The well runs dry

On Tuesday, California voters soundly rejected five Rube Goldberg ballot measures designed to keep the state solvent through the rest of the year.

The measures, which would have prolonged tax increases, earmarked money for education and involved the state in a complex borrowing scheme against its lottery, were rejected by roughly 60 percent of those who voted, leaving California with a $21 billion hole to fill.

The central measure, Proposition 1A, would have increased the state's rainy day fund and restricted spending in future years. But it was doomed because it extended several temporary taxes. Proposition 1B, which was connected to 1A, would have required $9.3 billion to be "paid to education" to make up for "shortfalls" in spending levels set by a voter-approved proposition in 1988.

The one measure to pass, barring legislators and constitutional officers including the governor from receiving pay raises when the state is running a deficit, was approved by a whopping 75 percent.

"Now we must move forward from this point to begin to address our fiscal crisis with constructive solutions," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

By Thursday, the governor had announced plans to lay off 5,000 of the state's 235,000 workers and proposed trimming spending on the public schools by up to $5 billion, selling state properties, borrowing $2 billion from local governments, and possibly reducing eligibility for tax-funded health care programs.

It's a start.

California is overwhelmingly Democratic. So what happened to the latest blithe assumption -- widely heard in Carson City, these days -- that when voters "go Democrat" they're embracing every tax hike and boost in government spending anyone can dream of?

So-called "progressives" now predictably complain that California voters "refuse to help solve the crisis." Nonsense. Californians recently voted by a large margin to cut off all state aid and benefits to illegal aliens, which would have saved billions. A lone federal judge wiggled his pinky and declared the voters have no power to withhold such tax succor.

Sacramento has made spending other people's money a science. There's no shortage of tax revenues -- the ruling class just got used to assuming it was a bottomless well.

How about getting rid of free college education now available; making state employees fund their own health insurance, just like private-sector taxpayers; or laying off 30,000 state workers, not 5,000 -- most from "social services"?

Instead, watch for California officials to close parks, pools and beaches this summer, in steps designed not so much to save money as to make taxpayers cry "uncle."

They just can't believe the money river will ever run dry.