[quote=zk]There doesn’t seem to be even a desire to work toward a consensus or, in the case of politicians, to work toward actually governing the country. The only goal seems to be to score points against the other side. Vote buying may be a major component of the problems we’ve faced to date, but the problem of point scoring overtaking governing as the main goal of politicians threatens to be just as big a problem in the future.[/quote]

zk: I read your response and EconProf’s, and I couldn’t help but think that many of the folks on this board that weigh on in California’s problems and how to solve them, actually haven’t been here all that long.

I was 10 when Jerry Brown first took office in 1975, and just graduating high school when he departed in 1983. I remember my dad, a life-long Democrat, lamenting that Jerry wasn’t at all like his dad Pat (Brown). I was thinking that because one of the posters commented that California didn’t have these problems when the “conservatives” ran the state. Well, Pat Brown was a Democrat and helped implement a blueprint that made California the envy of the country and much of the world when it came to things like education, industry, innovation and business development. Along with Ronald Reagan (as a Republican governor), there was a definite strategy and a plan.

The sad fact is, both Democrats and Republicans have succeeded in wrecking this state, and because of things like short-term thinking and cheap partisan politics. Pat Brown was a Democrat and Ronald Reagan was a Republican, and yet both of them worked to secure a common vision. Something sadly lacking today.