Never enough

Gov. Newsom is fond of saying that California is the 6th largest economy in the world. Woopee! Too bad he’s shut most of it down.

California is one of the bottom five states in educating our young. By Supreme Court ruling, the nation must provide free schooling to the age of 16. Evidently, we must provide space for education, not an education. Too many of California’s public schools do not provide enough of an education for the graduate to enter a community college.

California leads the nation in big tech and aerospace companies. Both industries require some education, at least to the high school level. But we import workers because we can’t educate our own.

California leads the nation in homeless people living on the streets. We keep providing money to the state, counties and cities through higher and higher taxes. But the number of homeless people living on the streets is getting worse.

Californians keep providing more money to fix our roadways. Through the magic of CalTrans, there is never enough money to fix them. But there is enough money for communities to build round-a-bouts, take traffic lanes and make them bike lanes, and build multi-million-dollar overpasses for wild animals to cross freeways.

And let’s not forget the deficit that we added to get protective equipment for health care workers because the state failed to maintain an emergency stockpile of PPE and ventilators. Even though studies paid for by the state said we didn’t have enough.

But we continue to build the high-speed rail system through the Central Valley. Newsom must think that if we build the center first, we will approve the ends later. Greg Carlson

Rosamond