I'm as liberal as they come, but my solution to the illegal immigrant problem will no doubt be seen as draconian. Here is is anyway:

1. Give 'em all amnesty and let them become citizens.

2. Encourage collective bargaining and unionizing so they can raise their own wages and stop depressing the wages of others. Higher wages will result in higher tax revenues for the state, ending their leech status.

3. Require them to learn English. Sorry, but these folks will never be fully integrated into American society if they insist on remaining monolingual from generation to generation. We can't have subcultures refusing to assimilate into society and still be the famed American "melting pot."

If English is mandated as a stipulation of citizenship, the hordes of resistant Southern Californians who resent the rapidly overpowering influence of another country's culture and language on their state will at least see that some compromise is being required. It's a start.

California is too big and too populous. Culturally, politically and economically, it makes sense to split it up into at least three states. Even 7 or 8 states would all probably be bigger than any of the New England states or Delaware & Maryland. The current 1850 California is simply a historical accident based on Spanish colonialism and the Gold Rush. There were calls to split it in two as early as 1859, and it just doesn't make any sense in the 21st century.

Super-Cali is too fragile-istic - let it go the way of the Soviet Union.

The biggest state deficits this year ALL belong to very blue states and you're blaming conservatives?????

How's about you buy a clue?

That's because all the blue states are supporting your red state's ass. Give the money back to us and then we'll talk.

--Ron

<<ARE YOU FRICKIN KIDDING!!!

The biggest state deficits this year ALL belong to very blue states and you're blaming conservatives?????

How's about you buy a clue?>>

Problems… yes, California's got 'em. Here's my perspective as both a lifetime resident and a state employee.

Our problems here are the rsult of a combination of the kind of willfull ignorance that seems to be a standard part of human psychology, and the accrual of laws and regulations that results from it. I work in design at Caltrans, and recently had a culvert replacement job come across my desk. 1.5 million dollars are (or were, we'll see) budgeted for this, out of which 320K is for wetlands mitigation. All we are looking to do here is replace already existing culverts in an existing road elevation in an area that does not contain any endangered species and has not been even vaguely natural for at least 150 years. The interaction with the environment is strictly limited to driving over several 20'x100' areas while installing the new culverts. There will be no impact visible even a year after the job is done, and this is in a non-natural area. I, my boss, and the head of the department who must oversee and manage this mitigation money are all full-on screaming eco-weenies and all of us hate it. It's Dilbert on steroids here- the amount of bullshit expensive red tape we have to go through here makes it a miracle that anything at all can get done. This is not the workers' fault- despite the canard that all us Californians are dope smokin' astrology buffs who just want to milk the state, most of us are regular folk who try to do our jobs the best we can under increasingly adverse circumstances. The head of Caltrans is leaving to head up a county transportation agency with 1/10th the employees Caltrans has, and he will be making a lot more money there. Most of us were paid well below the parity level of our job classifications even prior to the furloughs.

The trouble is, we (not just CA, though I wouldn't be surprised if we do it more than most) make laws for idealistic purposes without thinking about their practical ramifications or cost- and these laws tend to accumulate into the expensive and labyrinthine bureacratic mess no-one wants to pay for anymore. Our desire to mitigate for the one in a million chance we might inconvenience someone with a lawyer, or to do expensive formal studies of things already very well known in order to fill some obscure bureaucratic requirement may be nice, but in the real world it too often winds up being expensive and impractical. We have too many laws, too many lawyers, and too many people who are willing to try and game the system to keep the whole legal mess in business- and this includes our elected officials.

CA needs to lose the 2/3rd majority requirement to pass legislation, and redraw its legislative districts to make elections competitive here. And we need to rethink the whole concept of lawmaking. Short of burning down the state legal code and starting from ground zero, it might be nice to eliminate 2 laws for every new one enacted for awhile, then really think about whether we really need the laws we're enacting on a cost-to-benefit basis.

And we need to look at the ramifications of our own idealism and anger. The impetus behind Prop 13 was valid- people who lived and worked their whole lives here were being forced out of their homes by increasing property taxes fueled by speculation and inflation. On the other hand, throughout most of history when the mine played out so to speak the people moved on, rather than expect they had the right to remain and enjoy the same level of prosperity they had when everything was golden. California may be golden, but because of that it is expensive. Under the circumstances people here should not just be able to assume they not only have the right to remain, but that the state must make it possible for them to do so by cutting them slack on their property taxes. I write this knowing my time is coming and I too will probably have to either move on or accept the fact there will be no public services.

Text reads "Beyond the state's dysfunctional system, the short answer is the rise of the hard-right GOP."

This is hilarious! It's like saying "Disregard the dysfunctional system, it's really the GOP". Um, no. It's the dysfunctional system. But alas, this is a left-leaning site and the answer is always more taxes, not less programs. Heck the majority of LA County are on the govt payroll receiving a check from a govt program or they're in govt itself. So let's just tax everybody else so business-as-usual can keep on keepin' on. That won't fix the problem. Taxes to pay for every willy-nilly program the left can think of isn't the answer.

Nonsense. The problem is the system, not the GOP. Again, the minority party is blamed for the incompetence of the majority. What drivel!