Couple of months ago Economist did a cover story comparing California and Texas, and now I noticed another article harping on the same topic.
The net migration out of the state is troubling. If it were not for the immigrants (both high tech and low tech), the state would be significantly shrinking. A few of the contributing factors are: budgeting by ballot, 60% majority required to pass budget, ceiling on property tax (which is pretty much older californians voting themselves a tax cut), and a mushrooming prison population. The high tech ecosystem is still well and alive, but with the education system falling behind, its not clear if we are going to be able to compete with the likes of bangalore and beijing. And unless there is a catastrophic crisis - things wont change.
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I’ve been seeing a lot of comparisons between Texas and California lately, and I find the analysis fascinating! I was born in Dallas and later moved to Los Angeles, so being a resident of both states during my life I understand and agree with the glaring differences between the two. Part of my job requires me to speak with presidents of companies and just about all of them, at some point in the conversation, complain of California’s hostile business environment. It’s been said many times that California doesn’t have a revenue problem; It has a spending problem. Bloated government, waste, and high taxes has turned my home state that I love into a model of how NOT to behave.
Fortunately, I believe we as conservatives do have some power to change our lot. We can start on local levels by encouraging our elected officials to spend our tax dollars wisely. I live in Los Angeles County, and we’re seeing a glimmer of hope emerge through our Board of Supervisors. Recently, they reissued an RFP for vendor services to operate the county’s GAIN case management services (a welfare-to-work program). I expect the same two companies will submit proposals as last year – incumbent Maximus Inc. and newcomer Policy Studies Inc. (PSI).
Maximus has maintained its contract with the county for many years now, but its cost to the taxpayers keeps skyrocketing. If the new bids resemble those from last year, we can expect that the Maximus bid will cost taxpayers almost a million dollars more than PSI’s.
What’s more, Maximus has a track record of poor performance. Under its latest three year contract, Maximus has been cited repeatedly for failing to meet required goals in 5 of 8 categories (according to the LA Times). Last year, the Department of Public Social Services favored PSI based on scoring done on the two companies by a neutral third party. PSI scored 9,082 out of 9,616 possible points in the procurement process, whereas Maximus scored 7,824 of 9,616. PSI won by a 13% margin on technical score and also submitted the lowest bid, which was 6% cheaper.
Even worse, Maximus has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to buy the support of the Board of Supervisors through lobbying and campaign donations.
I, for one, am grateful that the BOS reissued the RFP and am confident they will select the right choice for LA. In these tough economic times, we need our local elected officials to scrutinize how every tax dollar is being spent and eliminate waste wherever possible. While I don’t see California ever mirroring the conservative political model of Texas, I think we can (and must) take a lesson from the Lonestar State in order to emerge from the bleak situation we’ve found ourselves in today.
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