So, how does it feel to be in a new fiscal year?
So, how does it feel to be in a new fiscal year? Yup, it started last Tuesday– mazel tov. We Californians should be particularly proud of ourselves as we start the 2003-2004 FY because we officially, in our capacity as a State of the Union, the most populous, the grandest, the most nation-within-a-nation of all the states have no money. Thass right, dog; we be tapped out, on the street, hustlin’ for change. The Golden State done run outta gold.
We’ve been here before, of course; in fact, we’ve been here so many times they put our name on the parking space. The California Budget Crisis is a natural phenomenon, like El Nino, except it comes more often. This is because the way we do a budget is like that three-way gunfight in the great Clint Eastwood flick “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” You got your Democratic legislators, who are on the left, you got your Republican legislators, who are on the right, and you got your governor, who is on another planet.
These guys usually take the month of July or longer to stare each other down, itchy fingers caressing their holstered Colts, cheap cheroots dangling from their lips, each one waiting for the others to blink. Meanwhile, the state tries to get by, staying with friends, eating out of Dumpsters, and showering at the Y. Soon it will be reduced to standing beside a freeway on-ramp with a cardboard sign: “Politically disabled – will work for $35 billion.”
Somehow, unlike the federal government, California actually has to make income and expenditures balance. Now, Dubya, he can just borrow money we don’t have from foreign bankers so he can give it to the rich who don’t need it in hopes that they’ll stimulate the economy by hiring more servants, and that’s perfectly fine because if any creditor gets uppity wanting to get paid back, well, they can just be offered the chance to be included on the Axis of Evil and entertain our troops for a while, and they’ll shut right up.
Gray Davis doesn’t have that kind of firepower; he could offer to include unruly creditors on the Axis of Egomania and send them Barbra Streisand, but that’s not much of a threat.
Of course the simplest solution would be to just hire Arthur Anderson to do California’s books, but unfortunately that option is no longer available. Now, the Democrats in the Legislature say the way out of the fiscal forest is to raise capital, while the Republicans say the answer is to chop expenses.
The governor’s solution is to not smile or muss his hair. You know, now that I think of it, if he gets recalled, can we keep his hair? I mean, OK, so some political nonentity buys himself the governorship, who cares (can’t you see the campaign billboards? “Darryl Issa for Governor. He’s Rich. End of Story.”), but it seems kind of baby-and-bathwater to get rid of such nice hair in the process.
In politics there is always a way to compromise if people are willing to think outside the box. So let’s do this and we’re home free: we contact Nevada and Arizona and offer to sell Los Angeles to the higher bidder. L.A. has to be worth way more than the $35 billion we’re currently in the hole, and either state would be crazy to not want it. You got your beaches, you got your Hollywood, you got your Rodeo Drive – I mean, this is a status item here, this is the Mercedes 500SL of municipalities. All the other states will be, like, so jealous they’ll just die.
Think about it: if, for example, every episode of “Dragnet” started with the words “This is the city. Los Angeles, Arizona. I work here. I’m a cop.” Would we really care? That $35 billion is a lot of money to try to raise with a bake sale.
Robert Mitchell is a Morgan Hill attorney.
