"Indebted and Unrepentant" in City Journal takes a cold look at the conflict it portends:.
. . . on one side, California and New York - two states, deeply in debt, whose wealthy are beneficiaries of the global economy - and, on the other, the solvent states of the American interior that will be asked to bail them out. This geographic division will also pit the heartland’s middle class and working class against the well-to-do of New York and California and their political allies in the public-sector unions.The wealthy and their political allies in the public sector unions? Now there's a thought I'll need to chew on for a while. Semper aliquid novus ex America.
This sets up what could be an ugly fight in which a Tea Party-inflected national Republican Party, encouraged by its strength in the interior states, forces California and New York - now heavily dependent on federal subsidies - to reduce their spending sharply. The coastal giants would no doubt respond by threatening defaults, which could affect the credit standing of the entire country, since many of the bonds are held by foreign investors. The upshot would likely be a high-stakes conflict about free trade, globalization, social class, race, illegal immigration, and public-sector unionism.
Posts
Small wonder that many affluent New Yorkers maintain their 'primary residence' in Florida which has a much lower tax rate. There are any number of jokes and stories about the annual migration southward via air to Miami. Like the stories about Jewish 'wheelchair ladies' who are helped onto the plane at Kennedy by kindly attendants and then rush off under full steam after landing in Miami. Or the one about the Orthodox Jew who retires to Miami and is found by his pious son on a surprise visit, lying back in a lounge chair on his sunny balcony with a scantily attired blonde very close to hand. When papa spots his son coming through the door, he pulls the cigar out of his mouth, and leaps to his feet with embarrassment, shouting, "But I don't eat here."
ReplyDelete