State government educates, medicates, and incarcerates. Public education, health care, and criminal justice account for more than 80 percent of the state budget. The counties that Stone would turn into SouthCal receive at or above their proportional share of those key three functions. (And an even higher share of social welfare benefits.) But as the table shows, they fall far below their share in generating income or revenue. As it’s now constituted, state government is a machine that raises money on the coast and ships a lot of it inland to Stone and his fellow South Californians. His proposal would break that conveyor belt and leave SouthCal (which already has an unemployment rate higher than the state as a whole) much worse off.
But notice that Stone doesn’t propose to divorce the entire coast. Like former Assemblyman Bill Maze, who proposed a similar split a few years back, he wants to include Orange and San Diego counties in his new paradise. He didn’t ask their permission to include them in his breakaway state, and if you look at the third column of the table, which shows how SouthCal would fare without Orange and San Diego, you can see why. Even more than the current state, SouthCal would be dependent on its coastal higher earners to pay for services for people in the inland areas. It is hard to understand why Orange and San Diego residents would want to sign up for that duty.
In fact, they and the rest of the California that Stone wants to divorce may begin to see some merit in his offer to walk away from the rest of us. Shorn of SouthCal, the remainder of California would find itself without a budget deficit. There would be many more places for California children at UC and CSU campuses, where the sons and daughters of Fresno and Riverside would now be paying out-of-state tuition. And there would be a lot fewer elected Republicans screaming about high taxes but then complaining when the Legislature cuts spending for their redevelopment agencies, cities, and local schools. Right about now, a lot of Californians might see that as a very good outcome.