The strongest earthquakes to hit California in decades struck last week, leaving behind a few messes and fears of more to come. The most destructive force in the state, though, is not a quivering Earth but the lawmakers who are wrecking what was once a land of promise.

California has a tragic history with earthquakes.

The San Francisco quake of 1906 is thought to have killed at least 3,000, forced 250,000 into the streets, and leveled “more than 500 blocks in the city center.”

Eighty-three years later, the Loma Prieta quake killed 63, injured 3,800, and cut major transportation arteries in the devastated Bay Area.

The official death toll for the Northridge earthquake of 1994 was 57. Inflicting $20 billion in damage — some estimates say $50 billion — it is the costliest quake in U.S. history.

Then last week a 7.1 earthquake in Southern California, surrounded by strong foreshocks and aftershocks, brought hazy memories back into focus. Earthquakes cruelly turn lives inside out and upside down.

Nothing herein is intended to minimize the loss of life and the property damage that has been wrought by California quakes. But as cruel as they are, a steady stream of progressive public policy has the potential to inflict even deeper, and more long-term negative effects.

Here’s where California is today after two decades of progressive, Blue State governance:

The counter-argument is that the economy, the fifth-largest in the world if it stood on its own, continues to sail along. But unlike the domestic economy, which is picking up everyone, the California economy is working largely only for the rich. Middle-class families can hardly afford the homes they’re living in, leaving few dollars for other spending. The middle class is in fact disappearing, but not because members are moving into the upper economic class but because they are leaving. The poor? They’re largely stuck because they don’t have the resources the middle class have to flee.

Unlike earthquakes, which shatter lives in just a few seconds, progressive policies destroy cities and states and nations over time. Also unlike earthquakes, the disaster is quite predictable.

— Written by J. Frank Bullitt



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