I have to hand it to my fellow Californicators -- when they get in the mood to debunk other states' perceptions of a bunch of high-falutin', over-edumacated, self-interested smugonauts, they go all in. The fact, as demonstrated yet again yesterday, is that presumptions of political sophistication are wildly overstated; this state still and always has a deep streak of stone yahooism, and is every bit as likely to vote against its own rational self-interest as the usual inbred clan of Appalachian cooters.
Don't get me wrong -- there were no good options in this, the latest iteration of what has long been an over-reliance on a much-abused referendum process. And it came to this because the state legislators are notoriously reluctant to commit to anything that might actually accomplish something, or worse yet, force them to stand for a single coherent principle. They're all for cutting back as long as it's in someone else's district, or somebody else's friend's sinecure. They're even more notorious for simply not voting on anything that they're afraid might be held against them in a future campaign, so maybe that would be a good place to start -- you vote half the time, you get half a fuckin' paycheck.
At any rate, thanks to the hamster-wheel anti-tax gomers, we now get six weeks of nasty cuts, a bunch of prisoners released early as we cut police, and a bunch of fire department cuts as we head into wildfire season in a third year of drought. Then the budget circus begins anew come July 1. Nicely done, folks.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger actually comes out of this mess looking like the only adult, seriously the voice of reason in all this, you know you've got a big problem coming.
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