O.C. Thumbed Its Nose at Responsibility

* This is a tale of two California counties, Orange County and Santa Cruz County. It is mainly a tale in contrasts. Orange County has more than 2.6 million folks while Santa Cruz seems tiny with fewer than 250,000. With $61 billion in personal income, Orange County is a Southern California powerhouse. Santa Cruz sits on the fringe of Silicon Valley and checks in with $5 billion in annual personal income. Politically, Orange County is very conservative and mostly Republican, while Santa Cruz County is liberal and strongly Democratic.

But the contrasts seem even more stark after the recent voter rejection of a half-cent sales tax measure in Orange County. Five years ago, Santa Cruz County adopted a similar emergency half-cent sales tax. Any study of these two coastal counties now must include this difference and each county’s political sense of their own responsibility and self-reliance. From liberal Santa Cruz, it sure looks like Orange County conservatives fail to practice what they preach.

In October, 1989, an earthquake centered in the Santa Cruz mountains hit Santa Cruz County. A massive amount of damage was done to public roads, bridges, buildings and infrastructure. Lives and businesses were destroyed. Santa Cruz waited out the thousands of aftershocks and began to rebuild. Neighbor helped neighbor. Business helped business. The federal government offered individual citizens and private businesses loans. But cold hard cash was needed to replace all the public works infrastructure that was damaged or destroyed in that 15 seconds of violent shaking.

Santa Cruz County knew that, for the most part, they had to do it themselves. Self-reliance meant you had to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Responsibility meant you had to handle your own problems no matter how unfair your loss seemed.

Measure F, a half-cent sales tax, went on the ballot in November, 1990. It passed countywide. Santa Cruz reached into its own pockets and fixed the mess inflicted on it by a random act of God.

By contrast, Orange County created its own disaster. In a political decision edged with arrogance, voters elected a gambler who promised high returns and low taxes. It isn’t as if Orange County didn’t have a choice. A losing candidate spelled out the problem clearly for every voter. Orange County made its free choice and it backfired.

Orange County then went to the polls and made another idiotic political decision, thumbing its nose at the old-fashioned virtues of responsibility and self-reliance.

Now taxpayers in Santa Cruz County and every other California county will have to pay more to finance public debt because of Orange County’s irresponsibility. We will have to reach into our pockets because you are self-made losers.

Liberals argue that the conservative political philosophy, which espouses the virtues of individual responsibility and self-reliance, is just empty rhetoric. Voters in Orange County have proven liberals right. Greed, selfishness and self-centered whining have robbed conservative Orange County of any respectability. Conservatives can talk the talk, but they just can’t walk the walk.

NEAL COONERTY

Former mayor, Santa Cruz