"At Least California's Government is Productive..."

I was having a discussion with one of my friends this past weekend regarding the economy and the results of California's recent special election. We were discussing the fact that all five of the propositions on the ballot that would have raised taxes were rejected by the voters. Which means the California state government is still suffocating under a bloated $21 billion budget deficit. It failed in its attempt to increase taxes as a way of reducing the deficit, and unlike the federal government, it lacks the politically expedient ability to create money out of nothing. So it would appear that California's two remaining options are to (a) reduce spending or (b) beg for a federal bailout.

I joked that Obama would be California's sugar daddy soon, fully expecting my friend (who has been a staunch conservative for years) to join me in my disgust at the idea of a federal bailout of our state government. But he didn't. To my extreme surprise, he actually said a bailout of California would be a good thing. To paraphrase what he said, "I wish this string of bailouts had never gotten started in the first place, but if the federal government is going to bail somebody out, it should be California, not GM and Chrysler. Those car companies have allowed themselves to be strangled by the unions, and they no longer make cars that people want to buy. They're not productive. At least California's government is productive."

Come again? The state government is running a $21 billion deficit, yet it's still productive? I think I hear the Mad Hatter's voice echoing in the distance...

In rough terms, being "productive" in the economic sense means producing (or enabling the production of) more goods and/or services than one consumes. If GM and Chrysler are considered unproductive because they are going into debt rather than turning a profit, then for the same reason mustn't we also consider California's government unproductive since they are going into debt rather than generating a surplus? Or is that a little too logical to be true?

Shortly after my "conservative" friend made his unexpected comment supporting the idea of a California bailout, it suddenly made sense to me. I remembered -- he is employed by the local government. A famous quote by Upton Sinclair popped into my head (yes, Sinclair was a bit of a socialist, but even socialists can occasionally stumble upon nuggets of wisdom):

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

I can almost guarantee you that if my buddy were employed in the private sector, he would be singing a different tune regarding the so-called "productivity" of California's government.

As California goes, so goes the nation. If the federal government bails out California, more states will follow, and soon the entire nation will be centrally organized and operated. The relentless destruction of this once-great United States will accelerate at an even greater pace.