California has to lean harder on Obama

The feds should approach California as they did General Motors -- demanding a fundamental restructuring of state finances as a condition for loans. In return for proffering, say, $8 billion in loans, the White House should demand $8 billion in tax hikes and $8 billion in cutbacks. It should also demand changes to the state's Constitution that would upend California's dysfunctional system of finances, sweeping away the two-thirds requirement for passing budgets and raising taxes, restoring local governments' ability to fund themselves through property taxes and putting a stop to budgeting by initiative. The feds' loan could be conditional on the state's voters ratifying these changes in November.

The only way such a measure could pass, of course, would be if a very popular president named Obama campaigned for it.

If that's too much to expect of a president who does have a lot on his plate, there are still other ways the feds could help. As Jean Ross of the California Budget Project has suggested, they could increase the federal contribution to Medi-Cal and the Healthy Families program that the governor is so eager to ax. Alternatively, Obama could ask Congress for a second stimulus that would enable states to maintain their pre-recession levels of services. In a recession, our federal system becomes a marvel of self-negation: While Washington spends to keep the economy from tanking, 50 state capitals cut their spending to match their diminished revenues. If Obama can't help America recover by helping California, he needs to help America recover by helping all 50 states.

But where are the demands on Obama? Where are Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa; Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer; Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman? If we are not for ourselves, who shall be for us? And if not now, when?