Sunday evening I was mulling over data from the 2010 Census when my wife suggested we take our extended family out to California Pizza Kitchen.

Walking into CPK, I was still mentally processing the implications of the census data that showed what appeared to be a strong link between college educated Americans moving out of high tax states to low tax states (go ahead and laugh, yes, I’m really like that).  When the menus came, my deepening melancholy for California’s self-inflicted tax wounds shifted to sadness due to the Golden State’s penchant for regulating all aspects of life.  Why?  I immediately saw that CPK’s shiny new menus were in violation of the California Health and Safety Code Section 114094, the law that requires restaurant chains to list “…the calorie content information for a standard menu item next to the item on the menu in a size and typeface that is clear and conspicuous.”   Nary a speck of calorie data was next to any item on the menu (not that I cared about it, I don’t go to restaurants to count my calories – the information was available on request, nice, but not legal in California).

A full-blown case of Over Regulation Realization Depression hit me.  California Pizza Kitchen, the quintessential California business, would be forced to reprint thousands of menus for their 67 California restaurants, or risk fines of up to $500 for each location: a $33,500 exposure for each local health inspector visit while out of compliance.

While waiting for my California Club Pizza (it was delicious enough to temporarily lift me out of my bad case of ORRD) my thoughts drifted back to the floor vote on SB 1420, the 2008 bill by Senator Alex Padilla (D-Van Nuys) that sought to impose the calorie counting mandate on business.  I recall arguing against the bill which passed on a largely party line vote, Democrats for it, and Republicans mostly against it (then Senator Abel Maldonado was the sole Republican “aye” vote while some of the more moderate Assembly Republicans, Bonnie Garcia and Todd Spitzer, abstained).

Democrats justified calorie listing mandate by saying that big restaurant chains could afford it (the bill exempted chains with less than 20 locations), that some restaurant meals contained enough calories to feed an entire family for a week (or something along those lines) and that the bill was made less odious than it was initially so as to remove the opposition of the California Restaurant Association.

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Las Vegas CEO Steve Wynn drew attention for a boardroom rant denouncing the intolerable business climate fostered by the White House. He’s hardly the first. What’s happening is emblematic of a bigger problem.

On a Monday conference call, the casino magnate credited with revitalizing Las Vegas slammed President Obama, declaring him “[T]he greatest wet blanket to business, progress and job creation in my lifetime.”

Wynn’s statement was remarkable for two reasons: First, the hotelier has been a staunch supporter of the Obama administration from the beginning and still considers himself a Democrat. Even more remarkable, it’s historically out of character for CEOs such as Wynn to express their views in such blunt terms on political matters.

“A lot of people don’t want to say that. They’ll say, ‘Oh God, don’t be attacking Obama.’ Well, this is Obama’s deal, and it’s Obama that’s responsible for this fear in America,” said Wynn, “The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution, and maybe ‘we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest or (are) holding too much money.’ We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists.”

Business is being hammered, he said. “I’m telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the president of the United States.”

Politicians, being what they are, tend to have an inflated view of what they can do. Some claim to create jobs while others claim to raise taxes. In truth, they are limited to passing political laws. Once enacted, those laws run into the laws of economics – which have never been repealed and have been largely the same since the beginning of time. The results are often different than those intended – and so it is for Jerry Brown, whose policies fly in the face of economics and Californians are paying the price.

Few can doubt the magnitude of the economic problems facing our once Golden State. Unemployment is above 12% and underemployment is above 20%. Over 1.3 million less people are employed today than a decade ago. California homeowners have lost over $1.7 trillion in equity in the last 4 years – an amount nearly equal to the entire state economy. That combination has resulted in California suffering the worst of the nation’s foreclosure crisis including startling figures such as in Fresno, where 46.7% of the mortgages are under water, i.e. the mortgage is larger than the home value.

California businesses face taxes among the highest in the nation, even higher regulatory burdens and, just around the corner, potentially large workers’ compensation rate increases. It’s no wonder CEO Magazine ranks California 51st in the nation (behind Puerto Rico) as a place to do business.

All combined, these economic problems have resulted in revenue problems for California governments because people without jobs don’t pay taxes; homeowners without equity spend and borrow less; and businesses with mounting costs have lower profits. That’s economics – not politics.

For Jerry Brown, however, economics remains a mystery to say the least.

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Finally; it seems we may have a Congress that takes seriously the urgent need to rein in the unsustainable deficits and the accumulation of public debt that so threaten the future well being of the nation.  Thank goodness for the most energized electorate in recent memory.  Its collective ire translated into large Republican gains in the Congress . . . gains that were largely attributable to the fact that the GOP made this subject the centerpiece of the 2010 campaign.  Woe is the politician who forgets why he or she was sent to Washington.  President Obama seems also to have gotten the message because he too talks the talk of fiscal prudence.

In addition, at the state level, Republicans had a net gain of six governorships and 19 state legislature changes in which they gained 650 legislative seats.  Clearly, most of the several states now have political leaders who heard, loud and clear, a message, and an expectation, that they must begin reducing the cost of government.  In 2010 and 2011, forty‑four states, that’s 88% of state treasuries, face budget shortfalls.  The combined budget gap for 2010 and 2011 is astronomical, estimated by several economic studies to exceed $350 billion.  California, with one of the nation’s highest sales tax (at 6.25%) and a top income tax rate of 10.56% (highest in the nation) according to the Wall Street Journal faces a budget shortfall of $42 billion in 2011 with a like amount projected in 2012, a whopping 22.2 percent of its total budget.  Bloomberg Businessweek projects $20 billion plus deficits through 2015.

As if this was not enough, California faces a $500 billion shortfall in public employee pensions with which elected officials have saddled their tax-paying constituents.   The once “Golden State” is not alone in its fiscal woes.  Illinois faces a budget gap of $13 billion in 2011.  On January 11 the Illinois legislature at the urging of Governor Pat Quinn passed a “temporary” 67% increase in the state’s personal income tax and hiked the corporate tax rate from 4.89% to 7%, prompting newly elected Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, to invite businesses located in Illinois to come across the state line to relocate in Wisconsin.  Moreover, even after these enormous increases, the state still faces a $7 billion shortfall, probably to be covered by more borrowing, assuming there are those willing to lend the state money.  Another fiscal basket case is New York, which according to U.S. News Politics is staring at a projected $8.2 billion shortfall for fiscal 2011, as well as substantial unfunded pension obligations.

Let’s turn the spotlight, again, to California, a state whose citizens seem to be in denial about their plight.

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Adam Carolla, host of the hugely popular Adam Carolla Show and author of the new book, In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks, rages against cops, drug laws, tax hikes, traffic congestion, spendy politicians, Tim Robbins, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and more in this wide-ranging, uncensored interview with Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker.

The Ace Man calls for legalizing drugs and gambling, lowering taxes, and clearing our prisons of anyone incarcerated for victimless crimes. He discusses whether he just might be a libertarian and spells out what he would do if he replaced Antonio Villaraigosa as mayor of Los Angeles (hint: left turns on red lights and drag racing with Richard Branson!).

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I first crossed paths with Dennis Lennox more than two years ago. At the time, he was a junior student at Central Michigan University. By the time I first spoke with him, he had engineered a near year long battle with the faculty at CMU over Gary Peters. At the time, Peters was running for the U.S. Congress and concurrently he was holding the distinguished Griffin Chair. (Peters eventually won his Congressional election) The Congressio nal district was about 400 miles from campus. If, and now when, Peters won, he would have had to give up Chairmanship. Furthermore, the Griffin Chairmanship was supposed to be non partisan and a Congressional candidate was hardly that. Subsequently, emails and other leaked correspondence showed evidence of a corrupt process in choosing Peters for the Chairmanship.

Lennox waged a battle to have Peters choose, the Chairmanship or his Congressional race. By May of 2008, Lennox had effectively won his battle and Peters was asked to resign and he did. Lennox was not unscathed from his battle. The administration threatened sanctions against Lennox on a number of occasions. Eventually, a letter of reprimand was put into Lennox’ university records. In fact, the school attempted to hold a number of disciplinary hearings at which the potential punishment of Lennox could have been expulsion. At one hearing, Lennox showed up flanked by no less than six members of the media. The administration quickly cancelled that hearing and held another in secret over Spring break a couple weeks later.

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