https://time.com/4555692/san-francisco-bart-janitor-salary/
https://www.openthebooks.com/forbes-why-california-is-in-tro...
At any point during the weekend or holidays, he can just decide to go in to do an inspection and run up some overtime hours. As well, they have an alert system that notifies him by phone if some of the machines are acting up. He can change the sensitivity of the system so that it alerts him for minor things, requiring him to come in and get overtime. On paper, this all looks legit - it’s just a guy who cares about his job and wants to keep everything running smoothly - but he quietly admits to the family that the work is never needed and he’s just doing it for the overtime.
I can definitely see how a janitor could abuse overtime, there’s always something you could argue “needed” to be done.
We have a state with awful public transit, tent cities of homeless people, decaying infrastructure, wildfires (yes its partly a Federal problem but the state could do something), gross inequality between school districts, and chronically terrible urban planning leading to a housing shortage. California is incredibly wealthy and is relatively high tax (though by no means the highest) so what bottomless pit is that money falling into? California is a money pit where no amount of cash fixes anything. Might as well just set money on fire.
You could say the same thing about America as a whole. We pay only a bit less in taxes than Canada (at least if you're middle class) but get a fraction of the benefits.
I'd be sympathetic with a tax increase if current money were being spent wisely, but don't ask for more money when you can't even build one high speed rail line at 10X the cost of anywhere else in the world.
Canada doesn't have a ridiculous semiprivate health industry that could probably deliver free healthcare to a smaller state with what it spends on lobbying alone.
I think a deeper truth is that America has a split personality: partly it wants to be a grownup nation, and partly it wants to still play Wild West.
My current county in a southeastern red state charges me 1/3 than what I paid in California in property taxes (absolute dollars, as houses here are MUCH cheaper), but we have well maintained schools, music teachers and a funded library. I had none of the above where I lived in California (Orange County).
Where is it all going?
Probably to bloated administration. Colleges are the same story. Tuition has risen massively yet there are fewer tenure track positions for good professors. It's all going to administrators.
This is actually an honest question - I'm not trying to make a political point here. I'm genuinely curious about whether purple states spend their tax dollars better than the very red and very blue ones.
are there conditions unique to california that could rationalize this massive gap in cost?
if not, and other governments can build affordable rail lines under comparable conditions, why can't the california government emulate those blueprints?
aversion to wasting money, rather than lack of compassion, seems like a reasonable objection to high taxes. what governments in your opinion offer the best mix of transparency and/or responsible spending?
thanks for sharing.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/billionaire-gundlach-leave-cal...
