KRUGMAN: "California"

[BrotherIvan]

32. A great post

My Danish partner shrewdly pointed out that Americans hate paying taxes because they don't see what they get from them. And to some extent, our government hasn't done a great job of advertising this. Government programs help someone else, like the poor, and the IGMFU crowd (I love that moniker) from all economic classes sees their tax monies as being shoveled away, not flowing back to them. They have made everything from education to the police so broken, and let's not forget funneling most of it to endless war, it's a hard sell to ask for more money.

I'm hoping, in fact praying, that perhaps California can find a way to single payer. Then people can really see how government can work in their favor. But also, when I lived in Canada for a while, I saw so many benefits of a higher tax system for everyone, so people did not seem as bitter about higher tax rates. Not only the health system which is fantastic, but safe, clean cities, a good metro system that was so clean I would have sat on the floor where here I don't even want to sit on the seats, mail delivered twice a day, students going to college and not coming out broke, and on and on. My Canadian neighbors may scream at my ignorance and do have rightful critiques of their own system, but from an American point of view, it was a very civilized place to live.

They've done such a great job of making government programs "eeeevil Socialism!" so most Americans can't see that they WORK and demand them. California being such a large economy has a real chance to prove that Democratic/liberal ideas are what is needed to turn our country around. I hope they really grab the chance and govern now that they have the reins, unlike their federal counterparts who may have purposely squandered the opportunity.