Bailout bug hits some, not all, states

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger deserves credit for saying he won't ask the federal government to financially help California “before we have straightened out our own fiscal mess.”

Those might be comforting words for those of us opposed to local government being financed from Washington, with the inevitable strings attached. Considering how the governor and Legislature are doing so far, California's fiscal mess may never get straightened out.

But if Gov. Schwarzenegger some how mistakenly concludes California has straightened out its fiscal mess, he will certainly go hat in hand to Washington, seeking federal dollars for California uses. This is not reassuring, considering that only two years ago the governor did mistakenly pronounce the state's budget woes solved. Since then, California's been consistently in the red.

New California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass pushed the notion of a federal bailout in recent weeks, but has since sounded more like Gov. Schwarzenegger, stressing the need to get “our house in order” before asking for federal help.

A more principled approach would be that of Texas Gov. Rick Perry and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who emphatically complain about federal money to pay for state responsibilities.

In a jointly written column Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, governors Perry and Sanford chastised, “a bailout mentality where we look to government rather than ourselves for solutions.”

This year and next, 41 states are expected to have budget shortfalls, none greater than California's, which is projected to be $28 billion within a year and a half. The National Governors Association has asked for a variety of aid from the new administration in Washington.

On Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama said he is ready to offer states aid, but added, “We're not as a nation going to keep being able to print money.”

It is fiscal suicide for states to turn to Washington to make up operational shortfalls that ultimately result from bad management and overspending at the state level. Worse yet, every dime Washington doles out in bailouts is borrowed money. Accelerating federal bailouts accomplishes little, but buries “future generations under mountains of debt,” as Gov. Perry and Gov. Sanford wrote.