(西式民主 - 税收) = 香蕉共和国
LT Lee
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State of Decline
By PAUL KRUGMAN
rom smog to silicon, from the sexual revolution to the tax revolt, the
future has usually arrived in California first. Now the Golden State
is degenerating into a banana republic. Can the nation be far behind?
The recall isn't just a case of hardball politics. It's also a grand
act of evasion: in the face of a severe fiscal crisis, voters are
being invited to focus not on hard choices but on personality.
Replacing Gray Davis with someone more likable isn't going to pay the
bills.
And California's slide into irresponsibility, in which politicians
refuse to acknowledge any connection between the government services
the public demands and the taxes that pay for those services, is being
replicated all across America.
[...]
Which brings me to the final point: is Washington any better than
Sacramento?
Outside the Social Security system, the federal government is now
running a deficit equal to a third of its spending — worse than
California. The administration says it will never, ever contemplate
increasing taxes; it says it will narrow the deficit through spending
restraint, but has never said what spending it intends to restrain.
If the federal government isn't in crisis, that's only because —
unlike state governments — it isn't obliged to balance its budget each
year. And so far bond markets have been willing to give the feds the
benefit of the doubt.
But the people now running the country are every bit as irresponsible
as those blocking a serious response to California's crisis. And
sooner or later that irresponsibility will have the usual
consequences. California, here we come.
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