Easy money

Why isn't California's financial situation going to get better anytime soon? There's a leftist conspiracy, that's why:

Quite simply, legislators are terrified of angering powerful welfare constituencies, while the media help fuel ignorance about what's been going on.

One pundit, angry at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent proposed trims to Medi-Cal, complained that the cuts are aimed at "programs whose beneficiaries are least able to speak up for themselves."

It's a common media device to utilize the image of the voiceless poor. But in Sacramento, it's nonsense.

To the contrary, social-welfare advocates enjoy the most powerful lobby of all -- public unions that push chronic growth in social welfare. Such growth means more programs, government hiring and bigger union fiefdoms.

The fact that the public doesn't know this, and that some media don't explain it, is a bit scary. Joel Kotkin, senior fellow with Pepperdine University's Institute for Public Policy, recently studied inept economic decisions made by California politicians. Kotkin told me: "The exception is if the California Legislature says 'no' to welfare-expansion demands. Unions and welfare groups are linked at the hip, and the idiots in the Legislature throw money at them, not grasping whether it helps or hurts."

It's way past time for Arnie to do some terminatin'.