In July of last year, Felix Salmon posted a very useful chart (thanks to Jim Manzi for the pointer) noting which institutions received cash from the cash-strapped California state government and which received IOUs.

People who get California IOUs

Grants to aged, blind or disabled persons

People needing temporary assistance for basic family needs

People in drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services

Persons with developmental disablities

People in mental health treatment

Small Business Vendors

People California pays in cash

University of California

Public Employees’ Retirement System

Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees

Judges

Department of Corrections

Health Care Services payments to Institutional Providers

Think of this as a map of who has power and who does not. Small business owners, the poor, and the disabled are all given near-worthless scraps of paper. Public sector unions, powerful private interests, and a state university system that has great significance for vocal middle and upper-middle-class parents in the state get actual cash.

I’m an optimist. But this chart reveals a broken system, and we can’t rely on Barack Obama or Scott Brown to save us. I’ve been very hard on partisanship from the left lately, but partisanship from the right can be equally counterproductive when it keeps us from confronting the central problem we face, namely a crisis of political irresponsibility. Many of my left-of-center friends and colleagues believe that the health reform proposal and cap-and-trade represent a close approximation of political responsibility. I see gimmicks and giveaways. But the difference between those proposals and the Medicare prescription drug benefit is one of degree, not of kind.

Getting off of this dangerous road is going to be extremely difficult, and I fear that only a handful of elected officials, like Mitch Daniels, actually understand the nature and the scale of the problem. We need more of them. That means, however, that the reflexive cheerleading for politicians who lean heavily on applause lines has to be stopped. The Tea Party movement is an encouraging sign, though I worry that it will just descend into the same old identity politics.