200,000 Can Eat Cake; 10,000 Just Can't Eat

The 31st of July came and went without the California legislature passing a budget. Good to his word, the Governator pulled the trigger: 10,000 workers were pink slipped and another 200,000 are staring down the barrel of $6.55 an hour, with no overtime, in California. As much as I would love to blame this on Schwarzenegger's penchant for drama, he is not soleley, nor is he even mostly responsible for the current crisis the State of California finds itself in.

July-August budget crises are an annual event. Certain circumstances plot to make this time of year the perfect storm, such as a tanking economy, a struggling Republican executive, and a pork-hungry Democratic majority in the legislature. It one of many factors in the perfect storm that helped George H. W. Bush's pronouncement, "Read my lips: no new taxes!" go down in history beside Dan Quayle's Book of "Stupid S*** I Said as the Veep." Love him or hate him, Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to be the latest victim of pork-barrel legislation.

It's not that it bothers me; the GOP "swiftboats" its Democratic victims; the liberals . . . "pork" the conservatives to death (I know, I know, they must feel so violated). And it wouldn't be so funny if, in either case, it didn't work every time! What isn't funny - no matter how you spin it - is that 10,000 Californians were pink-slipped on July 31st and right now, a further 200,000 are looking at having their pay cut dramatically until the legislature churns out a budget.

The legislature does have motive to git'r'done: elected officials and their appointees won't be paid at all until the budget is passed. But unlike the state workers that fall into that unfortunate group the legislators qualify for low-interest or no-interest bank loans to keep their personal budgets solvent. But the promise to reimburse workers after the budget is passed - whenever that is - doesn't repay them the penalties and late fees that will inevitably result from "taking one for the team." And it won't end forclosure proceedings against those who were barely hanging on before their elected officials decided to play Monopoly with their livelihoods.

Seriously, Dems: why go to all this trouble to "bring home the bacon" when your base starves, waiting for you to do your jobs?