Cowboy Confessional

The end of Washington’s spending spree may soon come thanks to incautious California.

The day care center known as the California Legislature has led the State of Disaster to fiscal ruin. So bad is the situation here in the Shaky State that politicians – unable to balance the budget without bankrupting the taxpayers – rigged a series of ballot propositions to do jigger the books. Propositions 1A through 1E raise taxes or shuttle money from one formerly protected use to the general fund. The institutionalized insanity of the state overspending is not addressed in any of the proposals.

And the people are PO’ed.

Odds of these ballot measures passing is slightly below Hell’s sixth ring. If they fail, California’s $42 billion shortage combined with its junk bond rating would likely push the Land of Fruits and Nuts into bankruptcy, an outcome for which more than a few folk are openly rooting. Taxpayers contend that the state legislature is fiscal alcoholic, and like regular drunks needs to hit rock bottom before it can recover and start leading a respectable life.

Bankruptcy might just sober-up California for the first time in history. San Francisco however will continue its non-stop bender.

While sucking down coffee at my favorite corner café last week, I predicted that should Cal go bust, it would instantly turn to its equally insolvent big brother, the federal government. The Golden State – bereft of gold – would cadge congress for cash. In the age of endless bailouts, and with Obama beholden to government employee unions while trying to make government ‘cool’, another $42 billion would look like chump change. After all, AIG got $100 billion more than that and congress critters never cringed.

I should go into the prognostication business, because I nailed this one.

Bill Lockyer, California’s current Treasurer, gives other trolls a bad name. I encountered Bill years ago when he horded the state’s Attorney General’s office. I briefly debated him on the constitutional basis for gun control. Despite his being a lawyer and me being an autodidact, it quickly became obvious that he was incapable of performing his job or perhaps cleaning himself properly after visiting the little dictators’ room. I suspect he is no more capable of making change than managing California’s coffers. Even the concept of a balanced budget seems beyond his grasp given his written statement:

“Even with a balanced budget, California believes its cash flow shortfall in fiscal 2009-2010 will be in excess of $13 billion.”

But he is a politician, which means he looks for the easy way out.

Lockyer has written to Timothy Geithner, a Keystone Cop masquerading as the U.S. Treasury Secretary. Without the shame common to common prostitutes, Lockyer began the pocket picking process, extending his rather greasy palm into the pockets of taxpayers from coast to coast.

“I am writing today to ask that you authorize extending TARP assistance to the State of California,”

‘TARP’, you will recall stands for ‘Troubled Asset Relief Program.’ Indeed California is troubled … in the psychiatric sense. Yet classifying Cal as an ‘asset’ will irk anyone east of the Sierra Nevadas. More to the point, TARP was established to soak-up toxic loans and other real property. Congress never intended for this loot to be lobbed at other governments.

Given America’s general distrust of California, you can expect a backlash.

People generally dislike being stolen from. If a man lives in a state that has balanced its budget the way it should, he will look lowly upon any attempt for another state to take his taxes. Yet that is what Lockyer yearns for – to make off with mullah from Maine, Montana and Missouri. Bill wants to bilk bumpkins in Baltimore, Brevard and Bayonne.

And they will bite back.

If the Obama Bunch backs Bill Lockyer in this misappropriation, it will backfire. Tea Parties were tepid compared to the pummeling politicians would receive over this intergovernmental slush fund. Imagine a representative from Rexburg, Idaho explaining to his constituents – many of whom escaped California years ago – that he opted to underwrite the fiscal failure and open air asylum called California. The good folks of Rexburg would reverently read scripture … as the tossed the last shovel full of dirt on his face.

Repeat the processes in 48 other states.

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