I’m assuming that the holiday weekend posting schedule will be light, so for the time being, this will have to tide you over.
• The SEIU and the California School Employees Association are Google surging against the Governor, carpet-bombing the Web with ads calling for a budget solution. But until they call for an end to process rules that cut against any reasonable solution, I can’t see how they succeed.
• Meanwhile, national Republicans are running ads against Central Valley Democrats in Congress linking them to the water crisis. Which isn’t entirely a federal issue, and even in Washington isn’t really a Congressional issue, but why would national Republicans care about consistency? By the way, Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa can defend themselves.
• In CA-50, the fallout from that raid on a Francine Busby fundraiser has intensified. The Sheriff’s deputy who blasted people with pepper spray ought to be disciplined, if not outright fired.
• Here’s the inevitable California’s economy will send businesses out of the state article. In this case, it may well be, such is the depth of the budget woes, but in this case, it probably has more to do with the collapse of public education and classes that teach basic skills that would inhibit business growth, a function of constant Norquistian budget-cutting.
• An openly gay seaman at Camp Pendleton was found dead in a suspected homicide this week, another consequence of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, as a member of the military who is gay cannot get the kind of counseling needed or even report harrassment due to their sexuality.
It would seem we are not the only state with this problem:
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat, refused to sign a budget because lawmakers failed to approve raising the income tax. In his original $53 billion budget proposal in March, the governor sought personal and corporate tax increases to help eliminate an $11.6 billion deficit and maintain state services.
Instead of condemning our Governor, admit that California’s bureaucracy has grown too large in the last 25 years. Too many departments and divisions. Too many employees. Too many division heads with too many bosses and the most overpaid state, city and county staffs in the nation. This state, like others, is being run like a Roman Oligarchy with expectant and entitled members. I can only hope the Governor is successful in using this crisis to go after the unionized state employees and there bloated pension benefits. It is during a crisis like this that “all issues” are on the table and the call by Democrats to shelve some of these issues, like entitlements, until the crisis has passed is only confirmation that we have struck the heart of a core issue. At present, our nation still enjoys a per-capita income of about $10,000 more per person than the average Brittan. This gap has been narrowing and will soon go away. If we keep up with the entitlements and bloated governmental agencies, we may be able to look back in a few years and wonder how our 230+ year old revolution benefited us at all.