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?

Schwarzenegger: "Let them Eat Cake"

He didn't stutter. Even with that Austrian brogue of his, The Governator's words were understood all too well by panic-stricken state employees, who are now staring down the barrel of drastic cuts in their pay. In an attempt to force the Democratic majority in the California State Legislature to pass a budget, Governor Schwarzenegger now threatens to hold the incomes of 200,000 state workers hostage.

So it's come to this: the people who provide vital services that the state can't live without are being told that their mortgages, their auto loans, and their stomachs will have to wait until the end of August to see another paycheck - and then they will be paid at the Federal minimum wage rate of $6.55 an hour, in a state where all employers are require to abide by the state minimum wage of $8.00 per hour - even for tipped employees. This means that, during the month when families are already pinching pennies for school clothes and supplies, Junior and Juniette will have to squeeze into last year's wardrobe - the one with the jeans so fashionably accented with a ragged tear across both knees, not to mention the pending scorn from their peers about "talking to Noah."

No, Junior, we can't afford for you to play football this year. Sorry, Juniette, we can't afford the deductible for your braces right now; you'll get used to the kids (whose parents don't work for the state) calling you "snaggletooth." But here's the good news: we're all going on a crash diet!

No one can expect Governor Schwarzenegger to understand. He has a motorcade and a private jet. His wife is a Kennedy. And he still thinks he can be the President. Clearly the man is clueless - but not blameless; neither are the Democrats in the California State legislature who've failed to pass the budget.

State Controller John Chiang has stated that there is enough money to keep the state solvent for the next few months. He has also stated point-blank that he won't comply with the Governor's order. Of course, if Schwarzenegger decides he's the same kind of "compassionate conservative" that the President is, the fate of Controller Chiang is academic.

Governor Schwarzenegger, don't take this the wrong way, but your solution really sucks. Democrats have a nasty tendency toward fiscal filibusting to push through pork barrel budgets - which is nonsense. It does not, however, offset your threat to financially kill the poor as a proxy for your adversaries in the legislature.

Is it just me, or is this subprime-mortgage-induced public financial crisis starting to really freak people out?

UPDATE - GOING PUBLIC, IF NOT POSTAL: The story, as it appears in The Los Angeles Times Online has attracted a strange contrast of upset public employees and gloating private workers. State employees are threatening to strike and their privately employed critics, claim that State workers wouldn't last five minutes at jobs in the private sector. The public workers, insulted by this, charge the company men and women with being less educated, and hence, it is they who wouldn't last five minutes in the public sector. The argument simply goes downhill from there. But interestingly, both parties appear to be able - amid all of the horrifying demand - to blog during their paid working hours.

Of course, the xenophobes have weighed in as well, blaming our budget shortfall on - you guessed it - the "Illegals." Not surprisingly, they don't have much opposition.