California Props on the Day After

All but one of the legislature's proposed budget changes have been crushed at the polls. So, where do we go from here?

On Thursday a small group of Senate and Assembly members will hold the first of what's expected to be a slew of daily public sessions to wrangle over the details of the budget.

Schwarzenegger has called for cuts that would hit every corner of the state. He announced plans to lay off 5,000 of the state's 235,000 workers and has proposed slashing education by up to $5 billion, selling state properties, borrowing $2 billion from local governments and potentially reducing eligibility for healthcare programs.

And that might not be enough. There are still whispered suggestions that California renew its request for a federal bailout. Bankruptcy, even with the likelihood that state services will be disrupted, has also been discussed.

It's not that complicated. The state is spending more than it has and more money than it can obtain. Tax hikes are extremely hard to pass here because of Prop 13's requirement that they pass by 2/3 vote of the legislature. Legislators simply did not want to make the kinds of spending cuts required to keep the state going.

Now they have to find those cuts or throw up their hands and let the whole thing burn. I'm actually expecting bankruptcy. Liberal interest groups will start to take out legislators who support cuts to particular programs and Democratic legislators depend on those groups to get elected. If it goes to bankruptcy, the Democrats can then claim that they tried their best, but it was unavoidable. Less blame that way.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 08:24 AM

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