Feds to bail out California? Count on it!

The Sacramento Bee noticed that California's revenue dropped slightly last month, while state spending--you just know how this sentence will end, without even looking, right?--"unexpectedly" rose. ("Unexpectedly" is what Dem/leftist headlines say when some economic news is bad--when such news was expected by everyone over the age of 12. It's a standing joke over at Ace's place.)

Anyway, some of the Bee's 1500-odd readers noticed the story, and a few commented.

It's a pretty amusing assortment, about equally divided between clueless lib/Dems, who suggest the legislature increase gubmint spending and taxes, and another half who obviously aren't gubmint employees. Here's one of the latter:

California spends $34B a year on social programs and welfare queens. We have 12% of the country's population but account for 35% of the nation's welfare spending.

We spend $40B a year on common education but are at the bottom of the nation in test scores and have a 30% drop out rate. And 30% of those that DO graduate from high school can't pass a standard high school equivalency exam.

Oh, and we spend $11B a year on services for illegal immigrants.

Woof! Haven't tried to verify the numbers, but needless to say the pitchforks and brickbats started flying at this guy.

Now I realize that 88% of you do not live in CA and consider stories about the state's financial woes pretty insignificant to your lives. But consider this:

Pelosi and company just rushed the House back from what's normally a full month of recess to pass a bill giving $26 Billion of your tax dollars to...actually it's hard to say fer shure because the bill is officially named "The ___ Act of ___." Yes, with the blanks.

No, I'm not kidding. (Here's the story.)

Okay, I'm kidding about us not knowing where that $26 Billion is gonna go: to teachers' unions and some municipalities, to cover shortfalls and enable the favored recipients to avoid laying off teachers, cops, firemen, etc. These groups get their salaries subsidized because...well, it's just the right thing to do, I guess.

Surely it can't be because they're overwhelmingly Democrat contributors, supporters and voters, can it? Because I can't imagine that passing any sort of Constitutional test.

Bwahahahahahahaha! Yeah, that was funny, thinking the Dems would worry for a millisecond about violating the Constitution. I'm pretty sure the motto of the Dem party is "If we do it, it's legal."

But I digress. The relevance of CA is that they voted for Obama. And the state has two Dem senators who've been up there forever and have lots of seniority. So Obama and the Congressional Dem leadership aren't about to let the state get hit with any significant layoffs of public-sector employees.

If the Dems in Congress can pass a bill to pay $26 Billion to teachers nationwide, passing another $26 Billion--or $30 Billion or $50 Billion--to keep the nation's largest state government from imploding for another year won't be any big deal.

And if they get away with that, why not bail out, oh, Michigan next? Then how about...Hey Valerie, where's that list of the 57 states again?