Golden State morass, IOUs loom

29 June 2009 |permalink | email article

California, deadlocked over a $24.3 billion hole in its budget, is hurtling toward a financial apocalypse by mid-week.

How has it happened, the San Francisco Chronicle asked, that this nation-state of 33 million with a budget larger than most countries has once again been brought to its knees in a life-or-death struggle for financial survival?

The Obama administration and the state’s powerful congressional state have made it clear that they can’t come to the rescue. Tough love is out.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the state’s senior senator, was emphatic: “Do you know what the state is getting in stimulus money? $50 billion.” History matters. 

Consider actor and then-gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger flaying California leadership over out-of-control finances – in 2003: “Our elected officials in Sacramento are facing a budget crisis unseen in this state since the Great Depression, and it was entirely avoidable,” he complained. “Teachers are getting pink slips, cops are being laid off and the taxpayers are facing an increase in taxes and California’s future is in danger.”

As governor Schwarzenegger has been an abysmal failure, putting a series of failed propositions on the ballot in his first term, and again this spring which only underscore his ineptness in steering the ship of state away from financial icebergs.

As recently as Saturday, the governor gave majority Democrats a list of changes to social service programs and state employee pensions he hopes could create agreement to close the budget deficit.

Having once proposed eliminating the state’s welfare program he switched to suggesting a 6 percent cut to recipient’s monthly grants. Democrats have proposed cuts but far less than the governor has demanded.

George Skelton, the veteran Los Angeles Times columnist, wrote that the governor could fire every state employee under his control – roughly 235,000 – and that wouldn’t come close to balancing the budget.

Read ‘em and weep

“The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon – Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed – stop being two-faced.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.

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