by Jack Lee
As you probably know the U.S. Census for 2010 has just been released. Here are some fast facts gleaned from that report. California largest percentage gain in ethnic population is Hispanic. It’s expected that Hispanics will be the majority population by 2050. Overall we’ve grown 10% since the last census in 2000. California’s population is now 37,253,956, despite the exodus of companies and good paying jobs.
Butte County’s pop. has grown slower than the State’s. We’re now at 220,577 with about 1% more females (50.8) than the state (49.9) in general.
20.7% of the people in Butte County now live below the poverty level. The per capita income is $17,517, which is about $5,000 lower than the state average. Compare that to the cost of fielding one police officer which is about $136,000 including wages and benefits.
Your federal tax dollars leave here and almost never come back.
Federal spending in the county was $1,661,321 which accounts for only about .05% of the total federal money spent in California. If it were not for a few large farm subsidies and some federal anti-pot money I hate to think what the dollar amount would be.
The stats say our county population is getting older and we’re not attracting young people or anything else for that matter. The obvious reason for the youth decline….no decent paying jobs.
Persons 65 and over now represent 15% of our county population and this is 4% higher than the state average. They county coffers won’t get rich off these fixed income types.
Persons under 18 years old trail the State average by 5%, again reflecting the aging population in the county.
The conclusion is, if you live here and you want a good paying job with great benefits and you are under 35, be a cop or a fireman or next in line work for the city or county. Last place to find a good job is in the private sector.
If you are the County Treasurer, you’re facing dwindling revenue sources thanks to an aging population and nearly 45% of your population that is either on welfare or fixed income retirement. Your budget overhead due to salary and benefit packages is growing disproportionately to your income stream (tax dollars) and that’s bad. The immediate econonmic picture is not good for Butte County and the cities within. But, I suppose you can take some solace knowing that in Illinois they are spending exactly twice as much as they now take in. We’re not that bad…yet. (Hey, wasn’t Obama from Illinois?)
I grew up in Paradise in the late 40s and fifties, we were known then as “Poverty ridge”, seems not much has changed.
Based on these facts, I have to ask….why do we keep voting Wally Herger back into office?
Joe the simple fact is Wally has a gerrymandered district which means he has no competition. And it helps that the Republican party has an unwritten rule that says you don’t EVER back a challenger to a fellow republican’s seat. Next, campaign money may not buy the election, but it certainly has an important role in outcome and who always gets the lions share of big special interest donations? Yeah, the incumbent – doesn’t matter how good he is, it’s all about protecting your investment. So unless you do something really stupid, once in, always in – it’s a job for life. Now Wally has an especially good deal because of the local demographics, but its pretty much like this in most states. California is a little bit more loose when it comes to giving big campaign contributions, but it’s really about how many of one party live in your district. This is the brutally honest truth Joe, but you asked and we don’t pull punches just because we’re conservatives. I should ad, that a whole lot of republican’s and democrats love Wally as a good person and they love how he votes, so it’s possible even without a gerrymandered district he might have been re-elected just the same for all these years. Lately, he’s lost some ground and the worst came from his own home district of Butte County where he lost the local vote to a democrat, so if it were a balanced district he might have lost the last election.
If a conservative contender were clever he’d take a look at that special interest roster and do some groundwork prior to running to see if he couldn’t take some of that money by proving himself to be a better candidate to back. It might take a couple of years of consistently contacting and selling oneself to accomplish this goal but just tossing your hat in the ring and having good values and ideas isn’t enough to get someone’s attention, much less their hard earned money. A contender would have to become well known as a viable, smarter choice!
Tina that would work assuming that special interests really care about having the best candidate or just one that will “work with them for their own agenda. My experience tells me special interests would sign a pact with the devil if they thought it would get them some advantage. Granted some special interests do CARE I know, the Tea Party for instance, but there are a lot of corp. lobbyists with deep pockets who can minimize those decent special interests. Still, I like your thinking and i wish it were that easy.
I have to ask, why is Butte County older and poorer Herger’s fault? Butte County has always been in this position, way before Herger.
No business wants to come to Butte County, why should they? There are so many hoops that must be jumped, fees that must be paid, all before they even open the door,
Butte County is not business friendly.
The silly notion of Chico leaders saying they want to keep Chico Chico. Whatever that means, I guess it depends on your perspective of when you first knew Chico,
In my opinion Butte County needs enticements for business that will bring and keep them.
Chico is going on about the Air Resources Board and their rules, they have no credibility, Hein T. Tran a lead scientist wrote the report regarding heavy duty trucks, buses and etc. Turns out he bought his PH.D from a TV phoney college, he ultimately admitted as much but CARB did not fire him, Why? His report caused the truckers to lose and spend thousands of dollars, why should trucking companies stay in California much less Butte County.
Not sure if Butte County leaders know about Tran or even care.
I know, I do not write with concise, and percise thought, but I have no doubt you all understand what i’m saying.
By the way check out, http://WWW.killcarb.org there is alot of information there.
Jack: “…there are a lot of corp. lobbyists with deep pockets who can minimize those decent special interests.”
I realize that there are some real scoundrels that work specifically with a particular party to make sure they get well taken care of but a lot of them would settle for assurances that legislation will not make it hard for them to do business.
The banking lobby for instance is one that, except for those few who made special *deals with Democrats, would be happy to support someone who would give them reasonable regulations as opposed to legislation that would require them to make bad loans. Not all lobbying is for special treatment…much of it is defensive in nature.
* Deals like, “OK I’ll go along with your loans for lamo’s legislation even though it’s bad business…and I’ll meet your quota for loans to poor people that can’t pay the money back BUT…when it comes time for the bail outs I want your assurance that my bank will be at the top of the list!”
I think a smart person could get the backing of some of these bigger lobbying groups if they could sell themselves as being supportive of business and unwilling to play games with respect to legislation and the market. You’d soon find out who the enemies were as well…lol.
Remember…it is government that has the power to make the laws that we must live by…including businesses. They have the power to tax, regulate, & punish. In some circumstances they manage to do the right thing…in many others they manage to destroy entire lives, businesses, and markets (usually for special interests). Is it any wonder there are lobbyists?
Harriet, I wouldn’t say it’s Hergers fault we are in this position but isn’t our representitive in congress supposed to do something to bring some kind of jobs or government monies to his area? Perhaps Herger has and I’m just not aware of it. Seems to me he’s one of those politicians who just shows up to vote along his party lines. I think we need a new face, somebody who has some energy for the job and will try to bring SOMETHING our way. For years republicans have been locking arms around Herger every election cycle. If we had a democrat who did as good a job as Herger has, I would vote for a republican just to shake things up….and I’m a democrat!
Constitutionaly? no it isn’t his place to do that. We, as a country are in a desperate financial state because of congress critters bringing “pork” back to their areas. All of which is paid by taxpayers not necessarily from here.
I would encourage you to read the following:
Not Yours To Give
Col. David Crockett
US Representative from Tennessee
You can google to get the letter.