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Catastrophe, Defined By The Los Angeles Times

Leave it to the government-loving Los Angeles Times to find the real tragedy in California’s deep recession.

What's really ravaging California, according to the LAT

What a precisely backward reading of cause and effect. Government job cuts were made necessary by plunging tax revenues from the recession-ravaged private sector. Economic lesson for the Los Angeles Times: Private sector taxes and fees fund government activities.

The story lays virtually all the blame for California’s economic woes on the construction industry’s collapse. It totally fails to examine the other factors intensifying recession, such as California’s anti-business policies, including its Draconian global warming law, AB 32. Other states, most notably Texas, are booming while California is struggling.

The LA Times story revolves around the pain, the pain! to government workers and those who get government benefits:

And the state budget deal, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Oct. 8, has many worried that cuts could get even worse. State workers, knowing that deficits are projected for the next few years, are hoping to hang on to what jobs they can against pressure for additional cuts, said Doug Crooks, a spokesman for the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents state employees.

It will “impact services, the people who provide services and the citizens of California who use these services,” he said. Already, inspections of hospitals and other services are slowing down, he said.

One might logically conclude that the best way out of the recession is to reduce job-killing laws and red tape, and make businesses feel welcome in California. But expecting economic logic from LA Times reporters appears to be too much to ask for.

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