The Canary on the West Coast

California is one of the few states that still provides lifetime welfare benefits. In the mid-1990s, the National Academy of Sciences found that each native-born household paid $1,100 in additional taxes to accommodate new immigrants and illegal aliens.

That study is more than 10 years old. Now, if President Barack Obama and the Democrat-led U. S. Congress do grant amnesty to the millions of illegals throughout the country, through chain migration, millions of new welfare recipients will pour into California.—Larry Kelley

Years ago miners would take a caged canary down in the mine shifts in which they worked. If someone looked over and saw that the canary was dead that was a warning that undetectable but deadly fumes were developing in the mine. That was their cue to get out of the mine as quickly as possible so that they would not suffer the same fate as the canary in the cage ergo the saying, “A canary in a mine shift.”

The canary when used in this way was a gauge of the toxicity of the work environment for miners. America would do well to learn the lesson of the canary with respect to California.

In California all of the liberal policies that the Democrat Congressional super majority and Barack Hussein Obama are leading the nation to are already enacted. California is virtually a massive government spending machine, where wealth redistribution is the organizing principle. Despite being home to the eighth-largest economy in the world, California is also teetering on insolvency. (see story)and (related information)

The State of California has developed an array of demand-side energy policies over the past several decades. More recently, California’s legislature has passed legislation that mandates drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Key lawmakers are now promoting California’s energy and global warming policies as a model for the federal government and other States to follow.

Thomas Tanton’s talk will review California’s policies and show that they have had significant costs as well as other detrimental effects and are likely to have even higher costs and even worse effects in the future.

California’s policies have led to the highest electricity and gasoline prices in the continental U. S. and contributed to the de-industrialization of California. While per capita electricity consumption has remained flat, total electricity demand has increased 65% since 1980. –Competitive Enterprise Institute (see source)

California is on the brink of insolvency and that is exactly where like minded policies of Democrats and Obama will take this nation if their plans are enacted nationally in terms of energy and fiscal policy.

California is proof that Cap and Trade, Welfare state, legalizing Illegal Aliens will bankrupt America because those policies have already bankrupted the state of California.

Disregarding the canary on the west coast as the Democrats are doing will have disastrous consequences for our economy, our nation and the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.