Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Statehouse Clown Show

I've been avoiding comment on the California budget situation, which has gone from bad to ridiculous. But my native state is an object lesson in our topic of the last few days - well of this whole blog, really: replace social with market economics, watch everything fall apart. It's an object lesson in this blog's other topic: the failure of the political class worldwide.

The LA Times story today is "Legislature adjourns with no budget; governor prepares to lay off 10,000." The large Dim majority needs more or less one Republican to vote with them to beat the 2/3 limit for tax increases. The Republicans, unable to face the reality that on economics they are ALWAYS WRONG, have taken a no-tax pledge. The result will be the shutdown of every single public project in the state, and mass layoffs to add to the furlong.

Schwarzenegger now gets to star as Herbert Hoover in his own movie called "I, Arnold - Depression Governor." He was cast in the role by his own party, whose rank-and-file is also ignoring their own party leadership.

Here's the circle of geniuses that are holding 40 million people hostage with their ideological narcissism and general lack of a grip on reality.

That's GOP Sens. George Runner, Sam Aanestad, John Benoit and Bob Dutton, from left, and Dave Cox, seated.

Genius, you ask. Is my sarcasm a little harsh? Well here's swing vote holdout Abel Maldonado (R-Central Coast) in his own genius words:
Last week, I sent a letter to the Big 5 demanding that the funding be removed from the budget and allocated to other programs. But instead, the Big 5 ignored my request. If they were truly making a good-faith effort to show the people of California that they were serious about fixing this budget problem, the million dollars would have been re-appropriated to a vital program.
Etc. Seems that Genius Maldonado, self-described son of farmworkers, ran for the Republican nomination for Controller, was shut out by his own party for voting for a budget compromise in 2006, and is mad that the current Controller has $1 million for "office furniture," or whatever. Ergo, no state budget. Ergo, tens of thousands are out of work.

Maldonado to current farm workers (and every other kind): let them eat office furniture! Pure genius!

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