California Passes A Budget

Well done California. A temporary reprieve from disaster and an opportunity to spend some time pondering the medium or longer term actions necessary to get control over its fiscal house.

But at what a cost.

The stupidity of the last few months has been the nature of the discussions. The Democrats and the Governor had agreed in principle some time ago to the contents of a budget that would plug the revenue gaps at least for now. The whole process then focused on getting precisely one Republican to cross party lines and vote for the budget. One. Naturally that meant that any likely cross over voter had supreme power and could extract any egregious and hair brained demand he or she wanted. In the interests of the workers whose jobs were threatened or the school children whose educations would have been thrown into chaos you would have thought that someone could have compromised earlier and with less extreme demands.

But no. Please welcome Abel Maldonado. He is now the most powerful man in California since it was his single vote that had to be bought. Why it took this long to persuade Mr. Maldonado that he should put down the gun he was holding to the State’s head I don’t know. Eventually he did. Last night he crossed party lines and voted for the budget which is now being hailed as the State’s saving grace. In return he won all sorts of concessions including the opening up of the California primary system.

So the price of averting bankruptcy was a change to the state constitution.

Desperate times indeed out there on the west coast.

For those interested about Mr. Maldonado, here’s the New York Times story this morning about the way his vote was purchased: Budget Clears Legislature in California After Scathing Battle