{"id":8746,"date":"2009-05-04T02:54:18","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T02:54:18","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-04T02:54:18","modified_gmt":"2009-05-04T02:54:18","slug":"george-will-i-dont-know-anything-about-california-either","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/04\/george-will-i-dont-know-anything-about-california-either\/","title":{"rendered":"George Will: I Don&#8217;t Know Anything About California Either!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know the last time George Will has actually set foot in California, but his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/05\/01\/AR2009050102825.html\">complete hash of a column<\/a> about the state suggests he doesn&#8217;t know a thing about it. &nbsp;Most of it is a rehash of the same tired, false conservative tropes &#8211; that job creators are fleeing the state (not, um, <a href=\"http:\/\/californiabudgetbites.org\/2009\/02\/05\/another-urban-legend\/\">true<\/a>), that state spending is out of control (not, um, <a href=\"http:\/\/ocprogressive.com\/showDiary.do?diaryId=33\">true<\/a>), that public employees and their unions are bankrupting the state (California has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccsce.com\/pdf\/Numbers-oct08-govt-employees.pdf\">the second-lowest number of full-time government employees per capita among all states<\/a>, so, wrong again, George). &nbsp;But putting that aside, it is simply astonishing that anyone could write an entire column about California budget issues without bothering to mention the inconvenient fact of the 2\/3 requirement for budgets and taxes. &nbsp;Will&#8217;s notion that the Democratic legislature has made the state &#8220;liberalism&#8217;s laboratory&#8221; cannot be reconciled by the conservative veto over any tax hikes or budget solutions. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, Will (who probably got paid handsomely by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to write this drivel) rejects the May 19 ballot measures, as do <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/8532\/calitics-ed-board-says-no-on-special-election-initiatives\">Calitics<\/a>. &nbsp;But he completely and totally misreads the issues facing the legislature, the structural constraints upon them, and the solutions necessary to move the state forward. &nbsp;Showing himself to know nothing about California, maybe Will should stick to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/George-Will-is-an-idiot\">lying about climate change<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2009\/04\/10\/eugene-robinson-slams-col_n_185766.html\">repeatedly<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know the last time George Will has actually set foot in California, but his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/05\/01\/AR2009050102825.html\">complete hash of a column<\/a> about the state suggests he doesn&#8217;t know a thing about it. &nbsp;Most of it is a rehash of the same tired, false conservative tropes &#8211; that job creators are fleeing the state (not, um, <a href=\"http:\/\/californiabudgetbites.org\/2009\/02\/05\/another-urban-legend\/\">true<\/a>), that state spending is out of control (not, um, <a href=\"http:\/\/ocprogressive.com\/showDiary.do?diaryId=33\">true<\/a>), that public employees and their unions are bankrupting the state (California has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccsce.com\/pdf\/Numbers-oct08-govt-employees.pdf\">the second-lowest number of full-time government employees per capita among all states<\/a>, so, wrong again, George). &nbsp;But putting that aside, it is simply astonishing that anyone could write an entire column about California budget issues without bothering to mention the inconvenient fact of the 2\/3 requirement for budgets and taxes. &nbsp;Will&#8217;s notion that the Democratic legislature has made the state &#8220;liberalism&#8217;s laboratory&#8221; cannot be reconciled by the conservative veto over any tax hikes or budget solutions. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unsurprisingly, Will (who probably got paid handsomely by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to write this drivel) rejects the May 19 ballot measures, as do <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/8532\/calitics-ed-board-says-no-on-special-election-initiatives\">Calitics<\/a>. &nbsp;But he completely and totally misreads the issues facing the legislature, the structural constraints upon them, and the solutions necessary to move the state forward. &nbsp;Showing himself to know nothing about California, maybe Will should stick to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/George-Will-is-an-idiot\">lying about climate change<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2009\/04\/10\/eugene-robinson-slams-col_n_185766.html\">repeatedly<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117,87],"tags":[7228,60,1650],"class_list":["post-8746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117","category-87","tag-7228","tag-60","tag-1650"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2h4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}