As the current economic crisis gains momentum the world over, California’s very own state funding panic is spawning desperate and unorthodox tactics by its various agencies. These childish tugs-of-war, sadly, are often waged under the banner of public health and safety.

Last month, the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District finally got nearly $28,000 in fines out of Sacramento State for minor permit violations dating back to the summer of 2006, according to last week’s State Hornet.

The various branches and agencies of government in California are now locked in a sort of death match; State and City cannibalizing each other in the face of fiscal starvation. It’s every bureaucracy for itself as the piggy banks start showing their ribs.

The meltdown of the economic sector showcased a system gone wrong, a system where an imaginary ‘sure thing’ could make or break the world economy; the federal bailout of the responsible parties has sucked the land dry and left the under-funded to fight for dominance in the Thunderdome left in its path.

The current dollar value of the federal bailout now exceeds the combined cost of the Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, the race to land on the moon, the Savings and Loan bailout, Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars, the New Deal and the lifetime budget for NASA. You read that correctly. Oh, and that’s after adjusting for inflation.

It’s no small wonder that a metropolitan bureaucracy would have no problem working for more than two years to grab a hold of what amounts to a sizable morsel from a state university. This comes across as an insulting blow to a school already forced to raise tuition, in an economy when Cal Grants may be replaced by IOUs scrawled on cocktail napkins by as early as next month.

There’s something to be said for environmental protection, under its many guises and for its many purposes. I do my part, leaving an almost negligible carbon footprint; I can’t afford a car. In light, however, of the massive fiscal implosion goosing governments and frisking people the world over, couldn’t the minutiae of policy be put aside – even if temporarily – to help ensure the survival of the organism? Could meticulous environmental legislation be considered, now, by the light of the burning pile of money dwindling to embers in the national treasury?

The air quality district, I should say, hasn’t limited its extortion to public schools and middle-class families. The fine levied against Sac State was part of a block of three fines for similar violations from roughly the same period of time totaling $65,000. This included Sam’s Club and another retailer -though, for only a single day’s violation, Sac State paid the lion’s share of the total bill. A press release issued by the air quality district Thursday described a $350,000 fine against the Rite Aid Corporation for selling a windshield wiper fluid, recently declared unsuited for non-mountainous regions. It also advises that wood smoke is a horrible, toxic pollutant to be avoided; I don’t know that it has not gone mad with power and eco-righteousness.

That’s what we’re in now, in California especially: cannibal culture. All levels of government are devouring each other’s extremities, gnawing on the skulls of discount retailers; all of them siphoning the plasma of the general public.

The air quality district is hardly the only bureaucracy looking to make a quick several thousand bucks off of the citizenry. The federal Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act goes into effect Tuesday, requiring that “each and every item intended for children under the age of 12 be tested for lead and phthalates.”

This could pose a serious problem for retailers of children’s clothing, toys and school supplies both artisanal and second hand; the testing required is a costly per-item expense necessary to prove that these items have been made according to 2009 environmental regulations – applied retroactively. This would effectively limit the available options for the consumer of dwindling or nonexistent income needing to clothe their child or provide a modicum of hand-made charm. This is a serious blow to the consumer – again given the flimsy pretense of environmental protection.

This is hardly a time to be quibbling about the environmental minutiae of hand-me-downs, or of minor transgressions by a state college preparing for the coming year. While climate change and the typical American’s contribution to it are, and should be of paramount concern, shouldn’t the intervening cataclysm be first addressed? Shouldn’t the short-term survival of our most vital institutions take some small precedence to the paying of fines to city administrators?

Cody Bishop can be reached at [email protected]