That Used to Be Us_ How America Fell Behind in thted and How We Can Come Back - Friedman, Thomas L. & Mandelbaum, Michael [149]
The political consequences of the new media landscape that Bennett describes, along with hyper-partisanship and the power of special interests, are paralyzing the American political system. The paralysisinduced failure to address adequately the country’s four major challenges is, in turn, pushing America toward a grim future. That future, which we will inherit in the absence of major political change, is already visible on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
California, Here We Come
Once upon a time, both the United States of America and the state of California were the envy of the world. Each was favored by geography with fertile soil and abundant natural resources. Each developed the institutions and customs that made it a prosperous, creative, exciting place. Each became a fast-growing land of opportunity, both a model for others and a magnet for people from elsewhere, who flocked there by the millions.
So glowing was each one’s reputation that each became associated, in the public mind, with the most precious of all metals. California was the Golden State from the time, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when large deposits of gold were discovered there, triggering the first of many waves of immigration. In that same era, among European Jews, for whom the New World was their hoped-for destination, America was known as die goldene medina—“the golden land.” In the most remote and provincial pockets of Europe, the legend that America’s streets were actually paved with gold was half believed.
The American dream reached its peak in California. The historian Kevin Starr entitled his multivolume history of the Golden State Americans and the California Dream; an early study of the quintessential California institution, the film industry, called it “the Dream Factory”; the slogan of Disneyland, which opened outside Los Angeles in 1955, is “Where Dreams Come True”; and a 1965 hit by the Mamas and the Papas (ranked as number 89 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the top 500 songs of all time) was called “California Dreamin’.” It was written while the group was living in New York.
In the twentieth century California became the America of America, as admired and respected (with a touch of resentment and jealousy thrown in) by the other states of the union as the United States itself was by the other countries of the world. The American public-private formula for prosperity—education, infrastructure, immigration, research and development, and a business-friendly economic climate with appropriate regulation—reached its zenith in California, which became the favored location of that characteristically American business, venture capitalism.
As the home, as well, to forward-looking industries such as electronics and aerospace, to Hollywood and Silicon Valley, California was where Americans could see the future. For decades what they saw was inspiring.
Now it is chilling.
At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the state was suffering from an unemployment rate of 12.5 percent, considerably higher than the very high (9 percent) national average. Its fiscal condition was dire: the state budget deficit exceeded $25 billion, fully 25 percent of total public expenditure. (At 10 percent, the federal budget deficit of that year was considered catastrophically high; and states are required by law to balance their budgets.)
Moreover, California faced future yearly deficits estimated at $20 billion or more and pension obligations of perhaps $500 billion. San Diego, the state’s second-largest city and the