When the levee breaks

The banks are getting nervous about taking IOUs from Sacramento.

Who can blame them? There's a $24 billion $26.3 billion chasm separating what California's politicians want to spend this year on one hand and the allowance California's taxpayers are willing to give them on the other.

Those politicians continue to handle the situation in typical politician style -- in other words, like one of those poorly behaved three-year-olds you see at the store. You know, the kid with a toy in each hand, writhing around on the floor and screaming bloody murder when mommy says he has to pick one and put the other back on the shelf.

Federal bailout? I don't friggin' think so.

Handing over $24 billion and one of those big rainbow lollipops to one state, no questions asked, isn't going to play well with the other 49 states. Dead on arrival in Congress because those other 49 states have Representatives and Senators, too.

Round-filed at the White House as well -- even if Obama is personally inclined to go all "unitary executive" on the matter, he knows damn well that if he bails out one state he'll have 49 other governors lined up outside the Oval Office carrying burlap sacks they'll expect him to fill with cash.

Besides, the federal government's own "budget gap" is in the trillions, and its IOUs aren't as attractive as they used to be either.

Yep, Arnold's definitely got his teat in a wringer on this one. He's probably kicking himself silly for getting himself into this whole Governator thing.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good, Bubba. Sooner or later -- and with this development it looks like "sooner" -- the politicians are going to have to either cut back on their spending addiction or else assert some kind of arbitrary "emergency power" to turn the people of California upside down and shake more change out of their pockets.

[follow this topic at memeorandum]