Re: 'California Dreaming' or California leaving [Letter, Village News, 3/28/19]

I believe I can present a more realistic view of California than that presented in the subject letter. First, there is no “spiraling demise of the state;” in fact, there’s quite the opposite. California’s economy has grown rapidly under former Gov. Jerry Brown’s governance. In 2017 the state’s gross domestic product was $2.747 trillion. That would make it the world’s fifth largest economy, moving it just above the United Kingdom.

Second, while California does carry a large debt, it is not “heavily” in debt, because it also has a large GDP. When put in terms of debt versus GDP, there are 10 states with higher debt ratios.

Third, it’s true in California’s “heyday” schools and infrastructure were well funded. Funding for such efforts comes from taxes. From 1944 to 1963 the top federal tax bracket was 90 percent. Then there was a “big” cut – lowering it to 70 percent. But, since the time that Gov. Ronald Reagan heard about supply-side economics, we’ve never heard anything from Republicans but “cut taxes, cut taxes.”

If you want to see Republican economic policy in practice, look at Louisiana under Gov. Bobby Jindal and Kansas under Gov. Sam Brownback: both came close to destroying the economies of their respective states.

Change is inevitable. Ignoring it won’t make it go away. And not all of it is bad, so we can and should make the best of the situation by working together to counter or mitigate the bad while embracing the good.

John H. Terrell