Duplicity
Posted at 9:25 am on Tuesday, June 30, 2009, in California, and tagged california.
Duplicity at its finest…
Modoc has the highest Republican registration of any county in California, it unfailingly elects anti-tax Republicans to office, and the vote here against last month’s ballot measure that would have raised a variety of taxes was one of the most lopsided in the state. And yet, per capita, Modoc County gets more state taxpayer dollars than all but one of California’s 58 counties.
The prevailing attitude among the right-wing ranchers and modern hippies who define Modoc County is of fierce self-reliance – but more people here than just about anywhere else depend on welfare checks of some kind to get by.
This is the biggest — most understated, and undervalued — issue (or phenomenon) regarding the calamitous budget battle we find ourselves in this state: California is anti-tax. It is sometimes hard to believe, but the state is so big, in both area and population, there is simply no way to provide the social services promised (California is slowly becoming a welfare state) in a state that largely strives — admittedly somewhat stubbornly — to not become another Taxachussets.
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July 15th, 2009 at 10:06 am
[...] just when I started to realize that California was not as liberal as some people suggest, and is much more anti-tax than advertised. This post is truly one of those unfinished [...]