Budget deal bad for Golden State

Will the last person to leave California please turn out the lights?

The budget "deal" announced this week by the folks in Sacramento seems to assure only one thing. Life in our state is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Thanks to a Republican minority that absolutely refuses to support tax increases, and the tight collar forced on the state by Proposition 13 in 1978, California has become the first state to basically abdicate the idea of governing.

So much so, in fact, that for all his good intentions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may end up being remembered as the man who destroyed California.

He's the one who was elected in 2003 by promising to cut the car tax, and the revenue surrendered when he did that was the first problem when the economy turned down and there was a revenue shortfall.

Just as Democrats love to spend money on new and expanded programs when revenues spike higher, Republicans love to cut taxes. They're both wrong. The way to handle unexpectedly high revenues is either with one-time expenditures or with tax rebates. You don't want to have to count on those higher revenues year after year.

So school funding has been cut, both for K-12 and for colleges, as well as all sorts of other health and welfare funding. The budget truly is being balanced -- if it is balanced at all -- on the backs of the poorest Californians.

Some folks will whine about illegal immigrants costing the state all sorts of money, but the fact is simple. Californians don't want to pay for the government they want.

It isn't a case of too much taxation.

It's a case of too little intelligence -- and political courage.