The California budget impasse comes to a head one way or the other this week, with state lawmakers needing to make nice by June 30 to close a $24 billion budget gap. If they don't, rating agencies have threatened to downgrade the state's credit ratings.
California's Comptroller said he would begin handing out IOUs on July 2 and the Treasurer said the state will draw on reserves to service the debt of all economic recovery bonds on July 1. (These bonds were created in 2004, when voters gave the state government the authority to raise $15 billion through bond issuance to plug another budget deficit.)
While a slump in real estate and tax revenue are very real factors behind California's disastrous finances, the San Francisco Chronicle also bullet-points more entrenched problems that have made it difficult if not impossible for the state to surmount extreme dysfunction.
-- Partisanship: California's gerrymandered legislative districts tend to protect incumbents and encourage more political extremes - Republicans on the right and Democrats on the left with less incentive to reach out to the political middle, much less compromise at the Capitol.
-- Term limits: Proposition 140, passed in 1990, limits legislators terms to six years in the Assembly and eight in the state Senate.
