I wrote a post yesterday about the states precarious financial condition. Seeking Alpha picked it up and published it. There were a fair number of comments but one was really poignant.

You can scroll through all of them if you like but one was responding to some yahoo who contended that the states had been models of fiscal responsibility. Here is what he had to say:

you obviously don’t live in California. We have been a Democratic-controlled state for years and are currently $45 BILLION in the red and we have prop 13 which was supposed to keep government from getting out of control. I’m a Conservative and I understand that we must provide for those facing challenges, however, everything has a limit. There are no free lunches. You can’t provide a safety net for everyone, someone has to pay the bills. Between state and federal income taxes I’m looking at 35% reduction in my take home pay, 1/3 of what I produce is gone and their asking for more. So how am I supposed to keep a roof over my head, feed my family, pay my bills, save for retirement, help my kids get an education and fork over more so joe government worker can retire at 55 at 90% of his last salary with a life expectancy to 85 with full medical benefits, that’s a lot of moola. Sorry pal, social spending in this country has gone overboard.

Maybe I’m just in a sappy mood but that comment really resonated with me. Forget the guy’s political leanings and just listen to the emotion. It’s a person that is trying as hard as he can to live the dream for himself and his family and he feels threatened. Probably with good reason. It’s people like this that form the foundation of the country that we are putting at terrible risk. Nothing good will come of it.