Meg v. Jerry

Jerry Brown left the Governor's office the last time in 1982. In my recollection California schools were ranked pretty high, and spending per student was also pretty high. We were in a recession at that time so we were running a deficit of 6 billion or so, and unemployment was pretty high, but a lot of other states had it worse than us at that time.

In the intervening 28 years, by my count Republicans have been governor for 25 years, Democrats (Gray Davis) for about 3 years. Every one of those Republican Governors (George Deukmajian, Pete Wilson and Arnie) ran on the same platform Meg Whitman is running on. Cutting taxes for rich folks and cutting regulation on business.

Yet somehow we have the biggest deficit problem of any state in the Union, and higher unemployment than most other states outside the rust belt. We rank near dead last in school funding and not much better in achievement.

I am reminded of the almost universal belief by Doctors back in the 1800's that the way to cure sick people was to cut them and bleed some blood out of them (or apply leeches). Now we find this belief laughable, but the brightest medical minds in the world at that time believed bleeding was the cure for many ills. I think Republicans have the same problem. The have a belief (that just happens to be very favorable to them making lots of money) and they have no interest in adjusting their believe to fit reality.