{"id":1141,"date":"2009-08-08T15:29:02","date_gmt":"2009-08-08T22:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/xsml\/?p=1141"},"modified":"2009-08-08T15:29:02","modified_gmt":"2009-08-08T22:29:02","slug":"beware-of-minorities-with-disproportionate-political-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/2009\/08\/08\/beware-of-minorities-with-disproportionate-political-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of minorities with disproportionate political power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In California, minorities have hijacked the government and are hell-bent on driving the economy into the ground. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/world\/unitedstates\/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14183037\">The Economist<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>California has been suffering serial budget crises, the latest of which was resolved last month in a rather desperate deal between the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the legislature. It contained huge cuts, including $2 billion lopped from higher education. The UC alone has lost a cumulative $813m of state funding in the last fiscal year and the current one, a cut of 20%. The second-tier California State University (Cal State), with 23 campuses the largest in the country, and the third-tier community colleges have also been clobbered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The minority group responsible for this mess? The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoover.org\/research\/factsonpolicy\/facts\/33467264.html\">state&#8217;s Republicans<\/a> concentrated in <a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/6\/6f\/ElectionMapPurpleCounty.jpg\">rural areas and a few affluent exurbs<\/a> like Orange County. Their weapon: the state&#8217;s obsolete <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/opinion\/la-ed-vote23-2008dec23,0,6986978.story\">super-majority requirement<\/a> for passing a budget. <\/p>\n<p>What is particularly egregious is how this political minority deflects criticism for its <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kamikaze\">kamikaze<\/a> politics by\u2026wait for it\u2026pointing the finger at racial and ethnic minorities. Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/world\/unitedstates\/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14183037&#038;mode=comment&#038;intent=readBottom\">the comments<\/a> that accompany The Economist piece. It&#8217;s par for the course.<\/p>\n<p>(via Bowen Chung.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In California, minorities have hijacked the government and are hell-bent on driving the economy into the ground. Here&#8217;s The Economist: California has been suffering serial budget crises, the latest of which was resolved last month in a rather desperate deal between the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the legislature. It contained huge cuts, including $2 billion&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}