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Silicon Valley As A Separate State?
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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Yea, it's especially interesting when you consider that every single seat picked up or held by a Republican was won because the Republican candidate in every one of those individual elections got more votes than his Democratic rival...
(Otherwise, the Republican could not have held/won the seat. Duh.)I think you've confused the electoral college with House elections or something--the electoral college only occurs in the Presidential election, when it is technically possible for a Presidential candidate to collect more electoral votes and wind the Presidency but still lose the popular vote total, nationwide. That very rarely happens, however.
Zarathustra[H];1040484087 said:
What blows me away is how an invisible line is the difference between a 100% legally owned firearm and the truly victim less crime of owning something the State of California deems to be a felony and the subsequent ruining of your life as a result of that mere possession.
Yea, it's especially interesting when you consider that every single seat picked up or held by a Republican was won because the Republican candidate in every one of those individual elections got more votes than his Democratic rival...
I think you've confused the electoral college with House elections or something--the electoral college only occurs in the Presidential election, when it is technically possible for a Presidential candidate to collect more electoral votes and win the Presidency but still lose the popular vote total, nationwide. That very rarely happens, however.
Corrected typo above.
Also, Democrats in 1942 garnered less total votes than Republican candidates but took the House in 1942, according to Wiki. Most likely, the differences are created by gerrymandering, imo.
Zarathustra[H];1040484101 said:
The restore the ability of state reps to vote for the Senators as opposed to the citizens and let's do it originally the way it was intended. The Senate is specifically there to prevent states with huge populations from fucking over all the smaller states.
Outamyhead
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sfsuphysics
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My knee jerk reaction is to call you a retard who's just spouting partisan bullshit. However after having a moment of reflection I'll simply try to educate you on the make up of California.
A majority of the voting population of California lies in the Los Angeles area, the San Francisco Bay area, and to a lesser extend the central valley
Looking at the overall voting map (this is simply one example, most democrat/republican issues are very similar, Obama/Romney was a bit out of line for California though which says something about Romney more than it says anything about California democrats). The green areas at the very top left are a bit off too if you look at the percentages, the democrat won with 46% of the vote which says a little something.
So combining both of these maps with the "6 state" draw up plan, Silicon Valley State will get 2 senators, West California (Los Angeles, Santa Barbara) would get 2, the other 4 states however would get republican senators, so that's 8 total.
Too many people see California as a "liberal hell" or whatever stupid name you want to call it, but most of the people in the state live in the smallest areas. Where those who own lots of land, northern California mostly, would probably be more closely related to those of the Bible Belt as far as their views are, however since they have so few actual people they don't get much of a voice. If anything this plan would put MORE republicans in the Senate, and not knowing how Draper political affiliation lies I would almost call this a big country wide Gerrymandering bid for the senate.
This however is not new at all, for years the republicans in the state have publicly wanted to secede from the rest of the state so they could get their own rules.
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx
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Republicans crack me up. The revisionist imagination is stunning.
After over a dozen years of Republican control, Republican Governor's ... 20 years under Wilson and Ahhhhnold (with a half term lame duck stay by Davis plagued by obstruction) and Republican control of the Legislature for those 20+ years ... ran up that $28 BILLION bond debt (remember, States cannot run actual Debt the way the Federal government can).
Gerry Brown comes in for 2011 along with a switch to Democratic control of the House and Senate, and immediately (even with the weak national economic recovery) turns around a decade of budget deficits into a huge annual surplus, and is well on the way to paying off the full $28 billion in the next few years, while re-investing billion$ in education and infrastructure repairs.
Hey, you had your shot, you put the Terminator on the job and he almost TERMINATED your state finances.
The People spoke, they'd had enough of Republican crap and tossed their asses out of the legislature and governor's office. The RESULTS are PALPABLE and we now await the national electorate to come to it's senses and toss the Republicans the hell out of the US Congress.
After over a dozen years of Republican control, Republican Governor's ... 20 years under Wilson and Ahhhhnold (with a half term lame duck stay by Davis plagued by obstruction) and Republican control of the Legislature for those 20+ years ... ran up that $28 BILLION bond debt (remember, States cannot run actual Debt the way the Federal government can).
Gerry Brown comes in for 2011 along with a switch to Democratic control of the House and Senate, and immediately (even with the weak national economic recovery) turns around a decade of budget deficits into a huge annual surplus, and is well on the way to paying off the full $28 billion in the next few years, while re-investing billion$ in education and infrastructure repairs.
Hey, you had your shot, you put the Terminator on the job and he almost TERMINATED your state finances.
The People spoke, they'd had enough of Republican crap and tossed their asses out of the legislature and governor's office. The RESULTS are PALPABLE and we now await the national electorate to come to it's senses and toss the Republicans the hell out of the US Congress.
sfsuphysics
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Depends upon the state, since the minimum is one representative and reps are based on population values some states get more voting power per capita. Wyoming has something like 525k people per vote, California has almost 700k people per vote.
Of course where the real disparity of power lies is in the electoral college, since each state gets votes based upon senate and house, smaller states have a minimum of 3 votes regardless of their population, and those smaller states do have a disproportionate amount of power to choose a president.
Gideon
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If it were up to me I would just end state goverment and state borders. States are a useless redundant branch. They mostly just enforce federal laws, and tweak them slightly as needed. It would be better to limit goverment to just federal, county and city. Now you have broad overall rules that have to be followed and a much closer focus on what needs to be done by the people that live there. Most people wont have a problem with taxes if they see results in their local area.
Outamyhead
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Didn't read my response 5 posts previous to yours, to someone's linked article claiming I was wrong, last time I checked I think California is just over 9 billion in debt...I think that means no money in the bank to the average Joe?
BladeVenom
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You mean ballot initiative? 24 states have it including DC.
Right. So they can vote in more of the people who brought you HealthCare.Gov!
Blue_Scholar
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Nah, that's Anaheim.
The finance sector is bleeding the country dry and you schmucks are worried about welfare queens. FFS
So strange this all started before Arnold took office and the Republican's have had control I believe once since 1970 in 95 or 96 forget which. It was shortly after I got out of the Navy that the Republicans lost their power base. Me thinks it is you who is confused and suffering from revisionist imagination. Plus, you should know Arnold while running Republican wasn't really Republican, he was something more akin to a progressive libertarian or some amalgamation of progressive ideology.
Semantics
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Not unless the conversation is the problems with winner take all voting structures. And issue with irregular representation in the House of representatives where very populous states actually have less house of reps per popular than smaller states. So smaller states have more influence per house rep than larger states by a significant margin. Even though the senate is where population is to be discounted.Zarathustra[H];1040484144 said:
Smoke and mirrors.... There is no surplus.
California has been borrowing money faster than they are raising taxes. The main reason they are playing games to show a surplus, is so they can make all the suckers who voted for the tax increase feel good.
Using the same logic they use in Sacramento, I can say I have a surplus because I have $10k more in the bank than I did last year.
Of course that's not counting the $40K I owe on the car I just bought, or the $20K I added in credit card debt this year, or that I'm 3 months behind in paying my mortgage, etc.
Anaheim is in Orange County. I was trying to make a joke about OC being as fake as disneyland.
GoodBoy
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He talks about "more competition", but this would just make the rich richer, and one obvious thing would be the southernmost state would become completely responsible for the border with mexico. With several states of "insulation" against mexico for "Silicon Valley".
This is just the rich trying to hoard their money, avoid paying taxes. I doubt the result would be "better".
This is just the rich trying to hoard their money, avoid paying taxes. I doubt the result would be "better".
As someone who lived in central PA for over two decades, I can say that the state really teeters on its two largest cities: Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. I no longer live in the state and did not hear about this legislation but I will say that when I lived under Governor Rendall, he very much had a Philadelphian (and thus eastern PA) bias...just look at where gambling revenue went under his plan.
choppedliver
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land of fruits and nuts divided, is still full of fruits and nuts.
No, but that quote pretty much shows your understanding of the topic. lol
This year's CA state budget was $96 billion and CA, like most states, must pass a balanced budget every year. Tax revenues were up in 2013, further padding the state's reserves to $4.4 billion. I don't know many people who have $4.4 billion cash in the bank.
Long term debt (bonds) to GDP ratio is pretty average compared to all states. In light of that, the pseudo economist punditry have switched to a new metric which gives huge numbers because that's what it's meant to do: future liabilities. Selectively only for CA of course.
The "California is broke" meme is just a bit of ignorant silliness. I don't blame you since so many people mindlessly repeat it without even realizing why it's done in the first place (jelly and mindlessness). Someone might actually think it's true if they know absolutely nothing about the topic.
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Zarathustra[H]
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I don't see how linking a 4 year old article proves your point. Lots of states had temporary financial troubles at the height of the fallout from the financial crisis.
California has actually done remarkably well since then.
Zarathustra[H];1040486181 said:
I'm pointing out that it's neither a meme nor ignorant silliness but a fair assessment of the State of California's coffers. They've only been doing well for the same reason the unemployment rate is around seven percent: they're hiding lots of uncomfortable numbers that used to be weighed into their publicly reported figures. You see, just as the unemployment figures do not count in all the discouraged workers who are unemployed but have given up looking for another job, the promises made to state employees are far, far greater than they calculate into their summations of the so-called "balanced budget". Essentially, right now they're operating like Detroit, but Detroit has run out of bricks to keep the facade up. Eventually those checks are going to stop coming, and then the obfuscating will get truly Orwellian.
Semantics
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So i take it you work for the state and thus you know? Better yet you work for the state and work in finances.
A California republican doesn't follow social republican points because you'd be labeled as intolerant in California and lose elections if you take the mid west and south's social republican stances.
No, but my mom is director of public health for a very prominent county in the bay area and my dad is an electrical engineer for the state both of which have had major funding cuts in hiring, training, travel, and just about every area imaginable and as of today they have no timetable when things will be turning around. Stockton has cut over 150 police officers since 2005 and have not started rehiring and has purchased services from San Joaquin's Sheriff's Dept to help shore up their deficiencies. The Fire department had an original goal of over 50 positions to be cut but I'm not sure if they ever reached that goal or the Union was able to fight the cuts. Numerous other agencies both professional and private have cut services and positions as well and have not started to rehire because of the uncertainty
I left California in 2006 and at the time I was very active in local and state politics for several years. A very large percentage and majority of family and friends are still closely entwined in politics both at a local and state level. While I'm no longer employed or represent any state parties because of my family and personal relationships I still have a very unique insight and somewhat dysfunctional look at state level politics.
With inter-state/nation travel is as easy as it is now, nah, not really. State lines are increasingly arbitrary for everything from commerce to legislation.
Back when it took 5 months to travel from Washington DC to State, yeah they meant something. But now that I could be there in 5 hours, meh. National sovereignty is much more important.
sfsuphysics
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Using Stockton as an example? A city that has gone bankrupt? FYI, the police cuts are due to impending doom due to police unions draining city coffers dry. Ditto with fire. Those two professions alone cost cities a boatload of money. Stocking cutting police since 2005 is simply due to them seeing the problems in advance, unfortunately they didn't see them fast enough, it basically went from a farming community to an urban ghetto over the course of a couple decades.
Gotta cut something. We're too stupid to cut the high speed rail, so...