As a public service to the rest of the country, who may well be disgusted with their own state governments, Wonks Anonymous would like to provide an update on the California budget crisis. Which crisis has gotten to the point where we may well be issuing IOUs as payment to our creditors.

And having vetoed partial measures, a set of major cuts that would have prevented this, our fearless Governator has called the Democratic leadership into his office to tell them his new demands for budget cuts and cuts in state employee pensions plus a 5% levy - not a tax because it does not have any impact on the rich - on Hospitals that provide care to people who have government health coverage.

All ideas that Schwarzenegger and his Republican friends have been trying to put into effect since he was first elected governor.

Meanwhile Carla Marinucci of the SF Comical provides us with this penetrating analysis of the reason for our budget crisis:

— Partisanship: California's gerrymanderedlegislative districts tend to protect incumbents and encourage morepolitical extremes - Republicans on the right and Democrats on the leftwith less incentive to reach out to the political middle, much lesscompromise at the Capitol.

Which would be right except that the California Democratic party is all about compromise. It has repeatedly proposed budgets with major cuts in all state services and payments, shown itself willing to borrow education funds to take us through the current crisis and so on and so forth.

The California Democratic party even added tax cuts for Hollywood and international corporations to the budget package this spring to please the Governor and Republicans.

Meanwhile the Republicans, who control slightly more than one third of the legislator, have simply refused to allow any more increases in taxes or fees. That would include a fee on oil extracted in the state similar to the fees that make Alaska such an example of good government. Instead they are just going through their wish list of government cuts or, even better, asserting that their are some cuts out there somewhere.

It is the experience of Wonks Anonymous that California Democrats have no incentive to please their constituents because they know they can be re-elected simply by being the lesser of two evils.