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Opinion
Aug. 28, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

GEOFF SCHUMACHER: Learning from California

GEOFF SCHUMACHER
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The acclaimed television drama "Mad Men" is set in Manhattan in the early 1960s. The focus is a fast-paced Madison Avenue advertising agency. The suit-and-tie ad execs quaff hard liquor at work, smoke constantly and utter sexist comments about their secretaries. It's a great show, extremely well done, depicting a bygone era that at once sickens and evokes nostalgic feelings.

For a couple of episodes last season, the setting shifted to Los Angeles, where two of the ad men traveled for a convention. The show's creators made a point of contrasting New York and L.A., with the latter depicted as a sunny, relaxed paradise, a place where people lounge around the pool rather than work themselves to death.

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    • And in the early '60s, it's fair to say that California was at or near the peak of its reputation as the land of milk and honey. The pictures painted so brightly by Beach Boys songs and Elvis Presley movies had it just about right.

    Fast forward to 2009. The California Dream is a distant memory. It was great while it lasted, but the present is terrible and the future doesn't look much better.

    It's easy enough for Las Vegans visiting California this summer -- as so many of us did -- not to have noticed much amiss. Las Vegas families flocking to Disneyland and the Southern California beaches blithely enjoyed themselves amid the Mickey Mouse ears and roaring surf.

    But if they had read the papers while on vacation, they would have known that beyond the tourist spots, California is a big mess. Los Angeles journalist Marc Cooper, writing in the Aug. 17 issue of The Nation magazine, expertly documents the carnage. He notes that the recession has hammered poor and rich alike, and that things have gotten so bad that some California officials have appealed to the federal government for disaster relief.

    The epicenter of the economic earthquake is Sacramento, the capital, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators recently endured an epic struggle to pass a balanced budget. They finally agreed on a plan that takes a hatchet to a range of state-funded services, including, most painfully, education.

    "When the budget details were unveiled," Cooper writes, "It was like viewing the emaciated corpse of a once great state."

    Cooper quips, without much humor, that "the only winners in this deal were felons." Because of prison budget cuts, the state plans to gradually reduce its prison population by 27,000.

    You know things are really bad when a growing number of important people are talking seriously about holding a constitutional convention.

    That may be the only solution to the Golden State's tangled political situation, which has been complicated and compromised endlessly in recent decades by initiative petition drives and other measures that require the state to do certain things and prohibit its lawmakers from doing other things, all leading to today's financial quagmire.

    So, here we are in neighboring Nevada, which has long depended on and lived in California's shadow. We have budget issues of our own, of course, though somehow, at least for now, our political leaders figured out how to not totally foul up everything. What should we learn from the mistakes of our fallen neighbor?

    The first lesson I take away is we shouldn't further restrict what the Legislature can and can't do when it comes to budgeting. We hold elections to select people to represent us in Carson City. It's not a perfect system, but it's the best one we've come up with. We shouldn't handcuff our elected representatives when it comes to making the hard decisions about taxing and spending.

    For example, we must avoid measures like Proposition 13, which California passed in 1978, reducing the property tax to 1 percent of cash value per year. This was and is great for property owners, but it simply forced the nation's largest state to raise the state income tax. And when the big recession hit, California incomes nose-dived, resulting in a commensurate drop in state tax revenue.

    We also should avoid the government sprawl of California. Although Nevada government services still have room to grow, even local liberals can see that California has gone too far with the notion that there's a government solution to every social and environmental problem.

    Of course, perspective is important. While California appears to be in economic ruins, for many people it remains a desirable place to live and work. Nevada has no ocean, inferior higher education and an economy dependent on gambling and partying. It may come as a surprise to those of us who live here, but not everybody is drawn to our endless desert party.

    In light of California's economic woes, the Nevada Development Authority is pushing like mad for California companies to move here. But this campaign will prove only modestly successful. Why? Two reasons: quality of life and availability of skilled workers. Business owners endure California's taxes, regulations and political squabbles because they believe it's where they want and need to be located in order to succeed.

    For Nevada, the political equation comes down to adopting California's strengths and avoiding its mistakes.

    Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@reviewjournal.com) is the Review-Journal's director of community publications. His column appears Friday.

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    DAVE PHILLIPS wrote on September 03, 2009 02:52 AM: There are times when CA is best viewed from a distance, at least until the high-speed rail link ribbon cutting between Victorville and Vegas occurs. Three Santa Barbara-based scribes worth bookmarking IMO are the following: (1) Former "San Francisco Chronicle" and "Santa Barbara News-Press" editor JERRY ROBERTS who opines at both "The [Santa Barbara] Independent" and "Cal Buzzer" blogs when not in the UCSB classrooms. (2) "NOOZHAWK.com" blog. Then (3) "The Indy" [aforementioned Santa Barbara's "The Independent" creative alternative newspaper]. There are more blogs still emerging as "the pink slips" fly - in CA print journalism through all that former Golden State - with newspaper ownership changes occurring faster than a speeding bullet, it seems at times. BUT FOR JUST SHEAR CLASS and UP-SCALE WRITING, drop in on (4) "The Montecito Journal" for grins, time permitting.


    TimeRanger wrote on August 28, 2009 10:38 PM: Outoftowner - You do realize that you answered your own question don't you?


    Outoftowner wrote on August 28, 2009 07:35 PM: You say, "we should learn from California." Tell me, what good has come out of California in the last 15-20 years? The state has driven business out because of high taxes, they have broken the state treasury because of permitting millions illegal immigrants to flood the state and suck off every free service available to everyone except their legal taxpaying citizens, and now they are crying to the fed's to bail them out since they don't want to raise taxes any more and don't want to reduce spending.
    Gee, what's there here for us?????????


    Andrew Jensen wrote on August 28, 2009 06:43 PM: It's taken me some time to see the real Geoff Schumacher, but finally he's shown himself for what he really is. His latest commentary, "Learning from California" reveals that, yes, Geoff is an apologist for the state. He seems to worship government power. As if, if you just leave government alone, and allow it to do "it's" work, it can do no wrong.

    You see, Geoff has shown that government is the answer to all of modern mans problems. Not actually the problem itself.

    So let's all bow our heads and sing in praise of the power of the state. "From cradle to grave, it shall protect us and keep us from harm."

    I mean, really. If it weren't for all those detractors, we'd live (or so Geoff thinks) in a "perfect world" without a worry to befall our poor human selves.

    Maybe Geoff should have moved to Soviet Russia when he was a mere youngin' and seen the state for what it really is: "The public means of power and compulsion."

    Enough said. For now.


    winston smith wrote on August 28, 2009 04:36 PM: patrick, the Somalia card again? Did you borrow it from FBF?

    Yes, anyone who opposes massive socialist spending and the incumbent taxes and/or debt wants to live in Somalia.

    Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Somalia?
    Rick: My health. I came to Somalia for the waters.
    Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
    Rick: I was misinformed.


    Ben Deho wrote on August 28, 2009 04:28 PM: Great article.....a first for the RJ!! Nice to see that it has one person working for it that hasnt drank the kool aid.


    REW wrote on August 28, 2009 04:16 PM: Good article. I am surprised that Geoff recognizes that there ARE limits to what the government should do. It's time that the general public realizes that not everything the government does is essential, and no, the government does not operate at 100% efficiency. Ergo, there is plenty of room for cuts. One example: why does Clark County pay a staff to investigate gaming licensees when the State of Nevada does more than an adequate job of that? Keep charging the fees, if you must, but the county could save a lot of payroll by eliminating that function, to the detriment of no one except for the redundant county employees.


    Dear Cow-patrick wrote on August 28, 2009 03:53 PM: How much of what someone else earned do you feel entitled to,Comrade?


    dilbert wrote on August 28, 2009 02:31 PM: patrick what is a fair amount as a %for each person to pay in taxes?


    patrick wrote on August 28, 2009 02:20 PM: Those who don't recognise their duties as a citizen to pay taxes which insure the continued existence of the country, need to move to a country where their "ideals" are given complete reign; like Somolia.

    Good luck with that.


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