California Future's Day of Infamy

Assuming the reported California state budget deal is announced today, July 20 becomes a day that will live in infamy. Robert Cruikshank wrote Sunday at Calitics: "And so the budget drama hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Democrats have caved and given Arnold Schwarzenegger what he wanted - a cuts-only budget that does massive and lasting damage to the state of California, to the people who live here, and to our collective future. It's taken 31 years, but Howard Jarvis is finally going to get the wholesale destruction of public services he always wanted."

David Dayen followed up at Calitics with a post titled A Complete Blindness to Long-Term Consequences, and I name the class, age and race victims at American Dash.

The irony is that this is happening when we finally have a President who understands the self-destructive stupidity of this course, and is trying to reverse it. Less than ironic is the likelihood that other states will copy this approach in their own budget crises. In the short run, the Terminator's deal may well counteract or at least weaken any economic stimulus in California resulting from federal action. Dayden writes: By siphoning off almost $1 billion in gas tax funds slated for cities and counties, not one pothole in California will get filled this year. With the loss of $1.7 billion in redevlopment funds, not one project like affordable housing will get initiated. And by taking $1.3 billion in local property taxes, lots of city and county employees, particularly in public safety, will end up out of work. It's really robbery on a pretty grand scale, and it will offset any economic recovery through stimulus funding throughout the state. "

It's also going to cause immediate chaos, especially in education. But in the long term, this budget deeply wounds the California future, and thereby the American future.

Update: The deal was announced late in the day, though not in detail. Meanwhile, another piece on how these cuts will end up costing California more later, and these are just the direct financial costs.