California, The Golden Stasis

Rushing to join the nation as the 31st state, hot on the heels of the Gold Rush, California has always been in motion.  Cars swarm the plentiful roads and freeways, and the state boasts the country's second largest city - bustling and diverse Los Angeles.  Millions have arrived from other, colder, perhaps less mobile states, and more have immigrated  - legally or illegally, from other countries.

Why then, when blessed/cursed with such an innate desire to be on the move, does California find itself stuck at full stop, in a budget crisis of such epic proportions even Cecil B. DeMille couldn't make a movie out of it - let alone Arnold Schwarzenegger?  Der Governator has tried, but so far failed to terminate the stalemate, just one recalcitrant Republican state senator short of the goal.

Part of the problem is likely to do with California's latent political schizophrenia.   For a state that deems itself progressive, and votes-in a democratic, mostly liberal, majority in the legislature, California has frequently turned to more conservative, often Republican, leaders as the state's executive.  As a result, California politics has for many years been a debacle of political infighting, brinksmanship, butt-covering, and lethargy.  So much so, the state's voters are routinely tasked with making laws at the polls by voting on ballot propositions containing measures too prickly for the careful politicians in Sacramento to tackle.

That thread of political insanity aside, the current crisis also stems from the realities of the economic depression affecting the nation and the world.  Revenues are dropping everywhere and governments at all levels are faced with a balancing act: cutting services and jobs and raising taxes in just the right mix to offend the fewest.  That's an incredibly difficult task anywhere, but in California it might just be an impossible mission.  

The state's democrats insist on tax increases as part of the package - softening the blow by calling them 'temporary', and in turn have agreed to substantial (and painful) program cuts.  The republicans, however, almost uniformly resist any tax increases - in fact, would like to see tax cuts.  They feel so strongly about this they ousted their leader, who pushed for compromise, and installed an arch conservative in his place.

Meanwhile, Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered the mailing of thousands of pink slips laying off state employees, and ordinary Californians everywhere are waking up to the realization that, this time, the result of Sacramento's political shenanigans could really be bad ...