Michael Hiltzik on why California — and its Republican governor — should stop looking to the feds for a bailout.

Favorite line:

In a letter to the state’s congressional delegation last week seeking a $6.9-billion federal handout, the governor said “California lawmakers have done nearly everything that can be done to address this historic fiscal crisis.” This is true, if you define “nearly everything that can be done” as “almost nothing.”

We’ve had years of “almost nothing” now, and there’s plenty of blame to spread around for that. My hope is that California’s budget is now so thoroughly broken that the next class of elected leaders will be forced to fix it. Perhaps they could start by rebuilding the car tax that Arnold Schwarzenegger  demolished — which took $6 billion annually out of the state treasury, which is a big part of what knocked the budget out of balance. And a little reform of the prison-industrial complex would help too.

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