Townhall cover for the article by Larry Kelley

Original article in Townhall Magazine (pdf)

The crisis facing the Golden State serves as a powerful cautionary tale for the rest of America. If the United States follows the missteps of California, it will find the same fate.

While Karl Marx believed that socialism—and ultimately communism—would replace capitalism as the morally superior societal system, it was Margaret Thatcher who observed, “The trouble with socialism is that it always runs out of other people’s money.” Now, after 50 years of steady indoctrination by California’s media and education establishments, acquiescence to the soft tyranny of socialism dominates the culture, business climate and legislature. A byproduct of this is California’s massive government spending machine, where wealth redistribution is the organizing principle. Despite being home to the eighth-largest economy in the world, California is also teetering on insolvency.

THE PERFECT STORM

Consider California’s perfect fiscal storm. Although Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the governorship in 2003 as a populist reformer, California’s cost of government has risen 40 percent since his election. California’s current budget includes $103 billion in spending. More »