Cowboy Confessional

California is quaking once again. In this instance it has nothing to do with plate tectonics.

California is like a functional drunk. It sips, then swills, then gulps, then passes out, waking and swearing off the juice until the next time. Government spending is California’s whiskey, and when the lush – also known as the state legislature – has sucked on the budgetary bottle too long, the state’s slightly more sober side kicks some collective rump.

Like any empire, California employees people to do its dirty work. The more employees, the larger the empire. Aside from having a lot of them, Cal state employees enjoy pay scales and benefits unknown outside of the Saudi royal family. Working for the State of Emergency is one of the best ways to not earn a living.

Yet like both drunks and empires, things tend to get out of control when unchecked. The Golden State grows in spurts like a teenager on steroids. When it grows too fast, the slightly more sober side kicks the collective’s posterior a bit harder.

California citizens instinctively feel when government has grown too big, and together they take corrective action and inaction. In the 1970’s the state grew to such Gulliver proportions that the people passed Proposition 13, restricting the flow of blood to the cancer called Sacramento. At that time the state was employing nearly one in every one hundred residents, and that doesn’t include the dozen or so illegal aliens each legislator kept on hand for personal hygiene purposes.

(click chart to enlarge)

A couple of decades after Howard Jarvis smite the state, and under the expert mismanagement of Gray Davis, California’s employee roles and budget ballooned yet again, retaining nearly one percent of the population for no discernable performance. Davis was summarily dismissed and replaced by an intellectual teenager on steroids.

Six years later the employee roles have expanded yet again, popping back above the seemingly magical one percent barrier, assisting the inevitable bankruptcy of the State of Disaster. The people revolted by denying the legislature’s request to raise taxes. Since California’s credit rating is slightly below Zimbabwe’s, there is little choice but to cut costs, and the obvious place is an over packed payroll.

The open question is if anyone in Sacto gets sacked as they should.

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