Some rather unshocking articles in the Projo this morning (or the Urinal as my favorite local indie wags call it)
RI Experiences Historic Decline in Population
RI One of 2 States to Lose Population from 2011 – 2012
(The other is Vermont)
Income is Leaving RI Faster Than the People Are
Interesting to see if any other Blue States follow the same trajectory. If the commies ain’t wrong about everything, neither is Tommy.
This is interesting too – someone posted this in one of the comments.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2012/11/25/do-you-live-in-a-death-spiral-state/
Somehow I can’t get all worked up over Vermont losing population, especially in light of the fact my area has had a sudden influx of minorities.
Maybe the 7 millionaires who were outed as having (legally) paid zero state income taxes moved away, now that the legislature is going to change the tax laws to prevent that sort of thing. I expect the millionaires are miffed, poor dears.
I wasn’t actually implying that Vermont had the same problems as RI did, i have no idea what the situation there is. It was just the only state aside from RI that lost population. RI has some major problems that i’m pretty sure Vt doesn’t.
Amy:
Tommydog will be dealing with a shock, just recently administered.
The latest monthly jobs report included this gem: the most new jobs created were, hold for the drum roll, brace yourself . . . . in California.
Not in Texas.
California.
This is not to quibble with any of your well-aimed criticisms of RI. And California is entered a new phase, with their new Legislature for the first time ever being over 2/3 Democrat in both chambers. The GOP have lost their last brake on the acts of the California Democratic Party, for at least the next two years.
Once again I mention Nevada, where the parties still compete and there is balance.
You should at least come check the place out. There are hidden gems here.
Kevin -
I totally believe you about Nevada. One of our music group (beloved by me, i call him my big brother) lives in Sparks, is a total ski bum, loves the mountains and loves it there. He can also trip over to the Bay Area when he needs to as well. I hate the ocean but like to live next to a coast, i feel landlocked and trapped otherwise.
As for the desert, it calls to you or it doesn’t, i think. When i lived in NYC around the 30 year old mark, a bunch of us said, all we do is work to pay the rent here, let’s move to LA. So we did. Including some native Calif. big male model guys who said, we need to go back home, we need to surf. One actor guy was from CO and went back, needed the mountains. One big and gorgeous model / actor guy was from Iowa but had lived in AZ and said, i need to get back to the desert, and so he did. On my way out to LA i stopped in AZ to stay with him for a few days (just friends, nothing romantic, he was unequivocally straight and had a girlfriend there), the desert was beautiful. Nice place to visit, but i could never live there. And i hate hot weather.
Ultimately most of us that moved to Calif moved back east again, except for those who were originally from there.
And btw, the problem with RI is that they have too many Democrats, not too few.
Something about Philly / PA – as much as Lefty bitches about obstructionist Republicans there, and he says they have a looming whopper of a pension problem, i don’t see it cropping up on any of the danger list states.
California, which always makes the lists of states in serious decline (as in the Forbes piece) is an interesting case. No question there’s serious disparity and a special kind of bitterness that comes from ostentatious displays of great wealth and the knowledge that state and state-affiliated workers have some kick-ass pensions. Where’s it going? I have no idea. Maybe we’ll start time-sharing those Range Rovers and Porsche Cayennes, and the really big pensions will be taxed at Gerard Depardieu rates…
Bim -
I reckon you’ll get some more info around June as fiscal year end looms. See if those municipalities slated to tank next in fact do so, of manage to pull themselves out of it.
I’d put money on Providence going down come June. A very good mayor managed to bail them out last year, but the numbers and concessions may not be there this time around.
Anybody who thinks any area of the US can function on one party alone for any length of time is simpleminded — either by nature or by ignorance. The short version is, the party you have after twenty years in power isn’t anything like the one you originally voted in. The long version is, er, longer.
Consider corruption. The cleanest governor Illinois had in recent memory (personally clean, I mean; not clean by association, because he was a governor, after all) was a Republican named Jim Thompson, who served 14 years. After he left, the players in his administration kept moving up and up — many of them, eventually, straight into prison. Was Thompson then a secret crook? Hell no. It took those 14 years and more, undisturbed by the sweeping of any broom at all, clean or dirty, for political nature to take its course. All protected by Thompson’s own honesty.
Consider innovation in general. Is it seen more often in opposition, or in people secure in their power? Rhetorical question.
What about exceptions? There aren’t any real ones, just apparent ones. Chicago has been officially Democratic since another Thompson, Big Bill, made it impossible for a Republican to get elected there in 1931. (It’s still impossible, because the stench he left was that strong.) But the result, despite the comic books you read, has never been rule by a single faction. It’s been a more or less endless struggle between shifting coalitions of factions: factions which, one on one, are as incompatible as can be. The winning coalition of the moment being called “the Democrats” elsewhere, but never, ever at home, because the opposition is always beating down the door.
But most places don’t have that kind of history. In most places, the factions that matter come with party labels attached. And adherents of any one of them see the defeat of the other as a good thing. And sometimes it is — for awhile. But no ruling faction, anywhere, at any point in history, has ever survived a long period of uninterrupted success in anything like its original form. The present trend toward single-faction rule, whether they’re Republicans in Texas or Democrats anywhere that Democrats are actually unified, is the greatest threat imaginable to everything has sometimes almost worked in our political history.
One guy i work with is leftier than i am (he voted for Jill Stein), and calls a lot of the Democrats here DINOs, which they are. Problem is, they’re not fiscal closet republicans, but social ones – Catholic, pro-life, anti same-sex marriage, blah blah. So any balance we may have had still isn’t there, they want to restrict civil liberties, but still want their snouts in the trough too. And do whatever they need to to keep the Democratic majority here and the gravy train from derailing. Whatever the cost.
This guy’s solution for RI is to make Puerto Rico a state, and merge RI with CT, keeping the 50 states. Now i have no problem with making PR a state, it’s essentially a de facto one already. But i said, CT has it’s own problems, why would it want to take on RI and it’s even worse ones? He didn’t really have an answer for that.
One saving grace here is an Indy governor – former Republican, more liberal than most Dems, civil libertarian. Now he won’t be able to save the state probably, but it would be in far worse shape without him. He plays no teams, decides on an issue by issue basis, isn’t afraid to play hardball with anyone. Good man, US politics could use a whole lot more like him.
Amy:
Our Leg. has majority Dem’s in both chambers, but a GOP Governor who is very likely to be reelected next year.
We have one US Senator from each party, and that has been true for a long time. Small states need that.
Our House delegation is 2/2, we got a fourth district this election.
The cool thing is: our Governor is a sensible guy who negotiates and is willing to sign a tax increase if he has to.
He’s unlikely to do that this time around. The biggest Democratic club in the state is the “Democratic Gun Owners Club”. No fooling.
Nevada spends less per capita on public services than any other state. OTOH, our few public employees get wonderful bennies, and past legislatures and governors did not cover the looming liability. They’ve been warned about it for over a decade now. It definitely is a bipartisan failure.
And, our desert is not Arizona’s. We only have the real heat for four months of each 12. And that is why someone designed, very intelligently, the magical combination of pools, cold beer and air conditioning.
Kev -
Our senate is 2/2 (both decent ones too).
Our house is 2/2, they’re both a bit dodgy. (i voted an excellent Indy for our house rep tho.)
Looks like in the near future, the house will be 1/1.
Kev -
I was in AZ in January. So it was really quite pleasant then. Shitload of snowbirds there at that time.
Natasha:
I lived in a one-party democracy in the SF Bay Area for 18 years. The genteel, hidden corruption is quite bad.
There is no way a Republican can win much within the eight urban counties of that region.
These two facts are directly related, hell yes.
I prefer life in Nevada, where the two parties keep each other more honest.
Kev -
apologies, i think i misread your numbers there. Our Senators are 2 Democrats. They’re quite decent.
Our house reps are both Dems. They kind of suck. We’re going to lose a rep in the not too distant future.