Your eyes on California Government

Commentary

OCT. 20, 2011

BY JOHN SEILER

On CalWatchDog.com, we report on the numerous follies and crimes of state government, especially those that have turned California’s once robust economy into a basket case.

But we always should remember that the much greater reason for our economic doldrums is located 3,000 miles to the east: Washington, District of Criminals. A new report found that it’s the metropolitan area with the highest household income in all the empire: $84,523 in 2010.

Second place: San Jose — Silicon Valley — at $83,994.

That means America’s most dominant industry is not our vaunted computer companies, but the gargantuan parasite on the Potomac.

The national average is just $50,046.

That means the average American family makes just 69 percent of the D.C. leeches it’s forced to support.

When I was growing up in Michigan in the 1960s and 1970s, the top-income area in the whole country was the counties just north of Detroit. That’s where the auto-industry executives and engineers lived. The high incomes there reflected Detroit’s position as the global industrial powerhouse — the “Arsenal of Democracy” that defeated National Socialist Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II.

Bankrupt

The greatest symbol of Detroit’s economic dominance was The General — not Eisenhower or Patton, but General Motors, by far the mightiest company in the world. Today, GM is recovering from a bankruptcy caused by over-regulation and over-taxation by the centralized regime in D.C. that loots us all. GM today even is owned 27 percent by the U.S. government,  12 percent by the Canadian government and 3.8 percent by the Ontario government. So, it’s 42.8 percent owned by governments — a homegrown version of national socialism.

The government takeover of GM by the DC draculas occurred after the government-caused 2008 economic meltdown led to GM’s government-caused 2009 bankruptcy. The company’s assets should have landed in bankruptcy court, to be sold to the highest bidder. By now, it would be a thriving private-sector company.

Instead, although sales are up, nobody knows what will happen once it goes completely private again.

Meanwhile, GM exited its only remaining California manufacturing plant last year. The factory since reopened as the factory for cars from Tesla — the “green” auto company that glommed onto $465 million in federal loans.

So, here’s how things work in the new America. The federal government taxes and regulates businesses and citizens to death, leading to the bankruptcy of firms like GM. The tax money flows to enrich D.C. Some of the money is dribbled back to politically favored companies, such as Tesla and Solyndra.

The country, especially California, is impoverished.

This occurred, I should ad, under bipartisan policies. Republicans have controlled the White House during 28 of the past 43 years. It was President George W. Bush who inherited budget surpluses, then broke the country with his wild spending.

From California, Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein and other representatives don’t represent our state and people, but the special interests in Washington. That’s why they’re always voting to boost budgets and taxes to support their D.C. pals.

Same thing with Republicans. President Ronald Reagan is lauded for cutting the budget. In fact, he increased federal spending 90 percent during his eight years in office. And in supposedly conservative Orange County, during the 2000s, the area’s five safe-seat GOP congressmen routinely voted to pass Bush’s budget-busting waste.

Sweet Home D.C.

Of course, all these “representatives” and senescent “senators” spend most of their time in D.C., and will retire there to become high-paid lobbyists. So they naturally want to enhance their real home town at the expense of the towns of the people they claim to represent.

You’ll know America is on the mend when D.C.’s average household income starts dropping compared to other areas, declining to below not only Silicon Valley, but Detroit.

Tags: Barbara Boxer, General Motors, George W. Bush, GM, John Seiler, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, Tesla