20,000 California employees will be laid off today due to the fiscal crisis there. And the Republicans in the state legislature are pulling the same tricks the congressional Republicans pulled on the recovery bill -- demanding concessions on the budget, and when they get what they want, they pledge to vote 'no' anyway. Hilzoy:
They need three (3) Republican votes in each house. They can't get them. And this despite the fact that the Republicans who have been negotiating have gotten a lot, including, according to the LATimes, "tax breaks for corporations".
Really. I am not making this up. With the state budget $41 billion in deficit, Republicans held out for corporate tax cuts, and then aren't even supporting the resulting bill.
Meanwhile, they're demanding that various infrastructure projects be shut down, then restarted when the crisis subsides.
According to Calitics (h/t), it will cost California $191 million to shut the projects down, and $192 million to start them back up again once a deal is struck. So shutting down the government will mean spending nearly $400 million of taxpayers' money for nothing, and all in the name of fiscal responsibility.
It's clear what the Republicans are doing. They're deliberately sabotaging the economy in order to complain about the economy in 2010.