There is no kinder way to put this: California is circling the drain right now. The state is struggling to obtain revenue as well as properly fund its myriad of projects, programs and initiatives.
State Controller John Chiang will be sending IOU's to vendors and citizens because the state's coffers are empty.
My credit is better than the state's. That's screwed up.
Every year, our legislators present us rotten garbage masquerading as a state budget. Even more enraging, it's almost always turned in late.
Instead of doing something that would improve California, our lawmakers essentially engage in frottage with their fellow party members while schools deteriorate, and we somehow manage to become a bigger national joke than we already are.
Property value is crashing and burning. The percentage of unemployed workers in California should reach double digits this year. We have used the brightest possible shade of red to paint ourselves into a corner.
We have been shown, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this place we call home cannot be governed. The time has come to divide California into separate states.
I'd have to be doing rails of OxyContin to suggest that splitting California is as simple as hiring a cartographer to redraw some county lines.
We have to address issues such as water allocation, our absurd number of state prisons and our highly dysfunctional school system in order to make a division effort a reality.
Splitting up California is hardly a new concept.
In 1859, Assemblyman Andres Pico authored Resolution #22. It gave five Southern California counties, including Los Angeles and San Diego, permission to leave California and form their own state.
The proposed legislation made it through the Assembly and Senate, and was even introduced to Congress, but was ultimately killed by the Civil War.
Stan Statham is the president and chief executive officer of the California Broadcasters Association. Prior to that, he served as an Assemblyman for 18 years and was also a television news anchor in Chico.
In the early 1990s, he proposed legislation to divide California in three.
His bill coasted through the Assembly but never made it out of the Senate Rules Committee.
Statham said he wants to split California up for a simple reason: "Because it's fair."
He blames outdated tax codes and mandated funding for putting California in a "financial straightjacket."
"Even if the governor and legislators never came to town, 90 percent of the budget is earmarked," Statham said.
His outlook for the future of California is grim.
"The best you can hope for is continuing budget gridlock," he said when asked where he pictured the state five years from now.
Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State, schooled me on the finer points of our public finance system and how to best fix ourselves without dividing the state.
He said that California should change some outdated policies to help its return to prosperity.
Hodson said that our state's biggest handicap is our "totally dysfunctional public finance system."
Hodson was referring to Proposition 13, an initiative from 1978 that restricted property tax increases, as adversely affecting California's finances. He's also against California being one of three states that requires a supermajority to pass a state budget.
California has rewritten the definition of failure. The Detroit Lions can look at our way of life and feel better about themselves.
Let's face reality. Let's start breaking up into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Jordan Guinn can be reached at [email protected]
