The Broken State

on the cover / By Steven T. Jones and Tim Redmond

What destroyed California? Reagan and the anti-tax zealots.

(Oct. 29, 2009) please see also Ron Ross’s response “Don’t Blame Reagan ”

Much of the right-wing agenda that has thrown this nation into economic chaos can be traced back to what was once called the Golden State. The tax revolts that started here under Gov. Ronald Reagan and continued to sweep the country and the world under President Reagan never abated. Indeed, they have only been strengthened by the big business power that created and benefited from them.

GALLERY >

But now that California is showing signs of being the country’s first failed state — caught in fiscal freefall and mired in political gridlock as a generation’s worth of neglected problems surge to the surface — this state has become a cautionary tale for that anti-government ideology. Trends in America tend to start out west, and the economic and political disaster that California has become contains critical lessons for the rest of the country.

Lewis Uhler — president and founder of the National Tax Limitation Committee — speaks candidly and proudly of his key early role in helping build a conservative movement to limit the size of government and do battle with those who want the public sector to actively promote social and economic justice. Uhler, a UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law graduate who did legal work for conservative causes in the 1960s, was tapped by then-Gov. Reagan in 1970 to be the director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, a federally-funded legal assistance program created as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty.

While that may seem like a strange role for an avowed conservative and former member of the John Birch Society, Uhler says Reagan basically brought him in to wreck the program and fight the feds. “I was asked to put my money where my mouth was for my conservative philosophy,” Uhler told the Guardian. “OEO was set up to ensure conflict and confrontation … The mission of legal services was to change public policy through lawsuits they decided to file. I thought it was a corruption of the legal system.”

At the time, public-interest law and liberal economic and social policies were on the rise in California and spreading to the rest of the nation. So the Reaganites fought back. Rather than helping poor plaintiffs file environmental, consumer protection, equal rights, or other types of lawsuits designed to level the playing field with powerful interests, Uhler blocked lawsuits brought by attorneys he calls “ambulance-chasers” and gutted the program. “Ultimately,” he said, “we vetoed funding for California Rural Legal Assistance.”

And for his efforts, Uhler was rewarded with a cabinet-level position: assistant secretary of the Health and Welfare Agency. Again, his role wasn’t to make the agency more effective, but to make it less effective in a realm where he believes government was too big and too active.

“The problem was uncontrolled state and local spending,” Uhler said. “Intuitively, everyone who gathered around Reagan shared the same philosophy that government doesn’t really contribute anything to economic growth.”

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THREE Comments

Comment / By unanonymous / Oct. 29, 2009, 8:14 a.m.

typical zealots, blame something 30-40 years old for you problems, ignore voters who said no to additional taxes by the largest margin I personally remember in CA and they say we’re confused. I believe that vote crossed over party lines and should be taken as one thing Californians can agree on regardless of party affiliation.

Comment / By can dream / Oct. 29, 2009, 8:11 p.m.

My personal experience does not go back to Regan but I do not feel undertaxed. There is sales tax, property tax, utility tax, gasoline tax,vehicle tax, income tax, fees for everything from visiting a park to having a septic inspected, bonds up the wahzoo, payroll taxes of various sorts, etc. And more people not working-low paying jobs abound but fewer and fewer quality jobs. So many people on disability, worker’s comp, welfare, Medical, food stamps etc. A demand for programs for every social ill, committees and boards for every resource, programs or idle passing thought, grants that are never reviewed for productivity- little ever accountable to anyone. I’m not a high income person yet 48% of my income goes out in fees and taxes to the Feds and the State as most taxes and fees are not indexed as to income.
How much more can you squeeze out of the few left paying? I swear that I do not have a secret cache of money which is what most Democrats seem to feel should be taxed. The people who have more have bought the politician’s care- that just leaves those with enough to get by but not enough to buy immunity from taxes. The State of California people have exactly what they demanded- every feel-good program without the pain. That it is an illusion of great tenacity is shown by this article.

Comment / By Eldon Phelps / Oct. 30, 2009, 6:56 p.m.

A flood tide of illegal aliens given free everything: education, food, medical care, housing, etc., combined with unbelievably punitive anti-business taxes and regulations, mixed in with enormous public servant benefits and pensions, and we have the present state of California. Get rid of ALL the dead wood, and we’ll rise again. Fail to correctly respond, and it won’t be long before CA defaults on its debt and cuts all obligations previously negotiated with public workers unions. Sink or swim time.