It's now official. The Late, Great State of California is now officially out of money, and all we have left are these
It's really true, sadly enough. California is reduced as of today to paying its creditors in funny money.
While the California legislature tries to negotiate with this guy, it loses the plot, not unlike the film we're taking this photo from:
That's California at the beginning of July 2009: a noisy, once profitable franchise taken too far, a dim shadow of its former stuff. And without even Christian Bale to save us.
So then, what is to be done?
The California Courage Campaign gives a quick recap of what the plot was up to now:
California faces financial "Armageddon," as Arnold Schwarzenegger bluntly
stated a few weeks ago. And yet Arnold and his fellow Republicans rejected compromises by Democrats to rescue our state from a catastrophic budget
crisis, unparalleled in the history of California.
Because of the ridiculous 2/3rds budget rule -- the super-majority required to
pass a budget in the California state legislature -- and Arnold's failure to deliver even one vote from a small cabal of obstructionist Republicans, Californians
will be getting IOUs in the mail instead of financial aid checks or tax refunds,
starting as soon as Thursday, July 2.
Many Californians are so overwhelmed by this paralyzing crisis that they've just tuned it out. As a result, Arnold is not being held accountable for his failure to lead.
I encourage all of you to check out the Courage Campaign's site, but I think we need to go further than in the past in approaching this problem.
The real problem, I think, is not unlike what we had in DC under Bush, and that we're still seeing in the Senate over health care. California's elected politicians are a timid lot, and brinkmanship, well, it sort of scares them. So after our assembly in California came up with a pretty good compromise (from Arnold's point of view -- not the public's) that cut the state budget pretty radically, and didn't add much in the way of taxes either, Arnold decided to run the table, and see if he could cut things like children's health care, instead of, say,. charging oil companies a tax for oil pulled out of our ground (which most states do, but California does not). We need to talk seriously about fixing how we do our taxes (including Proposition 13). But all we get from Arnold is more Schlock Doctrine nonsense.
I'd argue that we need to go further. Our incarnation of Harry Reid, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, is channeling Hapless Harry and continuing to negotiate with Herr Governor. I don't see the point; it's only putting a Democratic stamp on Arnold's Great Libertardian Adventure. So we need another tactic.
My personal preference is for our state legislators to adjourn and go home for a while. In effect: to go out on strike, and not come back until the governor seems interested in negotiating.
So far, he isn't.
At this point, I couldn't care less if Arnold says "I'LL BE BACK", unless, he comes back with a better attitude.
I'm listing some ideas for what to do below. By all means, add your own in the comments.