Sonoma County expat living in China and somewhat amused by the rant on Jerry.
Have an electric and a plug in the garage; need to go far hop a Bullet Train that cruses along at 298 km/hr., and feel like I’m stepping back a century or more on my annual trip to the Vet. Hospital, whether East or West coast.
But also feel that you all are so luck to live in California and have a Brown for Governor, I knew Pat and voted for Jerry and fled from a Reagan. Yes, the wealthy states pay the Fed more that they receive back, but that was true 50 years ago; its call a Federal Government but the smallest states have 2 senators like you and out outweigh the wealthy in the House – stop whining. Look for solutions and pray you have a functioning government, there aren’t many left.
1
Jerry is right. California has deals with China and Japan for pushing to lower emission standards. If these old fossil fuel car makers lower their standard, it might take them years to catch up with the Global economy. That would leave California(West Coast) to carry the US to standard(as usual). Mirai is here in Cal first-- for the push to use hydrogen vehicles since we have a population that would buy them. We are also pushing for hydrogen pumps to be installed. I think it's easier if we push to hydrogen first then to full electric. The full electric vehicle by Tesla is available, but comes with downsides for average "renter" and "millenial". There aren't many electric vehicle stations and they take about 8 hrs to fully charge.
We already pay more than our fair share of taxes in California. I hope this tax bill does not pass.
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Brown has zero chance of winning the presidency. He already ran and lost badly. If NY wants to inherit highest poverty rates in the developed world, highest homeless population, ghost guns, overcrowded and underfunded schools, overcrowded and overfunded prisons, by all means, nominate Jerry.
Also, there are earthquakes. NY, if you want earthquakes, Brown is your guy.
Pretty sure a year or so ago after he won the governorship again, that he said he had no interest in running for President again. Think HE said he's too old. Google says he's 79. I'm sure it takes enough energy just to be gov of Cali, and I suspect he's not interested anymore in wading into the presidential campaign waters.
Honestly, I don't think he would be too bad. BUT, looking at who we have now, it would be hard to do worse.
why should Federal tax payers shoulder the burden of profligate high tax states who ladle on mountains of local taxes, mainly to prop up lavish retirement schemes for 55 year old government workers. if New York or California voters want to willingly pay for ex cops to play golf and collect $100k in pensions, thats their concern, but don't turn around and deduct it from funds needed for SS and Medicare.
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Rob - California and NY give more in taxes than they receive in federal spending. That is, they are donor states. Is it your position this is fair? That just because those states do better, they should subsidize spending for states that take more than they give? At some point California - which is the source of many of the largest corporations that drive our economy - is going to say enough. Why should we pay for all of these backward states that cannot get their shit together?
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@ Rob,
Don't worry, Federal tax payers aren't shouldering the cost of NY or California voters, it's the other way around: We are supporting you. We don't get our fair share back of the Federal dollars that we pay in, even taking into account our State deductions.
You can relax, your burden is on us.
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I agree. Perhaps someone could float a bill that after all of the federal common needs are taken care of, funding should go back to the states at a level proportional to what they contribute in federal taxes.
So, if you insist on taking away my SALT deduction, and make me pay 5-7K more per year in federal taxes, it is only fair that my state (NY) gets back its share of what remains. If you want even the very basic services you have become accustomed to in AL, MS, LA etc.... get in your pick up truck, ride to the kapit'l and spit backy juice on the bare feet of yur legislature and demand it. Then you can raise your own taxes to pay for what you expect and get off my back.
"Detroit says the mandate is technologically infeasible."
I'm old enough to remember when Detroit automakers said the same thing about SEATBELTS!
11
Gov. Brown is looking forward. There is a scramble to provide zero emission vehicles now, unfortunately some of the pollution is just displaced to power plants. An increasing problem will be the lack of fuel tax revenue, it was just raised 12 cents a gallon, but the stage has been set, a road use tax will eventually arrive to maintain the roads.
If the "tax cut" passes- anyone think add on prop tax assessments for schools and fire or police will be approved any more? A 2-3 percent hit to economic growth to the state as all that money goes to the Feds... The Red state GOP will have engineered a blue state recession that will cascade to them to trading water at best.
2
If one looks at the recent advances in engine technology (no doubt spurred by EV growth) it's premature to condemn them entirely. In the case of China, their only capacity to ramp energy production is by burning more coal. Given how strictly cities regulate engine displacement and emissions, I don't think burning more coal is preferable.
Here in America, we're constrained by limited and lossy electrical transmission grids. On a hot day in most parts of the country, the local grid is on the verge of brownout. Add to that a rapid growth in energy demand by EVs and I foresee skyrocketing electrical rates as demand strains capacity. An additional concern is how incredibly toxic battery electrode manufacturing is. Open pit mines for nickel, hydraulic excavation for rare earth minerals, trans global shipping for electrode foaming (a process so dirty that only China does it) and so on. It hardly seems better than keeping my little car running and passing SMOG here in California.
Detroit doesn't deserve any breaks but give the new variable compression and variable cycle engines a chance. . .
2
Pretty sure the Chinese realize that coal is a bad solution and while they are burning a lot now they are looking for options. They are building a lot of large nuclear, which should displace coal for the most part for now. They also realize that they have tremendous air pollution issues and need other solutions. They like us have a lot of transmission infrastructure (the wires) so there is a tendency to want to continue to use that, ie build new central power plants.
They do seem to realize that the days of the old grid are fading-they make a lot of solar panels, they are converting their bus fleets to fuel cell power, so no internal combustion engines.
FWIW- car charging can usually be done overnight when there is much lower electric demand, so it would in a sense "levelize" the load, but is still a load. Solar and wind, generating power that could break up water could create lots of hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles which I think are the answer. A fuel cell hybrid can accelerate quickly-batteries have a lot of stored energy good for acceleration, then recharge off the fuel cell while cruising. Have a good range, I think over 300miles, and you can refuel in 5-10 minutes. And zero emissions. I think a promising way to go.
Just a quick reminder that the citizens of California, Oregon and Washington are in favor of The Wall. It's a blue wall that separates us from the insanity.
Seriously though, many of us dream of a day when California will choose its trading partners as if it were a sovereign country. Maybe secession isn't a possibility, but could we choose to trade only with states that we agree with politically? ( Wisconsin just passed a gun law that eliminates all age restrictions on hunting licenses, while California has the strongest gun laws in the nation.)
California has the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world. Let's use it as leverage!
10
Strongest gun laws in the nation have not reduced shootings in California. It's spurred the Ghost Guns and next 3D printing of guns, all untraceable. California on its own would be disastrous, as it could not even protect it's own borders. It's un-American, as was the Confederacy, to suggest secession.
1
Who suggested secession?
Contrarylan,
Fact: California, like other states with strong gun regulations, have far far fewer shootings than states with no or light regulations.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/states-tough-gun-laws-shooting-...
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/the-states-with-the...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/02/gun_control_by_state_t...
Love living in California and hope to do my part
Just got an amazing Plug In Hybrid buying a used ELR coming off lease.
Have had it for over 5 weeks, Running at 148mpg as I used 6 gallons of gas for nearly 1500 miles. Hot tip for all. The fully loaded Cadillac ELR originally cost $82K. 31K miles brought the price down to $32K And there now are new Chinese car makers setting up technology offices in Silicon Valley. The ELR and the lower cost Volt proves Detroit can do this. America can lead or lose.
5
This is the man who should be our President.
5
Time for California, Oregon, and Washington State to begin negotiations with Canada. Red States hate us, but are very willing to take our money. Trump wants to close down UC Berkeley for being too liberal. We're the prime target of North Korea, and Trump just eggs them on. Our social programs will be dismantled for the benefit of the uber wealthy while our citizens are denigrated by Republicans. I'd much prefer Canada over the USA right now. Let's do this thing.
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They called him Moonbeam because he said one day California would have its own satellite. That was not long after Hughes launched the first commercial one. California was the leader in satellites until Boeing bought out Hughes. Not only that we have the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena along with Cal Tech.
I see Teslas on the road every day around here, and many Priuses, Fusions, Volts. I can see the Sierra Nevada 80 miles away from here. In the Sierra foothills you see solar systems on farms and ranches, and new homes are being built with them.
The air has become much cleaner in the state, and we need to make it cleaner.
The dirtiest air is in Bakersfield and close by, and by coincidence that is one of the most conservative areas of the state. The poorest counties are the most conservative, their residents pay the least taxes and are the loudest complainers.
Republicans do not like Gov Jerry, he makes it obvious just how backward they are. You think California is expensive, our property tax is 1%, New Jersey is 2.4%. Oregon has no sales tax, but high property tax. People want things like good roads but don't like paying for them.
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California just had to raise gas taxes to pay for the roads, despite astronomical property values, and with a housing crisis that pushes renters into poverty and homelessness (Cali is the national leader in homeless population and Vet homeless.) California has close to the highest poverty rate in the nation. The rich and poor extremes here are obviously among the worst in the developed world. The Governor's crony pet project, the Train to Nowhere, is blocking the public from seeing cost over runs. Brown also illegally used public department to ensure his real estate development was not threatened by natural disaster. Brown is an opportunist, party machine puppet, nothing more or less.
3
Everything in this post is false. California has high property values but Proposition 13 keeps property taxes artificially low. If homeless vets are represented in large numbers it's because the state is HUGE. The weather is more benign, too, so homeless people tend to gravitate here -- the odds of freezing to death are lower in California. (Sorry if that sounds cynical, but it's true.) And to say that California has the highest poverty rate in the nation is ridiculous.
There's a great divide between rich and poor because of the tech boom and the immigration situation. We need immigrant labor to tend the crops that feed the rest of the nation, and those folks are paid poorly. In California we don't boot people out because they are poor -- undocumented immigrants are more welcome here and they tend to operate in a cash economy. That doesn't show up in our economic stat sheet.
Facts first.
4
The other reason property values are high is because people want to live there. Yes, higher fuel taxes for roads is not a terrible idea, business needs roads and bridges and ports etc to succeed.
Things are cheap where most of the rednecks live because no one wants to live there. You have lower taxes, but always looking to the feds for support on your roads etc. That is money that often comes from the "blue states" as they have the nations economic engines. BTW, how many people in the red states are on some sort of govmint support that winds up being paid for by fed $$$. And yet ya'll vote in people that want to take it away from you and leave you to your own resources. When 'Bama care goes away you will still go to the ER when something happens, and then all of the rest of us pay for it anyway.
Sorry, just ranting, but its true. The real answers are a broad health care for everybody, but the gang of hooples in Wash now just want to screw everybody to enrich their handlers.
Coming think of it, Guv. Brown is what this country needs instead of a delusional, mentally unstable clown.
47
Do it Gerry! Electric cars with China can accomplish so much including ease strained relations with them.
2
With super majorities in both houses plus the governor. Democrats in California can raise taxes with impunity. No opposition.
3
Seems that's what the GOP clowns in the House and Senate are poised to do right now: raise taxes on the middle class.
2
Apparently you don't live in California, where city thoroughfares are so decrepit that you can lose fillings...and shocks....at the same time.
It's called deteriorating automobile infrastructure. It began when tax revenues lost in Bush's Great Recession could no longer permit cities to improve and maintain streets.
If you can suggest some other source of revenue that doesn't invoke the usual, discredited conservative mantra that would take it from other necessary public services, I'd be all ears.
3
Good. Sometimes you need to raise taxes. The idea that taxes are always bad is one of those dumb myths I can't believe is still alive in 2017. Just look at Kansas. They lowered taxes so much their government was going to collapse and their legislature literally overrode the governor's veto to raise them back up.
8
Did Gov Brown mention his recently signed cap and trade bill that dems slipped a clause into that would prevent companies like Tesla from receiving state grants unless they went with UAW workers? Tesla is the largest producer of electric cars with its headquarters in Palo Alto and a factory in Fremont CA. Not for long thanks to Sacramento over reach. Tesla is building a huge factory in Nevada. Is this supporting the transition to electric ars or sucking up to organized labor? Either way Californians lose when Tesla takes it’s thousands of jobs to Nevada.
6
@Eileen
The Nevada Tesla factory is a battery factory, not a car production factory.
12
Eileen, oh no those horrible unions! Enjoy the 8 hour 5 day week? How about a living wage? Oh but you are one of those voters that vote against your own interests aren't you?
8
Eileen, I'm a Tesla shareholder and I support the effort to get the UAW into the factories.
Tesla can field a competitive product and have a union workforce, too. And I put my money where my mouth is by buying Tesla products and purchasing more stock when I can. This unthinking bias against labor unions is exactly the kind of thing that brought us the Trumplicans.
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