What Happened to the Civil War?

 Answering Kennedy’s Call

NPR.org

Removal of the largest Robert E Lee statue from its prominent place in central Richmond, Virginia is a sign of the times.

We are no longer fighting what has been called a ‘cold’ civil war. Not the majority of Americans, anyway. The outcome of California Governor Gavin Newsome’s recall election reaffirmed that our defacto civil war between North and South, red states and blue states, is over by a two-to-one margin.

The LA Times Michael Hiltzick commented on it in a recent column.

“The truth is that America is nothing like a polarized country. Large majorities agree on the most pressing issues of the day: They favor abortion rights, stricter gun controls and more COVID-related restrictions, especially on unvaccinated people. You might not be aware of this if you listen to programs on Fox News or even the average political commentary in our leading newspapers or on CNN.”

California has always given Americans a picture of the future, with the sixth largest economy in the world. Silicon Valley is the most obvious example of our technological future, but California also has one of the best-in-country social welfare programs paid for with higher taxes. That is why California’s latest budget surplus was $76 billion, which it is using to cure its worst-in-the country housing shortage, as well as record poverty levels.

“…depictions of an America wracked by irreconcilable disagreement is daily fare. But they’re not reporting a genuine schism in American politics; they’re reporting on a divide pitting a majority in broad agreement against a boisterous minority,” continues Hiltzick.

So why does this “boisterous minority” still grab headlines? I attribute it to what I have called the Bully Mentality, a state of mind attributed to bullies who want to continue to fight a civil war they have already lost. It is bullying behavior adopted by one political party in recent decades to indoctrinate and intimidate voters—particularly minorities and immigrants—by ‘dumbing down’ their electorate to the real world.

The NY Times put it succinctly in a recent front page article by David Leonhardt that examined the vaccination divide between red and blue states.

“What distinguishes the U.S. (from much of the rest of the world) is a conservative party—the Republican Party—that has grown hostile to science and empirical evident in recent decades.”

Hiltzick attributes this hostility towards facts to President Nixon and Republicans’ switching to culture wars when they began to lose voters. For instance, its anti-abortion stance was an attempt to lure Catholic voters away from Democrats. I remember it happening when many Republicans signed onto Ralph Reeds (Protestant) Christian Coalition, with its denial of evolution and replacement with creationism theories and a literal reading of the Bible.

So why do conservatives continue to even attempt to keep this un-civil war alive? 

I recently mentioned Kennedy economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s answer, in speaking of France’s Ancien Régime that preceded the French Revolution: “The privileged feel that their privileges, however egregious, they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right.”

And we know how that revolution turned out.

Harlan Green © 2021

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen

California’s Budget Surplus Leads to Credit Upgrade

Popular Economics Weekly

A day after voters passed Proposition 2, which creates a “rainy day fund” to cushion the state budget from future economic downturns, major credit-rating house Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday upgraded California’s general obligation bond rating. S&P raised the state’s credit rating from A to A-plus, citing the stability offered by Proposition 2.

But it’s more than that. California’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.8 percent in September, according to the State Unemployment Office and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The San Francisco Bay area led the way with San Francisco and the surrounding counties’ jobless rates in the low 4 percent, which in essence means full employment.

Proposition 2, championed by Gov. Jerry Brown and passed by the Legislature on a bipartisan vote, requires the state to set aside funds, especially when revenue from taxes on capital gains is high, to both pay down debt and create a reserve that can be tapped only when the state is in fiscal distress.

What happened to the California economy that several years ago was pronounced dead or dying by its critics, conservatives determined to downsize government with budget and tax cuts to punish everyone, except the wealthiest? Governor Jerry Brown did just the opposite—raised more revenues to stimulate job growth, at a time of record low interest rates, as the S&P upgrade noted.

Californians won the battle of economic ideologies that has blocked so much growth in the rest of the country; such as with Kansas, the poster child for cutting government programs that has set its economy in reverse.

“The upgrades follow voter approval on Nov. 4, 2014, of a strengthened budget stabilization account under Proposition 2,” S&P analyst David Hitchcock said in a statement. “In our view, the new state constitutional provision will partially mitigate California's volatile revenue structure by setting aside windfall revenue for use during periods when state tax revenue could fall materially short of forecast.”

And California now has a very large budget surplus, because of it. State Controller John Chiang in a press release just released his monthly cash report for the month of June, and announced that the state's General Fund -- the primary account from which California funds its day-to-day operations and programs -- ended the fiscal year with a positive cash balance for the first time since June 30, 2007.

A positive cash balance means that the state had funds available to meet all of its payment obligations without needing to borrow from Wall Street or the $23.8 billion available in its more than 700 internal special funds and accounts.

And what about California’s drought could badly hurt future growth? Voters also overwhelming approved Proposition 1 was to address water conservation and climate change problems that could create even more severe water shortages in the future.

"At its core, Proposition 1 advances an all-of-the-above strategy that includes everything from local resources to water storage to safe drinking water," said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the statewide Association of California Water Agencies. "Other states facing similar challenges may learn from that approach."

And that is the point. California, once thought the economic basket case, has instead become the model that both red and blue states should follow.

Harlan Green © 2014

Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen