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MORE OF THE SAME
By Mark Andrew Dwyer - Originally published in the January 12, 2003 issue of the Alamance Independent
Singling out polluters, guns, and energy providers as California's greatest evils, and citing "a severe budget shortfall," Governor Gray Davis told the audience of his State of the State Address that what they see in California "is a national crisis, affecting nearly every state in America. [...] Unemployment is up. Exports are down. Growth is stagnant. Markets are at near-record lows." Not withstanding almost certain exaggeration on Davis' part who, quite obviously, attempted to divert California voters' attention from his role in creation of the humongous budget deficit, the situation isn't rosy, indeed. After almost two decades of mass, mostly illegal, immigration from Mexico and other Third World countries that, according to supporters of the "open borders policy", was supposed to contribute to the economic boom, in many aspects things seem far worse than they were before. It must be quite puzzling for the "open borders" crowd that, despite their predictions of how the so-called "cheap labor" will revamp local economies, budget deficits have been the gravest in states that a majority of "undocumented" workers chose as their destination; most notably, in California and Texas.
And what was Davis' prescription to cure all these problems and to close the $35 billion California budget gap? Jobs, jobs, and jobs. For all those "undocumented" millions who, together with their dependents, have been pouring into this country through the porous Southern border, I suppose. That this is indeed the case, Davis' call to create hundreds of thousands of low-tech construction jobs, when many hi-tech companies are moving out of California or are laying off their well-trained personnel, and to educate tens of thousands more school teachers strongly suggests. As does his request that the state Housing Finance Agency makes $228 million available this month (with more in the following months) for low-to-moderate income housing, and that the State Allocation Board releases $300 million a month (or $3.6 billion a year) for new school construction. Davis' intentions become clear once one remembers his announcement last Fall of severe budget cuts for the University of California, California State University, and the California Community Colleges. In this context, his verbal commitment to boost California biotechnology industry must be seen as a cheap smoke-and-mirrors trick.
Teachers, however valuable they may be (provided that they know how and are willing to teach), do not produce any economic output that could ease the current budget deficit. They will not drive the markets up, nor will they increase the exports. Nor will the construction workers building one classroom a day to keep pace with exploding population. When there is a dramatic shortage of teachers, as well as an urgent need for new school buildings, one thing is certain: the segment of California's population that is in the school age is much above what was desired. Taking into account the that the fertility rates of native Californian women have been at the reproduction level (about zero growth, that is) for more than a decade, all the net growth must be attributed to immigrants and their children. This is where the new classrooms and the new teachers will go. And when the subsidized housing is in growing demand (not quite surprising, under the circumstances), that in itself does not make me particularly optimistic about the future economic boom that implementation of Davis' program is supposed to secure.
It's interesting that although Davis went as far in his search for the root causes of California crisis as to blame the firearms for some of state's most pressing problems (as if guns could do any harm without evil or derailed people misusing them), he managed to overlook an obvious connection between out-of-control mass immigration and fiscal insolvency of his government. (To his defense, this connection has also escaped the scrutiny of governors of other states that have their budgets deeply in red.) Importing millions of poor and uneducated laborers, many of whom don't have enough desire and talents to graduate from a high school, never mind getting a college degree usually required for a high paying job, and then hoping to manufacture from that raw material a highly productive workforce that would attract entrepreneurs, strengthen California's economy, and advance the cutting edge of today's technology, is a pure delusion. But that is what apparently Davis has in his controversial plan, despite the fact that it was exactly this kind of wishful thinking that put Californians into the present trouble.
Davis' intention to heavily invest in "homeland security" announced during his State of the State Address raises even more questions than the other parts of his disappointing proposal. He is the governor of a state where the law enforcement agencies are notorious for openly refusing to cooperate with the Federal government in their fight against terrorism, and where police departments in major cities are prohibited from reporting the illegal aliens to the INS, never mind apprehending them. (The City of Los Angeles ordnance, the infamous Special Order 40, goes even as far as to ban INS agents from entering the premises of local police stations.) Rather than persuading his sheriffs and police chiefs to not turn their blind eye on blatant violations of the immigration law, which simple measure would tremendously improve "homeland security" in California, he wants to create another level of costly but not productive bureaucracy, the Office of Homeland Security. To cover-up the ill effects of state's lax policy towards mass illegal immigration, I suppose
Here are some conclusions.
Gov. Davis' "more of the same" cure will not work, as doubling the efforts in wrong direction will not remedy the fiscal insolvency of the California government. Taxing the rich and giving away to the poor, besides a temporary relief to the needy, will on long-term decrease the number of the former while increasing the number of the latter, and will further cut the shrinking state tax base. Mass importation of laborers with below average earning potential, particularly when coupled with their above average need for state-funded assistance and high fertility rates, will (in addition to other socio-economic ill effects) worsen the current budget deficit and contribute to a lowering of the average living standard of all Californians. If Davis wants to spend government funds on spurring new job creation, these should be primarily the high-income, hi-tech manufacturing jobs that will boost the state revenue without an increased drain on the state-supported welfare and other public services. And likewise, investing in education will stimulate future economic boom only if focused on training of the highly skilled, college-educated workforce, and not on sinking of scarce resources into bottomless hole of free elementary-level instruction for millions of illegal aliens and their children. These simple facts have seemingly escaped Governor Davis' attention.
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