More good news in California for America to learn from
by David Atkins
Things continue to look up in California, just a few months after passing a millionaire's tax and electing 2/3 supermajorities for Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature. Budgets are balancing, good legislation is getting passed, shellshocked and powerless Republicans are barely heard from. And Californians are pretty happy about it:
Californians are more optimistic than they've been in six years, with nearly half of registered voters saying that the Golden State is moving in the right direction, according to a Field Poll released Thursday. And their feelings about the future parallel a surge in their enthusiasm for Gov. Jerry Brown.
The 48 percent of voters who think the state is on the right track is four times as many who did on the eve of Brown's election in September 2010. Forty-two percent say the state is on the wrong track, but that's a far cry from the 81 percent who felt that way just before Brown's election...
Most voters -- 55 percent to 39 percent -- appear satisfied that Democrats now hold two-thirds majorities in the Senate and Assembly, giving them the power to raise taxes and place initiatives on the ballot without any Republican support. Most Democrats (76 percent) say that's a good thing, while 86 percent of Republicans say it's a bad thing.
Sixty-nine percent of voters with no party affiliation viewed the Democrats' supermajority favorably. And amazingly, 12 percent of Republicans did.
"The no-party voters might be thinking it may be better than gridlock, that it enables the state to move forward," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "We'll see what the perception is after Democrats do a few things."
So far, it looks like making a dent in income inequality while utterly disempowering conservatives is pretty good for public morale in America's largest state and biggest economic engine. The rest of America should take note.
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