Following California’s “tax revolt” and the usual editorials from a dying media sneering at the electorate as tantrum-throwing kindergartners, we now move on to the swimsuit round, in which the Golden State’s woes are federalized and redistributed to the nation at large. In the states’ version of the Obama model for everything from mortgages to credit cards, the feckless will have their pathologies rewarded and the prudent will get stuck with the tab. The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle cuts to the chase:
California is completely, totally, irreparably hosed.
Up next: New York.
As Miss McArdle notes, whether you bail out states “too big to fail” or let them go bankrupt, it will cause pain to taxpayers. But the pain of the latter is relatively short-term. Passing Sacramento’s buck to Washington will accelerate the centralizing pull in American politics and eventually eliminate any advantage to voting with your feet.
Not to be too gloomy, but the country feels like it’s seizing up. It’s as if California and New York have burst their bodices like two corpulent gin-soaked trollops and rolled over the fruited plain to rub bellies at the Mississippi. If you’re underneath, it’s not going to be fun.