By Allysia Finley
Sacramento is headed for trouble again and it shouldnt expect a bailout..
Listen up California. The other 48 statesyour cousin New York excludedare sick of your bratty arrogance. Youre the Lindsay Lohan of states: a prima donna who once showed some talent but is now too wasted to do anything with it.
After enjoying ephemeral highs and spending binges you suffer crashes that culminate in brief unsuccessful stints in rehab. This cycle repeats itself every five to 10 years as the rest of the country looks on with a mixture of horror and amusement. Wed feel sorry for you if you didnt constantly flip us the bird.
Instead were making bets on how long it will be before your next meltdown. Oh waityoure already melting down.
Youve racked up nearly $70 billion in general obligation debt and that doesnt include your $500 billion unfunded pension liability. Your own analysts predict youll face a hole of at least $80 billion over the next four years.
Your governments run by a brothel of environmentalists lawyers public-sector unions and legislative bums. When theyre not taxing or spending theyre creating regulations and commissions like the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology and the California Blueberry Commission. Many businesses would leave if it werent for your sunny climate.
Which may explain why youre so obsessed with climate change. If your climate changes no one including your Hollywood friends would tolerate you anymore. So youve created a law to tax carbon emissionsno matter that it will kill jobs.
Its not as if you dont recognize that youve got problems. Roughly three-quarters of you say youre headed in the wrong direction according to a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California. Youre even more depressed than Illinois and New York and youve got sunshine 10 months of the year!
You appropriately give your government low marks28 approval for outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger 16 for the legislatureyet you continue to re-elect the politicians who got you into this mess. Not a single incumbent state legislator lost re-election this year including one Democrat who died a month ago (no joke). Whats scarier is that youve just given almost all of the keys to statewide offices to Democrats.
Jerry Brown will be your new (old) governor. This is the man who acted as a gateway drug to your spending addiction three decades ago when he gave public-sector employees collective bargaining rights. Helping enforce your wacky laws will be Lt. Gov-elect Gavin Newsom the San Francisco mayor who flouted state law by allowing same-sex marriage. On the plus side he has nice hair and loves you just the way you are. This is what he had to say after winning his race:
Were nothing but a mirror of our consistent thoughts. You tend to manifest what you focus on. If you look around for whats wrong youll find it. But as all we know up here in San Francisco when you focus on whats right you see it all around you. . . . There is absolutely nothing wrong with California that cant be fixed by whats right with California. . . . If youre from another state youd love to have the problems of California.
Youve also just re-elected Barbara Boxer (thats Senator Barbara Boxer) to a fourth term. She boasted on election night that its her eleventh straight election victory and what a sweet one it is . . . since everything was thrown at us including the kitchen sink and the stove and the oven and everything millions of dollars of negative ads from known and unknown opponents millions and millions of dollars.
Weve tried to help you California. Some spent millions on campaigns to entice you to change your reckless behavior. And you told them to kick rocks.
So heres our final warning: When you inevitably crash and burn dont count on us to bail you out.
Ms. Finley a lapsed Californian who still wears Birkenstocks is an assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.
