily on their resolve to kill Americans and the world is
growing weary of financing what is increasingly seen as a lavish governmental
lifestyle. In other words, Americans have to grow up and insist on being governed
by grownups.
Without these common sense adjustments, we may all find ourselves some day
in the very near future desperate to "escape from Los Angeles." While it is doubtful
that Snake Plissken will run for president, or even for congress, how much worse
could he do?