"You can't handle the truth!"

I can’t figure out the appeal of California. As a former Floridian who has visited the Golden State several times, I thought the oranges tasted funny, the sunshine was the wrong color, and Disneyland was at best a prototype for the real theme park at Disney World.

On the down side, California suffers from earthquakes, mudslides, raging forest fires, occasional civil insurrection, and ridiculously expensive real estate. And the traffic is hellacious.

Now the state appears to be in complete meltdown. After the voters soundly rejected a mixed bag of referendums that raised taxes, redirected earmarked funds, and sold off assets, the state is announcing big cuts to try and balance the budget shortfall that approaches $24 billion. California may become the first state to declare bankruptcy.

In the middle of all this, the state’s finance director, Mike Genest, made the following extraordinary statement during a conference call with reporters last Friday:

“Government doesn’t provide services to rich people. It doesn’t even really provide services to the middle class.” He added: “You have to cut where the money is.”

Now, I’m sure Mr. Genest’s intention was to explain why the proposed budget cuts were hitting low income residents so hard. No doubt he was trying to answer a question along the lines of “Why do all of the cuts seem to target poor people?” or “Is this political payback because poor people tend to vote Democratic, and the governor is Republican?” Something like that.

As a middle class taxpayer, I interpret Mr. Genest’s statement a little differently:

“If you’re in the upper or middle class, you are not going to get your money’s worth from the state government. Never have, never will. Yeah, we’ve been screwing you out of your taxes right along. You got a problem with that?”

Kudos to Mr. Genest for his refreshing honesty, but if I was a California taxpayer I’d be a little bent right now.