×
One of the periodic blots on the New York Times' relatively good name is its Breakingviews.com column. Even by its usual abysmal standards, today’s entry is a doozy. Talking about California’s fiscal woes, the authors -- Jeff Segal and Martin Hutchinson -- conclude that:
California's only real option is simple. It needs to cut its spending to what is absolutely necessary. This will remove some of the Hollywood glitz from California life for years to come. But it is better than the alternative of defaulting.Hollywood glitz? The spending cuts that the Governator has proposed include ending the state's SCHIP program and the extension of that program to cover parents, which would throw 2 million Californians off the state's health-care rolls with no place else to go. It would end the state's welfare to work program. It would result in the layoff of tens of thousands of teachers, and untold thousands of other public employees. It would increase the state's homeless population by -- well, no one knows by how much, but a conservative guess would be something in the high five figures.
Will the cuts affect life in such centers of Hollywood glitz as Brentwood and Bel Air? Not really. But such centers of California grit as South and East L.A., Oakland (a violent city which is facing major police cutbacks), the San Joaquin Valley, the I-10 corridor to San Bernardino, and countless other places whose population dwarfs that of L.A.'s Westside, will be decimated. The authors of Breakingviews.com might want to think for a nanosecond before they put up their next post.--Harold Meyerson
