America
California’s Twilight T
Democrats destroyed the Golden State. BY GEORGE MARLIN
o understand the chaos in the Golden State, readers should pick up a copy of Failed State: A Portrait of California in the Twilight of Empire by Christopher Moritz. The author, a corporate
lawyer and lifelong resident of Santa Monica, argues that “systematic incompetence, ideological rigidity, and misplaced priorities” have dismantled civic order. California’s Democrats,
who overwhelmingly control
the levers of government and local municipalities, enacted a “radical ideology that elevates offenders above victims, criminals above citizens, and illegal aliens above Americans.” In the name
of “crime-equity,” stealing under $950 has been essentially legalized, drug possession is overlooked, violent offenders are
released without bail, many categories of crime are no longer prosecuted, prisons have been emptied out, and arrests have plummeted. California has redefined crimes “as an unavoidable reaction to systematic injustice.”
Punishment is an “outdated tool of social control.”
Criminals have been defined as “victims of
systemic racism.” California “is the most violent and crime-ridden of all major U.S. states, outpacing Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania by significant margins.” The flood of illegal
immigrants “has suppressed wages for native-born residents creating a permanent underclass that depends on government welfare.” This helps explain why 8.5 million people fled California between 2010 and 2022; 352 companies quit the state between 2018 and 2021; and why personal income tax revenue declined by $24 billion between 2021 and 2022.
Lessons in Failure B
Baltimore’s bloated schools budget not helping students. BY JEREMY PORTNOY
altimore city public Schools are consistently among the worst-perform- ing in the nation, but that
hasn’t stopped the district from beefing up its payroll with scores of administrators, executives, and directors making six-figure salaries. In 2019, Baltimore schools had
7,053 employees earning a total of $562.3 million, according to records obtained by
OpenTheBooks.com. By 2024, there were 13,023 employ- ees earning $949.2 million. The list of job titles is dizzying.
Less than half of employees are list- ed as teachers or principals. The other half includes 67 direc-
tors and assistant directors, and 18 executive directors. There are 285 people with manager in their job title; 58 supervisors; 63 analysts; 80 coordinators; and 46 administra- tors. Positions include the manager of energy efficiency and the systems
18 NEWSMAX | JULY 2025
administrator of customer care. Many of the jobs are seemingly
redundant. The school district’s senior executive director of equity makes $213,550, but there is also a director of equity, a director of equi- ty-centered principal development, five educational specialists of equi- ty, and a staff associate of equity. The school district has two direc-
tors of environmental health each earning over $160,000, a senior project manager of environmental compliance, and a supervisor of environmental compliance. Baltimore employs a chief
communications officer making $232,721, a staff specialist of com- munications earning $154,456, an executive director of commu- nications making $170,796, and a manager of communications earn- ing $92,868. The executive director of strate-
gic resourcing and financial man- agement makes $213,291. Maybe
it would be better financial man- agement to not pay someone that much money. As the Baltimore school payroll increases, the district’s transparen- cy with taxpayers is decreasing. The school’s website no longer
allows visitors to download the pay- roll as an Excel spreadsheet, and the school’s open records office refused to provide OpenTheBooks’ auditors with a spreadsheet. The district has denied or ignored
seven other open records requests from OpenTheBooks in the past two years, an issue that plagues Balti- more’s city government as well. Maryland is making historic investments in education through its 10-year, $30 billion Blueprint for Maryland’s Future plan, but student performance has not reflected that so far. Last year Maryland schools spent
an average of $19,427 per student, but eighth graders scored “signifi- cantly lower” than the national average on standardized math tests. Baltimore City Public Schools
did not return a request for com- ment. — RealClearInvestigations
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