Everyone should be paying attention to the political/fiscal catastrophe now unfolding in California. Years of neglect, followed by economic disaster — and with all reasonable responses blocked by a fanatical, irrational minority.
This could be America next.
As a Californian, I am appalled at how our state's legislature is just asleep at the wheel. It's like Republicans everywhere have decided their mantra is Fuck America, It's All The Democrats Fault, and have dug in their heels to make sure that this country falls into another 1930's style depression.
And California, God bless her, has a Republican for a damn governor! You'd think his own people would work with him!
The LAT:
From Sacramento -- The math seems pretty simple. But apparently it's too rigorous for many Republican politicians.
To avoid raising taxes and still balance the books in Sacramento, you'd have to virtually shut down state government.
Some politicians are in denial. Some are demagoguing. Some are just ducking. Scared.The scared are rather pathetic.
Here are elected officeholders who represent 475,000 people in an average Assembly district -- 950,000 in a Senate district -- and they cower before conservative bloggers, radio talk entertainers and activists of a declining party.
According to the NYT:
Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.
Twenty-thousand layoff notices will go out on Tuesday morning, Matt David, the communications director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Monday night. “In the absence of a budget we need to realize this savings and the process takes six months,” Mr. David said.
[snip]
The Senate Republican leader, Dave Cogdill, said he thought he had all the votes needed to get the deal done in each house. But on Sunday, two Republican senators — Dave Cox, who was originally thought to be the last vote needed, and Abel Maldonado, whom Mr. Schwarzenegger had been able to woo into voting against his party in the past — said they would reject the plan.
Democrats, who had already given into Republicans’ long-held dreams of large tax cuts for small businesses and for some of the entertainment industry and a proposed $10,000 tax break for first-time home buyers, balked at Mr. Maldonado’s request that the Legislature tuck a bill into the package that would allow voters to cross party lines in primaries.
“I think with an open primary, we would have good government that would do the people’s work,” Mr. Maldonado said.
This makes my blood boil. We are talking serious shut down here in California, and Mr. Maldonado thinks putting some petty primary crap into this bill is necessary? Talk about your obstructionism. Reminds me of Michael Corleone -- "Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."
H/T to Crooks and Liars.
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