When You Voted For Jerry Brown, Were You Under The Impression You Were Voting For A Democrat?

Continuity

I mean, seriously, what the hell is Jerry Brown doing?

Let's set the stage. California is screwed, budget-wise. The governor just proposed yet another budget with a deficit the size of the Grand Canyon. UC tuition has gone up 300% in the last 10 years. Teachers, firefighters, county workers, police officers laid off, proposals to close our beloved parks. Foreclosure rate 2nd-highest in the nation. On and on.

But, dang! We're in the middle of the biggest movement opportunity to increase taxes on the 1% and generate more revenue than arguably ever before in California history. The Millionaires Tax of 2012, a ballot measure sponsored by Courage Campaign, California Federation of Teachers, California Nurses Assocation and ACCE that is currently circulating for signatures, polls at freaking 70% among likely voters for November-- the highest I've ever seen a tax-raising measure polled. What does the measure do? It does what it sounds like-- raises taxes by 3% on every dollar a millionaire earns over $1 million and by 5% on every dollar over $2 million. That's it. No one making less than $1 million pays a penny more. How many people does that affect? 13,000 millionaires living in California-- 0.4% of Californians. That's right, it's not even taxing the 1%, it's taxing the frigging 0.4%, not to mention all those Facebook folks about to become millionaires by virtue of the IPO. Oh, and it would also do something about people like this who don't pay enough:



How much would it generate? $6 billion a year (up to $9.5 billion in the first year alone, almost enough to close the entire goddamn budget deficit). It's permanent, and sends the money straight to counties (does not pass Go, does not let Sacramento get its hands on it) to re-hire all those laid off teachers, firefighters, police officers, staff at senior center, and fix the potholes. Oh, and it also re-funds the UCs and CSU. Easy to understand, simple, popular, good public policy, the right measure at the right time. And just in case you missed it, polls at 70% among likely voters.

So how does our experienced problem-solving governor in his third term and umpteenth elected office overall, and his merry band of establishment Sacramento Democrats, screw it up? Let us count the ways he does:

     •     Proposes their own idiotic tax ballot measure that sucks in the following ways: (1) It raises sales taxes. Regressive and wildly unpopular. (2) It raises taxes on those making over $250,000 instead of just those making over $1 million. Unpopular (a lot of Californians think they might make that much one day). (3) Sends all the new revenue straight to the General Fund in Sacramento instead of counties so they can spend it on refunding prisons or who knows what. Politically stupid and unpopular (the legislature has a lower approval rating than Congress, if you can believe it). (4) Lasts only 5 years, so we have to do this all over again when, because of Prop 13, we have no property tax revenue coming in and income/sales tax revenue drops off a cliff when we enter another recession, so more cuts on the way. Plain stupid public policy.

     •     Raises money to pay for signature-gathering and the campaign from the following entities all of whom, by the way, have business before the governor: Occidental Petroleum ($250,000), Blue Shield ($100,000), Kaiser ($250,000), American Beverage Association ($250,000) CA Hospital Association ($500,000), various casinos ($375,000), PG&E ($25,000), California Beer and Beverage Distributors ($75,000). Corrupt, scummy and not exactly good press.

     •     Gets all his buddies in the Legislature, namely Speaker Perez and Senate President Steinberg, to kow-tow to his line and decree no Legislature Democrat shall endorse the Millionaires Tax of 2012, they shall only endorse raising taxes on their own constituents by way of his stupid measure. Right, because in this Occupy/99% environment, I really want my caucus members explaining to reporters why they oppose raising taxes on greedy millionaires and want to raise them on all the poor people in my district. Politically suicidal and immoral.

     •     Has his loyal sidekick, political adviser Steve Glazer (the one with the odd homoerotic twitter handle @steve4jerry) to tweet various nasty things about the folks working to pass the Millionaires Tax of 2012, such as that they are in political denial and a circular firing squad. Divisive and obnoxious not to mention the fact that his boss is backing the less-popular measure that's more likely to fail and screw a lot of people over if it passes. If you are concerned about a firing squad, Steve, maybe you should, uh... stop firing?

     •     Goes to the CA Dem Party Convention two weekends ago in San Diego to tell a ballroom full of activists and delegates that he hasn't quite figured out all this tax measure stuff yet, but don't worry: "you'll get your marching orders soon enough." Haughty and just plain stupid. Thanks Jerry, I was waiting for you to tell me what to do.

     •     And just this week, releases a made-up poll of just 500 people that tell him what he wants to hear: multiple measures on one ballot will lead to all of them failing. Although funny enough, the same poll shows that the Millionaires Tax of 2012 is actually more popular than his, the 4th straight poll to do so. Transparent tactic.

     •     And the icing on the cake: rumors fly yesterday that he's proposing a 24% fees hike (over 4 years) for the UC system. So that's right, if you're planning on going to college this fall, you can expect to pay a quarter more than the number you're staring at today. But don't blame Jerry, he's only the one proposing a ballot measure that doesn't fund the UC to help keep fees down while attacking the one frigging ballot measure that does.

Here's one thing I know: if someone has to drop their measure, it should be Jerry dropping his regressive, 99%-taxing, Sacramento-funding, insider establishment politically stupid bullshit measure, not the coalition trying to capture the energy behind the Occupy movement and make millionaires pay their fair share.

Here's another thing I know-- if someone outside your grocery store asks you to sign to put the Millionaires Tax of 2012 on the ballot, sign. Then download a signature petition and ask all the friends who live in your county to sign, and mail it in.

I don't know what the hell Jerry Brown is doing, or what kind of political genius Jerry Brown thinks he is, but I ain't waiting around for his marching orders, and neither should you.

Most People See Right Through Our Corrupted Political Elites And Insist The Rich Start Paying Their Fair Share

On raising taxes for the wealthiest

California has a Democratic Governor and Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature. But that hasn't stopped a nihilistic and ideologically deranged minority from taking a suicide bomber approach to governance in the Golden State, preventing a referendum by the voters on whether or not to extend taxes. Friday Tulchin Research released a poll showing that a nice majority of the state's voters have a logical solution. It is, in fact, the solution to all the budgetary problems facing the country: make The Rich pay their fair share. But of course The Rich entirely own the Republican Party and own enough of the Democratic Party-- think Blue Dogs, Third Way, DLC... Obama-- to keep The Rich rich and getting richer.

A new Tulchin Research poll conducted on behalf of the California Federation of Teachers finds that California voters strongly support increasing taxes on the wealthy as a way to balance the state's budget without additional cuts to essential services.

Given the recent events in Sacramento that saw budget negotiations collapse and efforts launched to find a "Plan B," a recent statewide survey of likely voters in California has discovered a proposal that could help solve the state's budget mess-- raising taxes on the wealthy. Notably, the poll finds overwhelming support from California voters for a proposal to raise income taxes by 1% on the top 1% of Californians-- known as "1% on the 1%"-- in order to help balance the state budget and prevent deeper cuts to essential services. Specifically, nearly four out of five voters (78%) support this proposal with more than half of all voters (53%) strongly supporting it.

Bernie Sanders doesn't represent California. But he does represent working families and his solution is incredibly similar to what the Tulchin poll found. Watch Bernie on this MSNBC clip:



And why don't we close with a little pop tune from Anti-Flag, "Kill The Rich," although just as poetry, not as an operational plan.

a billionaire chatting with his friends, they've gotta stop to laugh
"we've really got those suckers fooled, we've got 'em trained like
rats!" the riches plot, control your mind, to make you blame yourself
"the rich are rich because they're smarter than me..." you're taught
this is right, that it's your fault kill, kill, kill! they throw a war
like a party saying, "it's for a moral cause..." telling you if you're a
patriot that, "you better do what you're told!" you burn a flag, you're
gonna hang, brainwashed nationalism makes you a tool they're getting
rich by selling weapons to both countries, you never think to question
what you're told! kill, kill, kill! they're gonna give you nothing they
want to take away the little they call something you know you're being
used, but still you play along. if you're not complacent, you're doing
something wrong. one day they'll push too far that marks the beginning
of their end. we'll bring them crashing down 'til they're all dead,
they're all dead! the time is growing near... put the trigger to the
man... ok, kill 'em!

As Arnold’s Political Career Dies, How Many Californians Will He And DiFi Sacrifice To His Three Big Lies?

-by Dr Kirk Murphy

As Arnold Schwarzenegger's failed political career flames out, he's demanding California sacrifice thousands of human lives for his Three Big Lies. Arnold's First Big Lie was the one he used to win office in 2003: he used all his celebrity star power to promise voters he could slash CA's revenues by $4 billion and everything would be great. In the real world, Arnold's cut did exactly what CA's budget analyst predicted: starve the state budget and grow deficits. Over the next years, the annual loss from Arnold's First Big Lie grew to $6 Billion. With the state's deficit now swollen to $24 billion (thanks to Prop 13 and Arnold's First Big Lie), in the May 19 California voters overwhelmingly rejected Arnold's special election, rejecting his stealth attempt to further destroy California's public sector. Arnold's Second Big Lie pretends that when CA voters refused the Rethugs' plan to smash public services for the future, they actually wanted to slash those services. Before that election, Arnold vetoed the Legislature's budget: a budget that partly restored the revenue cuts the Rethugs created to destroy public services. Arnold's Third Big Lie is to pretend he never vetoed non-lethal budget solutions, and to pretend the only solution for thirty years of the Rethugs' war on California's government is Shock Doctrine.

With a personal net worth somewhere between $100 and $800 million, Arnold's demanding the rest of us allow him to sacrifice thousands of Califonians' lives. Yep, when it comes to Grover Norquist's Chub Club For Growth, movie-hero Arnold shows his inner girly-man: he'd rather kill off sick people and seniors than stand up and fight. How many Californians will this real-life coward sacrifice to fan the embers of his dying career?

On Thursday a panel of California's legislators heard from one of Arnold's intended victims:

[T]hey heard from a woman named Lynnea Garbutt who has lived with AIDS all of her 24 years.

She has survived with the help of a state program that provides the expensive antiviral drugs she takes. Now, with that program facing elimination, she pleaded with lawmakers to save it -- and her life.

"If these cuts take place, you're not just cutting money from the program -- you're cutting my life," she told the panel, her voice shaking and tears falling. "I choose to live. Please don't make me die. My choice is life."

You see, unlike Arnold with his personal Gulfstream, the desperately poor patients who rely on California for the medications they require to stay alive can't just jet off to find better services in some other state. From working with those patients, I know most of them don't even have the money to pay for new substandard housing somewhere else, much less the funds to travel there.

But hey, why stop with killing off young people? To keep on the good side of the Rethug lunatics who've spent the last three decades waging open warfare on California, movie-hero Arnold also demands California kill off seniors. When hundreds of thousands of disabled folks and seniors rely on in home health workers (IHSS) to remain alive and to stay out of nursing homes (where their care would cost the state even more), Arnold will deny in home health assistance to most of California's disabled people:

Limit IHSS Domestic and Related Services To the Most Functionally "Impaired" - Governor proposes, effective October 1, 2009 (if Legislature approves), to limit the provision of domestic and related services to persons with the "highest level of need" in the IHSS Program.

Matthew Yi from the SF Chronicle's Sacramento bureau describes the real consequences:

Restrict the In Home Support Services program to the most severely disabled such as those who can't breathe on their own and are partially paralyzed.

What will this do to seniors and the disabled?

Gary Passmore, who represents the Congress of California Seniors, an advocacy group for the elderly, said the cuts would be life threatening.

"These cuts and the ones that were announced earlier this week are cruel, they are heartless, and they will literally kill people," he said. "It's no longer a question about whether these folks will end up in nursing homes. There aren't enough beds in nursing homes. They will end up on the streets and die."

While they're sacrificing seniors and the disabled, movie-hero Arnold and the deadly radicals who run CA's Rethug party also want to go after pregnant mothers. His Shock Doctrine attack demands

Elimination of remaining General Fund for Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health

Rather than stand up to Grover Norquist's death cult, Arnold wants to sacrifice women with cancer...and people with kidney failure:

Cuts Medi-Cal coverage for breast and cervical cancer treatment and dialysis.

Arnold and the Rethugs' Cult For Death even want to destroy Californians' future:

Schwarzenegger's plan to dismantle the Cal Grant program - considered one of the nation's best programs to help poorer students cover full fees or tuition at public colleges - would make California the first US state to eliminate student financial aid while raising tuition....A CalWorks program providing medical, dental, and vision care to 90,000 children will be eliminated.

Why stop with killing off people and their futures? Arnold's death wish for California's budget includes special hell for our pets:

Kiska Icard, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said suspending the state requirement on animal shelters to hold strays at least six days to save the state $24.6 million would result in euthanizing more animals.

In order to kill off California's people and government with his Shock Doctrine on steroids, Arnold's frantically repeating his Second Big Lie: the voters made him do it. Brian Leubitz and his colleagues at Calitics explode the lie:

The people did not say anything about cuts. In fact, they spoke out strongly against cuts by rejecting Props 1D and 1E that cut social services for children and the mentally ill, respectively. The people are saying they want a functional government that is responsive, not demanding, of the people.

Brian Leubitz also spotlights how SF Gate's Carla Marinucci caught DiFi parroting Arnold's Second Big Lie

"And what [the voters] said is, in so many words, take the cuts, because that's the alternative. And nobody wants them, but people have to understand.''

Marlinucci also caught DiFi parroting Arnold's Third Big Lie: California's only choice is the Shock Doctrine.

And the hard part of it is where the cuts have to come from. People don't like it. But they didn't seem to know that when they voted no on these propositions, so it left the Governor and the State Legislature with really no alternative other than to make the cuts.

Hey, why should a California Democratic Senator remember California's Republican Governor vetoed the anti-Shock Doctrine budget her fellow Democrats passed out of the State's Legislature?

In the real world, a few months ago California's beleaguered Legislature did an end run around the Rethug's Cult For Death and passed a budget with choices that don't kill people: Arnold vetoed it. In the world where DiFi, Arnold and CA's Rethugs rush to please the Club For Growth's suicide cult, why bother with reality?

In the real world the rest of us live in, how many Californians' lives will Arnold sacrifice as his political career dies? And how many Democrats in Sacramento and Washington will spin the Big Lies required to make Shock Doctrine his weapon?

[h/t Calitics for their coverage, which this post uses extensively.]

UPDATE: A Rescue Plan

Aeolus has a great idea which is elucidated over at Daily Kos. President Obama needs to ask Schwarzenegger to resign as a condition for loan guarantees for short-term debt. The Governator has failed California and failed the nation.

Looks Like Arnold Schwarzenegger Isn't Being Invited To CPAC, The Extreme Right's Big Annual Powwow

Michael Steele, Mike Huckabee and John Boehner???

Next week hard core extremists and obstructionists from around the Beltway will descend on Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel again for their annual ritualistic embrace of a kind of uniquely American fascism. Today's Washington Post features a dizzy, if not delusional, preview by GOP media shill S.E. Cupp. She fights back against the conventional wisdom that this year's get together will be a bust because of the lack of star power, many respectable conservatives distancing themselves from the fanatics, Know Nothings and radicals-- the Ann Coulter wing of the Republican Party-- who dominate the conclave. But Cupp, who will be signing her childish book, Why You're Wrong About the Right next Saturday, disagrees completely: "See, in my world," she writes, "stars don't come any bigger than Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, Mitt Romney and Mike Pence (if there were a congressional version of Teen Beat, the Indiana congressman would be on its cover every month). Michael Steele, Mike Huckabee and John Boehner are the Jonas Brothers of conservative celebrity."

Am I the only one who gets excited at the thought of a two-hour discussion on "Protecting the Secret Ballot" or "Taking Action Through Citizen-Led Reform" in the Regency Ballroom? When I see such clever lecture titles as "Will Congress Take Your Guns?" and "Are We All Socialists Now?" I start salivating. Will it? Are we? I can't wait to find out.

Just announced-- Mario Lopez is speaking! Okay, it's Mario Lopez of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, and not the hunky headliner of Saved By the Bell and Dancing With the Stars, but still-- he's going to be great, I just know it.

And doesn't everyone want to have "Breakfast With Phyllis Schlafly"? Just me?

...I'm also looking forward to drinking boxed wine with such friends and colleagues as Tucker Carlson, Stephen Baldwin and Andrew Breitbart during the forced socialization of conference happy hours. You'd be surprised how many big deals are done over pigs-in-a-blanket and cubed cheese. And yes, I just totally name-dropped.

Even Sarah Palin, "the Angela Jolie of the GOP," is staying away-- although she will address her adoring fans with a video especially for them. Instead of Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney, John McCain, George Bush, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Crist-- or even Arnold or chief House obstructionist Eric Cantor, the nuts and loons will have to make do with some sorry scrapings from the bottom of the barrel: Rush Limbaugh, Coulter, Rick Santorum, the 2 bizarre Micheles-- Bachmann and Malkin-- John Shadegg, Jim DeMint... and, fingers crossed, internationally acclaimed neo-Nazi, racist and right-wing posterboy Geert Wilders. And, in a nod towards Obama's sense of post-partisanship, there will be an award ceremony honoring doddering former progressive George McGovern for his anti-union rantings. (He isn't doddering enough to bother to show up in person though. Perhaps anti-labor lobbyist and Republican stalwart Rick Berman will accept the honor on his behalf.)

Rick Moran knows exactly what he is-- which is why he named the demented Republican Party blog he runs Rightwing Nuthouse. His essay on next week's CPAC convention appeared in another virtual nuthouse, though, The Next Right. "The theme of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)," he begins, "should be 'Cocooning our way to Irrelevancy' or perhaps 'How to lose the next 5 elections in 10 easy steps.'”

From my point of view, it really is that bad. With the exception of some effort to bring conservatism into the 21st century communications-wise, the program appears to be an excellent panacea for what ailed conservatism in about 1980. It’s as if the debacles of 2006 and 2008 never happened. Does it matter that the very same people who helped get us clobbered the last two election cycles are running seminars and roundtables at the conference? Not if you’re a movement still in denial that it will take more than “message tweaking” and better utilization of the internet to bring conservatism back and make it relevant to a large portion of Americans again.

...My idea of “reform” is probably a helluva lot different than most conservatives. But maybe we could start with the recognition that in elections, the way you win is by getting one more vote than the other side. And no matter how you want to add up the numbers, the 30% of so of the nation that identifies itself as “conservative” will always fall short of 50% + 1. I hate to break this news to my fellow conservatives; you can use any kind of mathematical hocus pocus you wish but there just aren’t enough of us to only allow “true conservatives” a place at the table. The absence of conservatives like David Frum, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, and others who probably agree with 90% of conservative positions on the issues but have been driven from the movement for their apostasy-- real or imagined-- is as incomprehensible as it is depressing.

This is the way back? It’s not a question of being “moderate” or “true-blue” but rather how long does conservatism want to wander in the wilderness? Ideas on how to reform conservatism-- and I speak of real reform, not the cosmetic solutions that appear will be offered at CPAC-- must come from as many sources as possible. Some conservatives might not like the smell inside the “Big Tent” but turning up your nose at people who disagree with you on one or two issues is just plain nuts. “Litmus tests” and the like are all well and good unless you are a minority, getting smaller and less relevant, and don’t wish to find a way back in order to compete in the marketplace of ideas.

Our dire situation doesn’t seem to have sunk in yet. This is evident by how many sessions are scheduled that appear to have been lifted from the agenda of a decade or more ago.

He goes on to bemoan speakers from the fringes of American politics like North Carolina neo-fascist Virginia Foxx, Illinois' two most extreme congressional wingnuts, Aaron Schock and Peter Roskam, Phyllis Schafly, and Ralph Reed and warns his fellow rightists that "fleeing the mindset that re-enforces the notion that there isn’t much really wrong with conservatism that a dab of message clarification here and a spot of renewed enthusiasm there won’t cure" isn't going to help them reach outside of their delusional drooling base. "Accepting the fact that there are fundamental problems is the first step toward recovery. Unfortunately, CPAC fails miserably in that regard."

Perhaps instead of a forward-looking strategy they can just cheer themselves up a little in preparation for the disaster that awaits them in 2010 when voters let them know what they think of obstructionism. They could probably start with a hissing session for-- in absentia, of course-- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the elected GOP politician with the most constituents anywhere in America. And do they hate him-- especially now that he's calling on Republicans to put partisanship aside and be team players with Obama! Friday he signed a state budget that includes $12.5 billion in tax hikes.

"Their last gasp has been taken from them," said Larry N. Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State, citing the unpopularity among most California voters of the party's conservative stands on abortion, illegal immigration and other touchstone issues. "It puts them in a very precarious position."

By repudiating the thrust of his candidacy in the 2003 recall-- "I will not raise taxes," Schwarzenegger stated flatly the day after he won-- the governor has also enraged the conservatives who dominate the party.

For Republicans convening at a state party convention this weekend in Sacramento, it is a wrenching moment. Schwarzenegger is skipping the event to attend a governors' conference in Washington. But his turnaround on taxes has darkened the mood of the hundreds of party loyalists venting their frustration in a hotel where the governor often stays in a penthouse suite.

To be sure, none of the GOP lawmakers who demanded that the state close its $42-billion shortfall without raising taxes detailed the doomsday cuts that approach would entail, nor did the activists who lobbied against the tax increases. If the state had laid off its entire workforce of 238,000-- every prison guard, firefighter and clerk-- it still would have fallen billions shy of a balanced budget.

Still, in a nod to the GOP's internal realities, two of the party's top contenders for Schwarzenegger's job in the June 2010 primary have split with the governor over the tax hikes.

One, former EBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman, said they will "kill jobs, hurt families and make future deficits even worse." The other, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, called the budget a "fiasco." The heavier tax burden, he warned, will increase unemployment.

...Like the governor, the six Republican lawmakers who joined Democrats in approving the tax increases are also facing vitriol within the party. Chief targets include Sens. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, whose support of the budget led to his overthrow as Senate Republican leader, and Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria, who cast the deciding vote.

Conservative blogger Matthew Cunningham has started a Facebook group, "Never Elect Abel Maldonado to Anything, Ever Again." More threatening, Ernie Konnyu, a former Bay Area congressman, has launched a campaign to recall Maldonado.

Efforts to recall other GOP lawmakers for their break with the party on taxes have sprouted. Conservative purists are pushing the state party to censure them Sunday.

The party's turmoil over taxes comes as Republicans nationwide are still reeling from their 2008 defeat. Their White House nominee, John McCain, lost California by more than 3 million votes in the party's worst presidential rout in the state since the 1930s.

S.E. Cupp has a bizarre imagination

And for Republicans in California-- and across most of the nation-- 1930's-era abhorrence is exactly what they can look forward to. Republican governors are in DC arguing amongst themselves whether or not to reject the Stimulus money that would help people who have lost their jobs, the "not" position being championed by right-wing maniacs like Bobby Jindal (LA), Haley Barbour (MS) and Mark Sanford (SC). The kind of last gasp obstructionism being put in place by these crazies plus your Jim DeMints, John Cornyns, Jim Bunnings, Richard Burrs, Johnny Isaksons, Tom Corburns, Eric Cantors and John Boehners-- and being cheered on and even demanded by the lunatic fringe CPAC core-- is exactly what led to the GOP with 16 members of the Senate in 1936 and jut 88 members of the House.


KEN ADDS --

Could I just underline the point made above by self-identified rightwing nut Rick Moran? The conservative movement has apparently become so loony that it has no room for people as loony as David Frum, Peggy Noonan, and David Brooks.

Okay, those may not be Rick's exact words. Still, that's some kind of loony!

#

Trapped in the meltdown: Is it possible being a state (or even U.S.) senator isn't as glamorous as it's cracked up to be? (Hint: Ask Governor Arnold)

The one and only Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak

by Ken

In her NYT column today, "The Devil Made Me Do It," Gail Collins recalls an episode of the halcyon TV thriller Kolchak: The Night Stalker in which Kolchak, "a newspaperman who spent most of his time tracking down demons of the underworld" -- and, "since his editor never believed his stories, did not get in the paper much" -- "was confronted by a politician who sold his soul to the devil in order to win a seat in the State Senate."

When I first saw this particular program, coyly titled "The Devil's Platform," I was covering a real-life State Legislature in Connecticut. My first thought was that accepting eternal damnation in return for a career as a state senator was a little like swapping your house for a pair of socks.

But lately I am beginning to wonder if, in our troubled times, being in a Senate -- any Senate -- actually is hell. Everybody has seen pictures of the state senators in California, held hostage to a spectacular financial fiasco, sleeping at their desks during the long, long hours of deliberations, which revolve around whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can get a wealthy Republican broccoli farmer to vote for his budget.

And Washington! Imagine you're Harry Reid, the majority leader. Every time something important comes up, you've got to round up 60 votes. And Reid only has 59. One belongs to someone who is apparently doomed to spend the rest of his life in court in Minnesota, arguing about absentee ballot witness registration.

And another, of course, belongs to Roland Burris, cursed with an inability to come up with a consistent story on whether he tried to raise money for Illinois' rogue governor before said governor forked over a Senate seat. The other senators resent Burris because he is proof that just about anybody blessed with strong persistence and a weak memory can join their club. Reid should also consider the possibility that Burris has been infected by a mind-altering demon that could, at any moment, convince him that he dwells in a reverse reality where all good senators vote against the White House agenda.

The U.S. Senate's rules -- like those in California -- wind up leaving the power in the hands of a very few moderate Republicans. Everybody else just sits around reading their mail -- or, in the case of California, napping in the aisles -- while one or two members of the minority party tries to decide whether to let the economy fall off a cliff.

The good news is that in Washington, the whole world is now run by Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine. True, not what you had in mind when you spent the last year obsessing about the next president. But way better than California, which is facing a series of end-of-times crises that include insolvency, 20,000 imminent layoffs and a halt to all public construction programs. And for weeks, it has all hung on State Senator Abel Maldonado, the above-mentioned broccoli farmer.

As of last night, Maldonado was holding out for changes in the state election laws that would make it easier for him to get the Republican nomination to run for state controller. (I believe there was once an episode of "Marcus Welby, M.D." in which a troubled would-be father refused treatment for sterility on the grounds that it would hurt his chances of being elected controller. Back in the day, it was inspiring what high regard TV scriptwriters had for state government.)

Maldonado has always denied that his political ambitions had anything to do with his inability to make up his mind about the budget. Nevertheless, one of his ongoing demands has been to eliminate money for new office furniture for his mortal enemy, the current controller, John Chiang.

The California situation is so dire that everybody in the state appears to have forgotten that their governor is a movie star. Schwarzenegger used to be one of the most famous people on the planet, and now he's spent months begging members of his own party to throw him three lousy votes so he can keep the Department of Motor Vehicles' offices open. When Arnold's ally, the Senate minority leader, revved up the pressure, the Republicans responded by electing a new minority leader.

On the plus side, all those arguments about whether the Constitution should be amended so people born outside the United States could run for president can be put on the back burner.

If the nation's only action-hero governor is at a loss, clearly new powers are needed. Look up that "Night Stalker" episode on the Web and you will learn that the demon soul-selling senator (Tom Skerritt) got "the ability to assume the form of an indestructible black mastiff, and destroy his enemies both within his own party and opposing him."

I wonder if Harry Reid has heard about this.

UPDATE: THE BROCCOLI FARMER GETS
HIS WAY, AND CALIFORNIA GETS A BUDGET

Earlier today, the NYT reported:

Budget Clears Legislature in California After Scathing Battle

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

LOS ANGELES -- After five days of intense, nearly nonstop negotiations over how to close a $41 billion gap, California state senators agreed early Thursday morning on a budget that raises taxes, cuts deeply into services and borrows far into the future, leaving nearly every person in the state scathed in some way.

The leadership of the state, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, agreed several weeks ago to a plan to address the state's severe budget issues, but the plan failed to gain the two-thirds majority approval required by California state law to pass through the legislature. This left Democrats trying to woo a single Republican vote out of the state senate, where Republicans were staunchly against new taxes.

Finally, in the witching hours of Thursday morning, lawmakers caved to some of the demands of State Senator Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria, a Republican who wanted state constitutional amendments banning legislative pay increases during deficit years, and the elimination of a 12-cent increase in gasoline taxes from the plan.

Mr. Maldonado also won legislative approval for an amendment that would make California political primaries open and nonpartisan, a measure that many Democrats resisted to the bitter end.

All told, the budget bills contain $15 billion in spending cuts, $12.8 billion in temporary tax increases, $11.4 billion in new borrowing, and the creation of a $1 billion reserve fund. The intention is that if the state receives anticipated federal funds, the borrowing will be reduced by half, some of the tax increases will be trimmed and some cut spending would be restored.

"If we can solve a $42 billion budget deficit, we can solve anything in this state," said Darrell Steinberg, Democrat from Sacramento, the president pro tem of the Senate, in a news release.

The package of bills was quickly given the nod by the State Assembly -- where lawmakers were less intransigent than in the Senate -- just before 7 a.m. Pacific time

The governor has said he would sign the bill immediately. "This is a very difficult budget," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a prepared statement, "but we have turned this crisis into an opportunity to make real, lasting reforms for California.

"Some special interests may not like this budget -- but like I always say, what's good for the people is not always good for special interests. I look forward to partnering with the people to make sure these bipartisan reform measures are passed to put an end to our budget roller coaster and get California moving forward again."

The series of budget bills, as passed by the senate around 5 a.m. Thursday, feature billions of dollars in spending cuts for schools, healthcare institutions and entitlement programs and they greatly reduce the dependent credit that Californians may claim on their income taxes.

They also include an increase of the state sales tax by 1 percentage point, and a doubling of the vehicle license fee to 1.15 percent. In lieu of the gasoline tax increase loathed by Mr. Maldonado, residents here will see their personal income tax rates raised by one-quarter of a percentage point. The package also relies on federal stimulus dollars to get through the year.

The lengthy debate over how to address the budget crisis that has befallen the state because of the national recession -- huge numbers of home mortgages have gone into foreclosure and a host of past stopgap budget measures have come home to roost in the form of large debt payments -- has not been without cost.

As legislators fought, hundreds of state workers were put on unpaid furloughs, scores of infrastructure programs were halted, counties went without checks from the state and tax refunds were not issued to citizens. Republican state senators also ousted their leader, and the governor failed to find the allies he needed.

Still, there are at least two winners in the budget package. Small businesses will be given tax breaks, as will some parts of the movie industry, which has long maintained that the state's onerous tax burdens caused it to move shooting elsewhere. Both sets of tax breaks were big victories for Republican lawmakers.

The new taxes are set to last for two years, but could be extended another two years if voters approve a permanent spending cap in a referendum on May 19. The open-primary measure -- which could cover state legislators and members of Congress from the state -- also needs voter approval, and is set to go on the ballot in June 2010.

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