Now that Arnold has shown himself content to throw California into an economic downward spiral, let nobody have any illusions that California is doing anything but fighting for its very viability in the 21st Century.  If Arnold doesn’t get his way, well he’ll just line up with the Yacht Party idealogues, eschew any real solutions that bring in revenue to address the very serious problems facing the state.

But lest anybody have any doubts about where the Republicans are going with this, check out Jon Fleischman’s giddy post after the Governor’s press conference:

I may be the only pundit out there who will say this — but here it goes:  I’m excited!  While the circumstances of how we got to this point, such as years of overspending  and the current economic, recession, are tragic – they say that, “adverse situations create unique opportunities for change.”

The Republicans were begging for the state to get here. Begging for the state to come crawling to their ever shrinking minority to beg them to be realistic. They are simply giddy that they get to rip the state apart. Sure, they’ll toss a few words about how bad they feel, just not bad enough to chip in for our common welfare.

Putting aside the economic toll that laying off all these workers will take on the state (especially the already devastated Sacramento region), these proposals are extremely short sighted.  When you take people off of mental health care, you save no money.  Housing them in a prison still costs state dollars, even though it makes a few politicians look and feel like tough guys. Cuttings schools leads directly to greater public safety problems in the future.  Sure, George Runner is all about attacking crime after it is committed, but how about actually preventing that crime by producing educated Californians? No, I suppose that would take some forethought.

I understand the challenges for our friends in the state government, the next few years are going to be amazing challenges.  But at the same time, anybody can lead you through calm prosperity. It takes real leadership to bring us through the fire. The leaders who can bring us through this tempest and out the other end are the ones that this state will remember as the 21st Century’s response to Hiram Johnson.

Of course, our elected leaders cannot be alone here.  We must all do our part to ensure that the state does not hack off various facial features to spite itself. Yes, that means traditional progressive institutions, but it is more than that.  If ever there was a time to organize for change this is it.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Obama’s win was important, but it is far from the conclusion. Yes, we desperately need help from Washington. We need President Obama to stand up to leaders in Washington, and to those in Sacramento who would lengthen the crisis for their own personal gain.

But President Obama can’t change the world on his own. We must show California that the decisions we make today will haunt us in the future. We must show Californians that we can get as angry about those least fortunate amongst us as we can about the passage of some hateful measure.

Our future depends on us stepping up now.