Why is it that none of these writers ever look to the federal mandates in place in California?

Mandates to house and feed and protect and educate and provide medical care and police every last non citizen that shows up California.

Look it up!

Wouldn't it be more expensive per resident to provide things like education, police, medical care, transportation, communication, and utilities, because the distance between people is so much greater and there are so many fewer taxpayers?

Short answer: no.

Jug, think about it:

The population of schoolage children in Wyoming is no more than 1/70 that of California. Probably less. Big schools aren't more efficient at educating children per dollar; they're less efficient. Wyoming doesn't have world-class research universities- although conceivably they have some strong departments and faculties in some specialities. But a large population base is required to support world-class institutions of any sort. Wyoming doesn't have that. California does. It's an option that's been pursued in California. Wyoming simply doesn't have the option in the first place. That spares them the dilemma of whether or not they're up for funding a top-ranking university system with guaranteed admissions to the top ranks- I think it's the top 20%- of resident high school students, which is the policy adopted by California.

The homesteads of Wyoming don't rely on fleets of police patrol cars cruising up and down their mile-long driveways for security. The residents have mile-long driveways to help with that problem. Along with big dogs and HV rifles.

There is no mass transportation budget for the Wyoming countryside. The need is simply obviated by the absurdity of attempting to supply it. That's what pickup trucks and SUVs are for. Legitimately for. Wyomans don't just use those things to drive around the block to pick up a pack of chewing gum. It's often several miles to the next neighbor, some miles beyond that to a gas station, and many miles beyond that to the nearest supermarket.

I don't have the figures, but it stands to reason that many Wyoming homes get water not from municipal water systems, but from their own wells.

Some of the rural homesteads have been off the grid and using windmills for electrical power since the 1930s.

There is no equivalent to urban gas mains in the Wyoming countryside. People buy propane tanks and refuel them without the requirement for a municipal utilities hookup, or agency to which they pay bills.

I suppose that it's probable that emergency medical services are more expensive to provide in Wyoming than in California, since helicopters would probably be used more often. But presumably, as with the emergency medical services of California, any citizen that uses them is subject to getting billed for them.

Increased size does not equate to increased efficiency of service with human populations. Quite the opposite. This is an empirically demonstrable fact. Consider the difficulties of fitting and maintaining Los Angeles with a municipal water system as opposed to hooking up the largest city in Wyoming, Cheyenne.

You seem to think that a place like Wyoming operates like a huge, spread-out version of the city of Sacramento, with all the public services associated with a city of 500,000 people made available to the residents of a territory that's 60% the size of California.

That's out of the question, simply as a practical matter of scale.

I don't even see why you're trying to argue this, or why I'm bothering to respond.

Where have you lived in your life?

The root cause is simply the governor's refusal to sign a budget that has any tax increases. That is not our fault and it is not the fault of the legislature.

The California legislature has repeatedly passed budget bills that the governor has repeatedly vetoed. The governor's propositions were Trojan horses that would not have done anything to fix the problem and we, the citizens, saw through the deception.

"Big schools aren't more efficient at educating children per dollar; they're less efficient."

Why? I would think it was just the opposite; up to a certain point, it doesn't cost twice as much to operate a school that's twice the size.

And if you have more schools to operate, economies of scale come into play.

"funding a top-ranking university system with guaranteed admissions to the top ranks- I think it's the top 20%- of resident high school students, which is the policy adopted by California."

THAT's the big point. CA has decided to *guarantee* admission to a fixed percentage. I understand that tuition for residents is nominal, so the university system is faced with an enormous bill every year. Worse, in hard times, more graduating HS seniors will tend to go to the CA state universities!

"The homesteads of Wyoming don't rely on fleets of police patrol cars cruising up and down their mile-long driveways for security. The residents have mile-long driveways to help with that problem. Along with big dogs and HV rifles."

IOW higher law-enforcement costs for CA than WY. But is that really a function of statewide population density? Or does culture have something to do with it?

"There is no mass transportation budget for the Wyoming countryside."

Of course - but who really funds mass transit in CA? Is it the state, the feds, the cities, the fare box, fuel taxes, or a combination? Seems to me that one big argument for mass transit is that it's cheaper and cleaner than building more freeways.

"It's often several miles to the next neighbor, some miles beyond that to a gas station, and many miles beyond that to the nearest supermarket."

Of course. Still, it would be interesting to know how many miles the average Wyoming person drives per year compared to the average Californian. I suspect the numbers aren't as different.

"it stands to reason that many Wyoming homes get water not from municipal water systems, but from their own wells."

Of course - but do taxes fund the water system? In the places I've lived, the water bill pays for the water and sewer systems. They may be municipal, but they're funded by the customers, not taxes.

"Some of the rural homesteads have been off the grid and using windmills for electrical power since the 1930s."

Of course - but again, doesn't the electric bill pay for all that, rather than taxes? Same for gas?

If taxes are going to run the utilities, maybe that's part of the problem. What do Californians pay per kilowatt hour for residential electricity? I pay about 18 cents.

"Increased size does not equate to increased efficiency of service with human populations. Quite the opposite."

I disagree. It depends on what is being provided.

"This is an empirically demonstrable fact. Consider the difficulties of fitting and maintaining Los Angeles with a municipal water system as opposed to hooking up the largest city in Wyoming, Cheyenne."

The main difficulty in hooking up LAX is the fact that there's not enough water there. So it is piped in from Hoover Dam, many many miles away. That system was built with Federal dollars, back in the 1930s.

It is actually less expensive to run wires and bury pipes to service many customers in a small area, rather than to do the same to service the same number spread out.

"I don't even see why you're trying to argue this, or why I'm bothering to respond."

I'm not arguing as much as discussing, and trying to get to the real reasons behind the problems. If California, as a state, is heavily funding the *operation* (not just creation) of utilities, rather than making the customers foot the bill, there's a source of trouble right there.

"Where have you lived in your life?"

A couple of places, and visited many more.

I've lived in rural parts of New York State, where wells and septic tanks were the rule rather than the exception, police were mostly State Troopers, and trash collection was private contractors.

I've lived in various parts of the Delaware Valley, ranging from urban areas with all their problems to suburbs with their greater resources.

States like NJ and PA have problems too:

- NNJ has more in common with NYC than it does with SNJ. This creates all kinds of issues for the state.

- PA has the (blue) urban centers of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Erie, which vie with the mostly-red rural areas of the rest of the commonwealth.

My point is that the issues are many and complex. And the main solution will be for the people in California to grow up and realize that if they want the services they have to pay the taxes.

It's really that simple.