Welcome to the California Hotline. Para continuar en español, oprima la estrella. To continue in English, press pound.

To file for bankruptcy, press 1.
To cut off water to Central Valley farms, reducing food production and throwing tens of thousands out of work, all for the alleged benefit of a four-inch fish, press 2.
To spend money we don’t have as if it were water, but to hoard water we do have for the sake of a fish, press 3.
To have student test scores at unacceptably low levels, but to listen to the teachers’ union rather than to advocates for the students, press 4.
To have U.S. citizens from other states pay high out-of-state tuition, but illegal immigrants pay lower in-state tuition, press 5.
To have 2.6 million illegal immigrants − 8% of the state population and one-quarter of the illegals in the nation − and still advocate open borders, while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (from California) calls immigration laws “un-American,” press 6.
To have overflowing public hospitals, public schools, jails and prisons, as well as ballooning Medicaid costs, yet still claim illegal immigrants are a boon to the economy, press 7.
To declare San Francisco and Los Angeles havens for illegal immigrants, press 8.
To have leading politicians who were members of an organization dedicated to turning the American Southwest over to Mexico, press 9.
To have the state with the most cars provide no more Highway Patrol officers than when the state had half its current population, press 10.
To pay high vehicle-registration fees and gasoline taxes, but still wait three hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles and bounce over huge potholes, press 11.
To push for electric cars when there is already a shortage of electricity, press 12.
To block the building of major power plants while the state’s population doubles, and then blame power companies for an “energy crisis” that somehow spared the other 49 states, press 13.
To issue drivers’ licenses – the basis for other ID, voting, and getting on airliners – to illegal immigrants, press 14.
To declare that the cure for a severe recession and a 10.2% unemployment rate is to raise taxes, press 15.
To pretend to believe Gov. Jerry Brown when he says that these tax increases are “temporary,” press 16.
To create an anti-business climate that drives employers out of the state, and then claim to be for workers, press 17.
To advocate for open borders and to allow immigrants to work at or below the minimum wage, and then claim to be for unions, press 18.
To saddle employers with soaring workers’ compensation costs, license and permit fees, fuel and disposal surcharges, health-insurance costs, environmental regulations, and personal leave and “living wage” regulations, press 19.
To live through an extraordinary boom without saving a penny for the inevitable recession, press 20.
To increase state spending by 92% in 10 years, much faster than state income and population increased, press 21.
To have high state income and sales taxes, but the lowest bond ratings of all 50 states, press 22.
To have a budget deficit larger than the other 49 states combined, but resist attempts to cut spending, press 23.
To cut public-hospital capacity despite increasing numbers of illegal immigrants and jobless residents, press 24.
To concentrate on gun control but neglect crime control, press 25.
To obsess about criminals’ rights but ignore victims’ rights, press 26.
To pass a law that forbids employers from firing a man who wears a dress at work, but to forbid a Marine from wearing dress blues at his graduation, press 27.
To reject the free gift of the battleship USS Iowa as a World War II museum because “war is not the answer,” press 28.
To reelect the only one of 535 senators and representatives to have voted against the use of force after 9/11, press 29.
To have a U.S. senator whose response to the state’s problems is to utter irrelevancies such as condemning “assault weapons” and suggesting censoring talk radio, press 30.
To favor stringent gun-control laws, including registration of ammunition sales, yet have a higher rate of violent crime than states that allow law-abiding citizens to carry guns, press 31.
To blame everyone but yourself for your problems, press 32.
To allow the left wing of your party to take over, while calling your opponents “far-right extremists,” press 33.
To control both houses of the legislature as well as all major state offices, but still not accept responsibility for what goes wrong, press 34.
To live in a beautiful state that is filled with natural resources, but is losing population, and claim to have no idea why this is happening, press 35.
To change the state song from “California Here I Come” to “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know You,” press 36.
To turn the Golden State into the worst-run of all 50 states, press 37.
To turn a world-renowned educational system into a shambles that vies with Mississippi for the lowest rate of high-school graduation, press 38.
If you want to apply these ruinous policies nationwide, please stay on the line. You will be transferred to the Mental Health Hotline. You need therapy, many years of therapy.
If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again.

It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.
– Milton Friedman

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Author’s Note:
It is customary to print foreign words or phrases in italics. However, since Spanish is no longer considered a foreign language in California, I have written “Para continuar in español, oprima la estrella” in non-italic type. But lest I insult our Italian friends, let me point out that non-italic type is also called “roman.” There, is that politically correct enough for you?

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