Are the water, weather, food and lifestyle worth it?

Last week’s Economist spoke to the recent election held in California, describing the impact of the various propositions and how they would impact the state.  Of the propositions, only one passed, the one in which state legislators salaries freeze when there’s a deficit.  The article plainly said that if the other propositions didn’t pass, the deficit would balloon to $21 .3 billion over something like $15 billion if they did.

The state is now compromised (if it already wasn’t), and I didn’t vote.  A lot of people didn’t vote.  Most of my friends didn’t vote.  And now I’m reading the post-election Economist article, which points out:

• California will cut funding to Medi-Cal and change eligibility rules which will leave about 225K children uncovered.
• Programs dealing with birth-control, HIV prevention, counseling against drug abuse and domestic violence will be reduced or chucked.
• Child-welfare programs will be cut by 10%, so that less accounts of child abuse will be investigated and there will be less supervision of foster care.
• Education will be cut so that school will be shortened by one week.
• The UC system will probably layoff almost 5K people, and could take in almost 50K less students.
• The state will have to sell a lot of its assets, even the San Quentin prison.
• We might have to review projects for off shore drilling.

My question then is:  Is the daily landscapes of water and hills, generally beautiful weather, delicious food and produce, and relaxed lifestyle worth all of this heartache?

Most of my friends here in the Bay Area are not originally from this city, nor from this state.  We’re often faced with  questions surrounding why we live so far from home, and why we love San Francisco so much.  We hear the argument that the city is so expensive, and we justify that its worth the price to be seconds away from the mountains and the clubs at the same time.  But, in reality, reading an article like this one only makes it harder to justify to friends and family our insistence to remain.

But as I think of all the problems this state will face, and ask myself if its worth it I realize one thing is true: For the most part, none of these cuts in programs and healthcare will directly impact my life, save a few less frequent bus routes I use to traverse the city.  I don’t use social programs, I’m no longer in college, I’m not employed by the government (my roommate is), I don’t have children, and I don’t have any domestic violence, HIV or unwanted pregnancy issues.  I fall in this comfortable bracket defined by the unfortunately abhorrent term “yuppie” – Young, Urban, Professional.

This is all very selfish of course, and hopefully I earn some credit for at least acknowledging this realization as such, but I cannot be blamed for the years upon years of bad decisions the state and its people made before I even arrived.  And, as a friend (who only partially grew up here) said, by voting no on all the propositions, we’ll force the state to hit rock bottom.  And once you hit rock bottom, there’s only one way to go, and that’s up.