There’s no question that climate change is why this is so much worse but I think he captures why some of us love this “mess of a city.”
Krugman had this to say about California today:
One of the unwritten rules of American politics is that it’s OK to sneer at and smear our big cities and the people who live in them, while it’s an outrageous act of disrespect to suggest that there’s anything wrong with the Heartland. And many people believe the smears; visitors to New York are often shocked to find that one of the safest places in America isn’t the hellscape they were told to expect.
These delusions of dystopia are sometimes funny, but they can have real consequences. As you read this, much of America’s second-largest city is an actual hellscape. But many politicians, from the president-elect on down, are showing zero sympathy, insisting that California — which in its own way gets trash-talked as much as New York —somehow brought this disaster on itself by being too liberal, too woke, or something. And this lack of sympathy may translate into refusal to provide adequate disaster aid.
Somehow I doubt that Florida will get the same treatment when (not if) it has its next big natural disaster. (The Biden administration responded with complete, unconditional support to regions hit by Hurricane Helene and other storms, although that hasn’t stopped Republican politicians, like Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, from lying and claiming that aid was delayed.)
At a fundamental level the case for helping California get through this is moral: Americans should help Americans in their hour of need. But this also seems like a good time to remind people just how much the Golden State contributes to American greatness.
Before I get there: Yes, California has problems, some of them big. There are pockets of social disorder, although the fact that so many luxury homes are burning tells us that many people who could live anywhere find greater Los Angeles a highly desirable place to be. More important, California suffers terribly from NIMBYism, which has led to grossly inadequate home construction, crippling housing costs and a lot of homelessness.
But California is nonetheless an economic and technological powerhouse; without it America would be a lot poorer and weaker than it is.
Most narrowly, at a time when Donald Trump is making nonsensical claims that America is subsidizing Canada via our bilateral trade deficit, California is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.
The Rockefeller Institute regularly calculates states’ balance of payments — the difference between the amount the federal government spends in a state and the amount the state pays in federal taxes. Here’s what per capita balances looked like in 2022, the most recent year available (blue means a state receives more than it gives, orange the reverse):
California paid in a lot more than it got back — $83 billion in total. So did Washington state and much of the Northeast. Most red states were in the reverse position, getting much more from DC than they paid in return. And yes, it’s ironic that states that are so dependent on transfers from other states — if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its GDP — vote overwhelmingly for politicians trying to eviscerate the programs they depend on. […]
High productivity in California (and New York, also included) plays a significant role in making America richer; the nation excluding these powerhouses would have about 6 percent lower GDP per capita.
California makes an especially large contribution to U.S. technological dominance. As I noted a month ago, 8 of America’s top 9 technology companies — all of them if you count pre-Cybertruck Tesla — are based either in Silicon Valley or in Seattle. And while Hollywood doesn’t dominate films and TV the way it once did, Los Angeles still plays a major role in America’s cultural influence (and still generates a lot of income.)
As Krugman says, no state should have to earn empathy and support from the rest of the country in a time of great need:
As it happens, however, California — a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power — definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.
Unfortunately, it looks all too possible that essential aid will be held up or come with onerous strings attached. If so, shame on everyone responsible.
Yeah well, they’re shameless so that means nothing.
There’s been a lot of loose talk since the election about California (and possibly the whole west coast) seceding from the union. It’s just talk, I know. But I have to say that as I listen to right wing politicians demean us and treat us like a colony or a vassal state, it sure feels as if America has seceded from us.