By Steven Greenhut

Chicago’s public school teachers went on strike last week over a modest plan to extend their work day and subject them to the type of standardized performance testing they typically administer to students.

The walkout provided a fresh reminder that teachers unions exist to expand the pay and protections for teachers, not to help “the children.” Unions protect their worst-performing members, which is why Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s testing plan caused so much angst.

We’ve all read examples of unions coddling rotten apples — layoffs of the “teacher of the year” because seniority trumps performance, and those “rubber rooms” where accused educational miscreants spend their days collecting full pay as the case against them is adjudicated in a disciplinary process designed to insulate teachers from accountability.

The only thing that makes teachers’ unions more angry than having their members subjected to performance tests are plans to subject them to competition through charter schools and tuition vouchers.

Note also the type of people who rise to union leadership. The only enjoyable aspect of the Chicago-strike spectacle is watching two bullies — Emanuel and the leader of the union — battle it out in front of the TV cameras.

It also was interesting to see how the strike split the Democratic coalition. As the New York Times reported, “The strike pits several core components of the Democratic coalition against one another: The teachers’ union and much of organized labor are on a war footing against [Emanuel]. … What is more, the strike pits organized labor against myriad wealthy liberals — vital donors to Democratic coffers — many of whom contribute heavily to efforts to finance charter schools and weaken teachers’ unions.”

Even though the reforms were pushed by Mayor Emanuel, a former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, the Obama administration refused to weigh in on the matter. Obviously, a public school labor dispute is not a federal issue, but Obama rarely recognizes any constitutional limits on anything. He could have used this nationally publicized strike as one of those “teachable moments,” but we understand his silence. He didn’t want to anger the unions.

Bureaucracy

Short-term politics aside, the spectacle was depressing when one considers what’s at stake — the success of students held hostage by the mismanaged and bureaucratic Chicago school system. And, whatever progress Emanuel makes under the settlement, the system will slog along in its current shape, one way or another.

Too few Democrats believe in any sort of reform beyond throwing more taxpayer dollars at a dysfunctional government school monopoly controlled — from the classroom to the school board — almost completely by teachers’ unions.

California

Here in California, the state constitution mandates that about 40 percent of the general-fund budget go to public K-14 education, in addition to the federal funds and local bond dollars sent to the schools. Yet the state’s leaders cannot come up with any better idea for uplifting the state’s students than finding more tax dollars to fund the current system. Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 tax-increase measure is packaged as a boost in education funding. This debate over the quality of education has been going on my entire life, and the same folks call for the same solutions (more money!) and nothing ever changes. Is it any wonder?

It was Emanuel who said, famously, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” His critics portrayed that statement as an expression of cynicism, but it’s something all politicians know.

The current scarcity of public dollars offers an opportunity to talk about the issues that really matter, from education reform to pension reform. Unfortunately, the nation’s educational problems need a more radical fix than any politician from either party is willing to consider.

Taking on unions

The best news about the Chicago strike was that a prominent Democratic official was at least willing to take on the unions, even though he may not have come away with much.

Republicans tend to represent suburban and rural school districts, where education is tolerable. California education expert Lance Izumi penned a book about suburban school districts, “Not As Good As You Think: The Myth of the Middle Class School,” detailing the mediocrity of even the best public schools.

But it’s easy to be complacent in safe communities where parents plaster “Student of the Month” bumper stickers on their minivans and their kids typically head off to good colleges after graduation.

In urban areas, education can be dismal. These districts often have the highest per-capita student spending in the nation. Because the worst schools are in the most solidly Democratic areas, we will see more serious Democratic officials taking on the biggest obstacle to reform, the unions.

There’s a reason low-income parents jump through hoops to try to get their kids enrolled in charter schools. Those schools have been freed from the teachers’ union stranglehold.

Instead of siding with the poor and downtrodden, however, most liberal writers align with the powerful and privileged teachers’ unions.

As Sally Kohn wrote last week in Salon, “The teachers and teachers unions who work in these districts to try to help are part of the solution. Poverty, homelessness and the dramatic funding cuts to social services that help needy families, as well as the cuts to public education, are the problem.”

Liberals used to insist that every child deserved a great education.

Now, thanks to their closeness with unions that protect an arcane education system built on an industrial labor-union model, liberals are saying that we can’t help poor kids until we eliminate poverty and create Nirvana. Haven’t they seen the great success of Catholic schools and charter schools located in tough urban areas? Why are they so willing to leave so many poor kids behind?

Americans should applaud Emanuel’s willingness to take on the Chicago teachers union. But the only solution to the nation’s failing school model is to break it up and create a system based on competition and incentives.

Steven Greenhut is vice president of journalism at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. Write to him at steven.greenhut@franklincenterhq.org.

By John Hrabe

Whenever you’ve got trouble, and I mean trouble with a capital T, authoritarians’ first impulse is to ban it. And it doesn’t matter if that trouble is rap music, violent video games, or a pool hall in River City.

The Chick-fil-A protests and counter-protests are nothing new, just the latest chapter in America’s ongoing culture wars. Don’t like gay couples: ban gay marriage. Hate Chick-fil-A for opposing gay marriage: ban Chick-fil-A.  Cultural warriors of all political stripes love to use the machinery of government to suppress their critics and push their agenda.

That’s what happened at first in the current chicken fight. The conservative authoritarians at Chick-fil-A gave money to organizations that support defense of marriage laws. Big government trying to ban two individuals from entering into a private contract. The liberal authoritarians responded with talk of blocking Chick-fil-A from opening new franchises in their communities. Big government trying to infringe on public commerce and free speech.

Ironically, both sides share the same philosophical foundation: “I don’t like you so I want government to shut you down.”

Public Shot Down Big City Mayors

Then, something different happened. After Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino, Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel and San Francisco’s Mayor Edwin Lee made their unconstitutional threats, the mayors’ comments were immediately shot down by constitutional scholars and endorsed by the public. The debate shifted from government actions to private boycotts.

“Even when it comes to government contracting — where the government is choosing how to spend government money — the government generally may not discriminate based on the contractor’s speech, see Board of County Commissioners v. Umbehr (1996),” wrote the country’s preeminent First Amendment scholar, UCLA law school professor Eugene Volokh. “It is even clearer that the government may not make decisions about how people will be allowed to use their own property based on the speaker’s past speech.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, or the group conservatives love-to-hate, echoed Volokh’s position.

“The government can regulate discrimination in employment or against customers, but what the government cannot do is to punish someone for their words,” said ACLU attorney Adam Schwartz. “When an alderman refuses to allow a business to open because its owner has expressed a viewpoint the government disagrees with, the government is practicing viewpoint discrimination.”

Private Boycotts: Non-Government Solutions

The debate continued, but in a positive way, which was substantially different from past cultural battles. All of the public’s fury was channeled into private, non-government solutions. That’s something to celebrate. There wasn’t any more talk of banning Chick-fil-As. No lawmaker suggested a mandatory warning label for all Chick-fil-A products, or banning minors from your neighborhood Chick-fil-A restaurant.

The Traditional Values Coalition urged their members to support “citizen leaders willing to stand tall and support Christian values in the public square.” Gay rights groups, such as the NoH8 campaign, encouraged the public to boycott the chain. There was “National Same-Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A” Day versus “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” Both sides got to express their views and take action with their wallets.

Can liberals now understand why money equals a form of political speech?

American Tradition: Voting with Your Wallet

Boycotts date back to America’s founding.  “If you choose where to eat based on a company’s political views, as well as how good the food is or how much it costs, that’s your call,” the Sacramento Bee editorialized. “Voting with your feet, or with your wallet, is an American tradition.” Remember, the Boston Tea Party, it had a corresponding boycott of British tea.

When individuals have the freedom to choose, or when government stays out of it, the debate gets better. You don’t get two polarized sides, but a wide-array of views.  People who are gay but still eat at Chick-fil-A. Conservatives who support traditional marriage but patronize liberal-minded businesses.

“I am gay and I support Chick-fil-A,” Matt Perez, a 19-year-old from Redding self-reported on CNN’s i-Report. “Personally they have never treated me any different as a gay man and I will continue to do business with them so long as that holds true.”

On the other side, most conservatives aren’t likely to stop using their iPhone or Windows-based computer. “Microsoft and Apple, to name a couple, donate to pro-gay-marriage groups,” reminded best-selling author and radio talk-show host Larry Elder. “Should opponents of gay marriage find the companies’ stance on marriage so offensive that they, too, launch consumer boycotts?” 

Private boycotts are harder to pull off. It’s much easier to have the government do it for you.

“While I understand the goal of voting with one’s pocketbook, I’ve personally found boycotts to be impossible to pull off with any consistency,” wrote conservative columnist and radio host Inga Barks at the Bakersfield Californian. “If I like a product, I buy it.”

Who will eventually win the Battle of Chick-fil-A? Believers in limited government already have.

By John Seiler

San Francisco has a reputation as a “tolerant” city, the capital of the 1967 Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury and all that. Whatever it was in psychedelic Sixties, today it’s one of the most intolerant cities around. For example, on June 6, San Fran voted a whopping 74 percent for Proposition 29, the buck-a-pack cigarette tax. The rest of the state opposed it, 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent.

What have San Franciscans got against tobacco smokers, who tend to be poor people? No doubt it comes from city’s heritage of its major Anglo settlement by intolerant New England Puritans. They always want to tell everybody else what to do.

By contrast, Orange County was settled by more tolerant Okies and Mexicans. Not surprisingly, O.C. voted 59 percent to 41 percent against Prop. 29 — that is, in favor of tolerance toward smokers.

The latest display of San Francisco intolerance concerns Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy saying he wasn’t keen on same-sex “marriage.” He said it violates his religious beliefs.

It’s important to note that he didn’t say he was firing homosexuals from his company. And he didn’t come out in favor of bringing back anti-sodomy laws. He just expressed his religious opinion.

In response, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee attack-tweeted, “Very disappointed #ChickFilA doesn’t share San Francisco’s values & strong commitment to equality for everyone.” A second tweet: “Closest #ChickFilA to San Francisco is 40 miles away & I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer.”

As Anthony Gregory noted at the Independent Institute site:

“For his stance on this issue, which is not all that different from Obama’s stance just a year ago, many in the gay rights movement decided to boycott his fast food chain. Whatever one thinks of this, it is well within the rights of people to vote with their dollars. The Executive Director of Log Cabin Republicans argues that the boycott is poor strategy, however, because ‘turning a chicken sandwich into Public Gay Enemy Number One makes LGBT people look superficial, vindictive and juvenile—everything that we as a community have worked hard to overcome.’”

Private boycotts are one thing. But Anthony notes that it’s different when governments have gotten involved, because that involves the threat of coercion.

Banned in Boston

Other attacks on Cathy have come from Boston and Chicago. Both are understandable. Boston is even more intolerant than San Francisco, the very center of Puritan intolerance and haughtiness. Nowadays they’re not religious Puritans, but secular Puritans. Mayor Thomas Menino threatened, “There is no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it”

Imagine that! No place for freedom on the Freedom Trail.

Boston’s famed intolerance, of course, originated the phrase “banned in Boston.” And it was just a few clicks north that their fellow Puritans burned  witches not so long ago. And check out that cover of a book on witches, image at the top. The book was printed in “Boston in N.E.” in 1702. It reads, “How Persons Guilty of that Crime may be Convicted.” Boston 1702 = Boston 2012 = Chicago 2012 = San Francisco 2012.

Chicago is notorious for having the most corrupt political machine in all America, which is saying a lot. In the Windy City, the dead not only walk, they vote. That’s also where we got the phrase, “Vote early and often.”

In Chicago, an alderman, Joe Moreno, banned Chick-fil-A from opening a store. Moreno was backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the notoriously foul-mouthed former chief-of-staff of President Obama. Emanuel said, “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values. They disrespect our fellow neighbors and residents. This would be a bad investment, since it would be empty.”

What a typical socialist. He thinks he knows how to run somebody else’s business, and how it will do. Meanwhile, while Emanuel and Moreno were wasting time on their own immense intolerance, Chicago’s murder rate has been soaring. For them, it’s tolerance for murderers, intolerance for someone just voicing his religious opinion.

It’s also worth pointing out that, not only is Cathy’s position the same as Obama’s last year, it’s the same as that of most Americans today, and of most American religious groups today.

Left-tyranny

Gregory again:

“While the most consistent left-liberal voices for civil liberties, among them the ACLU, have defended Chick-fil-A’s right to open a business regardless of the proprietor’s political views, there has been far too much silence or even enthusiasm toward these threats of political coercion, which carry potentially totalitarian implications. A government that can prohibit people from engaging in peaceful commerce based on traditional cultural and conservative political values is as big a threat to civil liberties as anything the left imagines a conservative Big Brother poses….

“Civil liberties are grounded in key principles of a free society, including an unflinching distrust in secular government and a respect for property rights. Without property rights, bodily integrity, freedom from censorship, and guarantees against lawless prosecution are impossible to maintain. Without distrusting government, society loses sight of the importance of civil liberties in the first place. The left has long attempted to marry a loyalty to civil liberties with a trust in government and an attitude toward property ranging from ambivalence to hostility. This contradictory approach to the principal issues of a just society fundamentally explains the unreliability and hypocrisy so often seen with many progressives when civil liberties are under attack.”

Right.

Lee, Menino, Moreno and Emanuel unfortunately are part of a rising trend in America of Left-intolerance, of using government coercion to suppress First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion. This long has happened in Europe and Canada.

In America, this tyrannical trend needs to be stopped. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Eat dinner tonight at Chick-fil-A.

By Tori Richards

Los Angeles stands to receive federal transportation dollars for the first time in nearly a decade, yet local infighting could derail the project, officials say.

Allegations of influence peddling with a campaign donor tied to President Obama and lawsuits charging corruption at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have put the brakes on the final leg of a $5 billion subway project through L.A.’s Westside.

With a new freeway lane costing more than $1 billion, the project was seen as a godsend to an area that has some of the nation’s worst traffic congestion.

The disputed route runs underneath Beverly Hills High School, with a subway stop at Constellation and Avenue of the Stars in Century City. That’s where Obama donor JMB Realty owns a slice of land.

The city of Beverly Hills and its school district sued the MTA when a presentation of their scientific study showing the route to be hazardous fell on deaf ears.

“It needs to be ready to go on our end and these lawsuits complicate things,” said Dan Rosenfeld, senior deputy to L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas. “We could lose out on this funding if it drags through the courts. Not to mention the huge legal cost. Who pays for that? It’s not fair to stick it to the taxpayers.”

Added Michael Cano, transportation deputy for LA County Supervisor Michael Antonovich:

“Federal funding matching on the subway requires you to be aggressive on the timeline. You have to demonstrate a good financial plan and operating system. Problems associated with the lawsuit and delay and it loses out on a round of federal funding. The public as a whole loses out.” 

A bill making its way through the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee appropriates funds for seven transportation projects throughout the state. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sits on the committee.

For nearly a decade, federal transportation dollars have been awarded to New York, Dallas, Denver and other cities, largely ignoring California and its pressing need for a better rail system.

“It’s shocking how little we get,” Rosenfeld said. “California is 10 percent of the U.S.and L.A. is 40 percent of California and we get peanuts in the federal transit cafeteria compared to other cities. We should get our fair share, but zero isn’t a fair share.”

For example, New York — which already has the nation’s biggest subway system — has received $612 million for various rail projects. Other projects have included Dallas at $236 million, Salt Lake City at $180 million and Seattle at $113, according to MTA records.

“They are tunneling through rock on the east side of Manhattan, it’s not an easy project,” Rosenfeld said.

He added that their success in grabbing dollars could be because “they have very effective senators and one of them is now secretary of state.”

The last big money was in 2004, when Los Angeles received $66 million for its Goldline subway.

David vs. Goliath

The project started out innocently enough: build an extension of the subway system to the Westside, where the only current transportation options are taking the bus or driving along the gridlocked 405 Freeway.

The project would continue on from the Wilshire Center area through Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood.

The entire project was expected to take 30 years to complete at a cost of $5 billion and the MTA was counting on the federal government to pick up half the tab.

At first, the city of Beverly Hills was highly supportive of the project and Measure R, a 2008 ballot measure that raised the Los Angeles County sales tax half a cent to support transportation projects. That money would largely be used to fund rail projects.

And initially, the final leg of the subway was supposed to have a station near a golf course, with little impact on anyone. But then the site inexplicably changed to a busy street corner where the project developer JMB Realty owns the parcel of land, charged Brian Goldberg, president of the Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education.

The first route would have been faster and up to $100 million cheaper, so none of this made sense to Goldberg.

Tunneling 70 feet under the high school could expose thousands of students to myriad potential disasters, such as the escape of methane gas, former oil well sites and shifting ground, Goldberg said.

“We’ve confirmed with the Department of the State Architect that there’s been no tunneling under instructional buildings anywhere in the state of California,” Goldberg said. “We don’t know if the state architect would even approve construction.”

The school district wanted to give the state that opportunity, asking the MTA board to postpone its decision on the route until further studies could be done. But the board had hired a geologist who claimed that the first proposed station site was on an earthquake fault and the new route was approved.

A second geologist hired by the school district had come up with an opposite conclusion, saying the school has had underground erosion problems. Furthermore, if the first site was home to an active earthquake fault, the city of Los Angeless houldn’t have approved plans for construction of a 39-story office building there, the Beverly Hills geologist noted.

But the MTA board of directors is comprised of elected officials, including L.A.’s mayor and the members of the Board of Supervisors. Chicago-based JMB Realty’s executives have donated at least $5,000 to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign coffers dating back to 2005, MapLight Research shows.

Media reports show that JMB’s billionaire owner, Neil Bluhm, is a big Obama supporter and even threw him a 49th birthday party. Public records reveal that he has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to the Democratic Party and its candidates.

Villaraigosa has made no secret of his ties to the Obama administration and his quest to seek higher office.

“They are heavily connected to Obama and Rahm Emanuel,” Goldberg said. “Coincidences in politics and money are few and far between. These developers are smart people and the reason why they make a lot of money is they know how to work the system.”

Goldberg said JMB Realty’s and the MTA’s insistence on that piece of property for the station “doesn’t smell right.”

Anotonovich, whose district doesn’t include the rail project, has been the only direct supporter of Beverly Hills’ position. Ridley Thomas was not present the day of the vote.

“It’s very frustrating, the city just wanted a fair chance to represent their information to the MTA board,” Cano said. “[Antonovich] felt compelled to stick up for the city of Beverly Hills because they needed a voice on the board.”

In addition, Antonovich is troubled by the appearance of impropriety with the campaign contributions.

“That should’ve been explored, the relationship between the developer and MTA,” Cano added. “It’s definitely something you worry about. We have no first-hand knowledge [of impropriety], but it’s a legitimate question to ask to make sure the public feels a decision based by the MTA board is fact and science and not political considerations.”

The Result

Following a lengthy hearing, in which Antonovich was the only vote on their side, the city of Beverly Hills and the school district each filed lawsuits, asking a judge to reverse the board’s approval of the subway extension.

The city’s lawsuit accused the MTA of holding a sham hearing purporting to seek facts from Beverly Hills’ geologists, when in actuality a decision had already been made.

But the decision of a Superior Court judge won’t resolve the matter. The losing side will certainly file an appeal and the matter could be litigated for years. The MTA and its deep pockets could bury Beverly Hills in legal motions and paperwork. Although it’s a wealthy community, the city’s municipal assets pale in comparison to the billions MTA has at its disposal.

“Unfortunately, because we’re Beverly Hills, there is a stigma that it’s a rich, entitled community,” Goldberg said. “If it was any other route in the state, the response would be very different and more allies would be coming to our side.”

By Chris Reed

SAN DIEGO — The smug, insufferably superior politics of the faculty lounge have gone mainstream on the Left in the past decade to the point where many “progressive” pundits and Democratic lawmakers openly act as if it is a given that their side always knows best and that those who disagree are dimwits, rednecks or charlatans.

This was on full display in a recent post by Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum, which carried the headline, “The War Between Data and Storytelling”:

“Krugman the liberal is all about the data: he hauls out charts, models, ‘signatures,’ and international comparisons. Brooks, by contrast, barely admits that data even bears on this question. He’s all about telling a plausible story: the chickens of globalization, failing education, high federal debt, and political sclerosis have finally come home to roost, so what do you expect? Of course the economy is in tatters.

“You see this play out on TV too. Conservatives tell a story, and Krugman then explains impatiently that the data simply doesn’t back up what they’re saying. Every week it plays out the same way. It’s like a kabuki show.”

I laughed so hard when I read this that I was at risk of breaking a rib. Why? Because I came upon Drum’s onanistic ode to the smarts of his side just hours after reading two amazingly damning passages in “The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery,” Noam Scheiber’s new book about economics policy-making in the Obama administration.

The first part involves the sophisticated way Obama’s aides decided where to spend tens of billions in the stimulus package they would soon present to Congress. This is from Page 102:

“In December [2008], the economic team dutifully prepared a list of drab but high-bang-for-your-buck outlays to [Rahm] Emanuel. The list included … $20 billion to repair existing roads and bridges, $5 billion to repair public housing units and another $5 billion to upgrade sewage treatment facilities. …

“Emanuel’s brother, Ezekiel, a doctor who was joining the administration as a health care adviser, happened to be staying with the future chief of staff when the list arrived via fax. “There’s nothing that really gets my heart racing,” the brother later complained. “What would get your heart racing?” Rahm Emanuel asked glumly. “I don’t know. How about high-speed rail — getting from New York to D.C. in 90 minutes?” Within days, some $20 billion in high-speed rail investments had immaculately materialized on the list.”

Are you kidding me? The Obama administration’s obsession with high-speed rail began as a way to get Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel’s heart racing? This is at the root of the president’s determination to trick/bully California and other states into building immense boondoggles by providing them initial billions until the projects became too big to fail?

Bullet train

Just last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood came to Sacramento to warn the Legislature it better launch construction of the California’s bullet train soon or it risked losing the $3.3 billion in federal funds that had come its way because of Doc Zeke. The fact that California has less than 20 percent of the funds in hand that it needs for the $68 billion project and no prospects for outside investment went unmentioned by LaHood. Instead, he exhorted the broke state government to make the bullet train a priority — and, incredibly, Gov. Jerry Brown appears to agree.

Yo, Kevin Drum. Yo, Paul Krugman. This is not the triumph of “facts” over “storytelling.”

But what’s incredible is that, on the very next page of Scheiber’s book, there’s an even more depressing/appalling/insane anecdote. President Obama has spent three-plus years talking about how green jobs will rescue the economy. All along, he’s known it was a lie. The book reads:

“Energy was a particular obsession of the president-elect’s, and therefore a particular source of frustration. Week after week, [economics adviser Christina] Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investment in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. “I don’t get it,” he’d say. “We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?” But the numbers rarely budged. The U.S. clean energy industry was so microscopically small that even doubling or tripling the size of it, a major accomplishment that could take years, would produce an insignificant number of jobs relative to the size of the country’s workforce.”

So Obama has understood this since before he took office, thanks to the honest counsel of the UC Berkeley professor who would become chairwoman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. Yet he hasn’t changed course, constantly hyping the “green jobs” narrative and continuing to throw billions at Solyndra and similar projects while being hostile to the thriving conventional energy industry and indifferent to the larger private-sector economy.

Yo, Kevin Drum. Yo, Paul Krugman. Who’s using data? Who’s engaging in storytelling?

Green jobs

This is all particularly galling in California. The green jobs cult is so powerful in both Sacramento and the media that one routinely hears the absurd narrative that a 2006 state law forcing a gradual unilateral switch to cleaner but much costlier forms of energy will help the state’s economy, not create a huge competitive disadvantage. The much more likely result is that we’ll look back at the present 11 percent unemployment rate as the good old days.

We’re also home to the only remaining state-federal bullet train project. Other states having figured out that high-speed rail is incredibly costly, requires perpetual operational subsidies, and doesn’t carry nearly enough passengers to substantially reduce congestion and pollution.

But we have a Democrat-dominated Sacramento, our state leaders are advised by lots of sharp Krugman acolytes, and we’ve got Kevin Drum dispensing wisdom from his home in Orange County, so it’s just a matter of time before data triumphs, storytelling recedes and prosperity blooms.

If anyone out there actually believes this, please be in touch. I’ve got a subdivision in Riverside County I’d like to sell you.

Reed is an editorial writer for the U-T San Diego newspaper (formerly the San Diego Union-Tribune) and runs the Calwhine.com politics blog.