From the Publisher / Arnold G. York
The year 2010 is closing out, and looking into my crystal ball I predict that 2011 is going to be all about money-or, to be more precise, lack of it, at just about every level in the world. There will also be fights about what to do about this shortage of money.
Nationally, the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is nowhere in sight. We’ve already spent more than one trillion dollars (about 750 billion in Iraq and 380 billion in Afghanistan) and will easily spend another trillion or two before we get out of either place. That war debt is a significant piece of our national debt and we pretty much have financed this war by borrowing from China and other countries.
Are we safer? Have we gotten our money’s worth? Or are these wars an expensive pipedream of American glory?
There is also an enormous personal price being paid; not by all of us, but certainly by the families of the troops in combat.
For me, Mark Ball’s reports from his Marine son serving in the war zone brought home the personal cost of this military adventure and what it does to our families, and the constant apprehension and fear it causes.
It’s no different domestically in our state and, perhaps, in our city. We, over the years, have plunged into doing things: passing propositions, passing bonds, commencing initiatives based upon one or two incidents?- a brutal murder, a flood, a fire–without looking down the road a bit to see what these new ventures would cost. Today, in California, we have 171,000 people in prison at a cost of about $47,000 per year per prisoner, which is a 73 percent increase over the number of prisoners in 1990. Many of those in prison are there on drug-related charges or because of drug-related violence in one form or another. Can we continue to afford to house, feed and take care of that many prisoners at the expense of schools and universities? The federal courts have already taken control of the prison healthcare system, and the cost is enormous. Prisons are unhealthy places and the courts have said you can’t deny an aging, and often sickly, prison population healthcare. If you won’t do it voluntarily, the courts will make you do it.
We’ve got a new governor being sworn in and he’s taking over with the state more than $20 billion or so in debt. We have two choices. Either cut expenses or raise revenues-or both. Either way, it’s going to be brutal. We’re going to feel it in healthcare, in schools, in the senior population, in traffic on the streets, in the quality of our air and our water, and in just about every aspect of our life. We’re going to be talking about Proposition 13 again and perhaps changing it. Raising sales taxes to cover the shortages, or raising business property taxes, or perhaps an oil severance tax are all going to be on the table. Perhaps eliminating some deductions, which are loopholes to some and incentives to others.
It’s what they are doing in England today and what California is going to have to do tomorrow. The comparison is realistic. Based upon 2006 figures, England is the sixth largest economy in the world at $2.5 trillion Gross Domestic Product and California is eighth at $1.8 trillion. As economies go we’re slightly behind Italy and slightly ahead of Spain. The problem is that we’re not growing very much, and certainly much slower then many emerging countries.
So what’s this all have to do with Malibu?
My son Anthony thinks, and I agree, that the state is going to pass the responsibility for services back to the counties and probably the cities. They’re going to pass the money back also, but there isn’t going to be enough to cover it all, so the counties and cities are going to be the ones to have to make the tough choices in the future. One thing is for sure. The battles are going to be brutal and it’s not going to be pretty.