California is Screwed

Our esteemed legislature has failed to pass a budget yet again (17 late budgets out of the past 26 years), and this week many state expenses will begin to go unpaid.

"The state's financial situation is very poor and it is deteriorating," state Controller Steve Westly said last week. "The problem gets worse each day we go without a budget."

"It's a tragic place to be," added state Finance Director Steve Peace. "Real people are going to be affected."

Wait a minute -- not real people! Won't someone think of the real children?!

Although the state borrowed $11 billion last month, most of it went to repay the previous year's loans. After those payments, less than $5 billion was left to pay expenses during the summer.

That's likely to be the last money that banks agree to lend California until it demonstrates its ability to agree on a budget, Westly said. "The state of California is at the end of its borrowing ability." ...

Until legislators can agree on a budget — so far, Republicans oppose any solution that requires new taxes, while Democrats insist on tax increases along with spending cuts — California is poised to spend the summer in the midst of a rolling shutdown of state services and payments. That begins today, and if it goes much longer, many people could be affected:

[I reordered some of the paragraphs.] Honestly, I wonder how much this will affect people. I'm reminded of the public transit workers strike in Los Angeles in 2000. Transit workers striked for over two months and shut down all our city's public transportation... and no one cared. For some it was a real wake-up call that much of the money we spend on public transportation infrastructure in Los Angeles is wasted because no one uses it. After all, even an illegal immigrant can get a drivers license in California.

I wonder if the California budget impasse will turn out the same way? Supposedly a bunch of stuff will stop happening, but I wonder if anyone will notice or care?