Jobs, Economy Top CA Priorities

As we head into Halloweentime, the Public Policy Institute of California is out with its latest statewide survey… and results are spooky.

The No. 1 issues on the minds of Californians are jobs and the economy. More than 46% of all Golden States ranked those two matters as their top priority. (And this was before the federal government was shut down.) To note that these two issues dominate our thinking is an understatement. The next closest issues that we deemed of importance are education and schools at a whopping seven per cent.

(With all the folderol over Obamacare, only three percent of Californians listed health care/healthcare reform as the top priority. Got a feeling that’s going to change come October 1.)

Immigration/illegal immigration also stood at seven percent but this was before, in the waning hours of the 2013 legislative session, the Assembly approved a bill allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Assembly Bill 60 (Alejo, D-Watsonville) was resuscitated by the state Senate on a 28-8 vote (as the bill has been basically left-for-dead) and returned to the Assembly, who promptly approved it in a surprise 55-19 vote.

By extending licenses to undocumented immigrants, goes the thinking, California would open a legal umbrella for everyone on the road to prevent situations in which immigrants face arrest, heavy fines and car impoundment when they are pulled over. (One assumes the obvious; that this is in situations where laws are not being broken.) The odd twist is that these licenses will have some sort of marking that identifies the holder as an illegal. Can you just imagine the claims of racial profiling going through the proverbial roof once these IDs are issued?

A full six percent of us listed the state budget/the deficit/more taxes as the top priority, followed by crime/gangs/drugs (four percent); government in general (three percent); and, water supply/drought as well as the environment, pollution and “global warming” both checking in at two percent. (And to think of all those vitriolic posts some of you posted about my earlier column on the latter issues... what a hoot.)

As to the state in general, 48% of you opined that California is headed in the wrong direction (something about going somewhere in a hand basket), while 43% said we are headed in the right direction… whatever those right and wrong directions are… while 46% noted we will experience good times financial in the next 12 months… but don’t gloat just yet. A slim 44% said it would be toilet time financially in the next year and there’s a +/- three percent margin for error.

And get this, as Jerry Brown is about to eclipse Earl Warren as the longest serving Governor in our history, 48% gave him the thumbs up; only 31% disapproved of the job JB is doing. Contrast that with the state Legislature, where 45% of Eurkea-staters disapproved of their efforts (no duh) yet 38% though our solons are doing a swell job. Now that’s scary.