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(Doing an homage to "The Scream" would have been too on-the-money)

California in 1981 - with a budget surplus from only a few years earlier now gone and an economy getting ready to circle the drain, Governor Jerry Brown offered a bleak assessment for the future in his characteristically short State Of The State Address (a whopping 10 minutes), while trying to maintain an upbeat facade. The big hope was Silicon Valley and the burgeoning Tech sector. Remember, in 1981 personal computers were just starting to gain a toehold in our culture and the promise of the Internet was still a few years away.

Looking back at this State of The State I don't think anyone had a clue just how bad it was going to get.

Gov. Brown:

“As I see it, 1981 is a year of testing. Testing our capacity to live within a stringent budget. More than ever we need the cooperation of both parties. From an historic vantage point, we’ve reached a watershed. For the first time since World War 2 state government spending will clearly not keep pace with inflation.”

Even more difficult to imagine 1981 being considered "pretty okay" by current standards. I wonder if we'll feel that way about 2009.

Among other places, I write at Calitics, the progressive site covering California politics. This is often a punishing experience. Since 1978, Proposition 13 has tilted the very structure of government in an unassailably conservative direction - 2/3 votes are needed to raise taxes, but only a simple majority to cut. As a result, politicians invariably take the path of least resistance, and as the Norquistian right rose to prominence in the state GOP, they learned that they could simply hijack the budget process for their own ends. State leaders compensated with borrowing and various gimmicks to put off the costs until after they left office. Servicing the debt became a bigger and bigger slice of the budget pie. Stakeholders who couldn't rely on the state used the ridiculously easy initiative process to pass unfunded spending mandates for themselves and all sorts of ballot-box budgeting. In good times, this uneasy balance worked... sort of. In even the most mild recessions, it would collapse.

That sets the stage for yesterday's horrendous budget deal, which closes a $26 billion dollar deficit with almost no new revenue, making steep cuts that amount to a reinvention of government's promises to its people, along with the usual gimmickry and a harsh, counter-productive set of raids on local government resources.

A local government official made a comment Monday afternoon, a few hours before the $25 billion deficit deal was reached, that seems to encapsulate everyone's feelings.

"As this budget hits the street today and people look at it," said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, "I think Californians are going to say, 'How did we get in this mess?'"

It relies on about $15.5 billion in cuts and $11 billion in, well, other stuff (more on that in a moment).

Almost two-thirds of the cuts are in K-12 education, colleges, and universities (though it also includes a one-time supplemental payment to K-12 and community colleges of $11.2 billion). Other sizeable cuts are in corrections ($1.2 billion), state worker salaries ($1.3 billion in the current furloughs) and Medi-Cal services ($1.3 billion). Welfare assistance, health care for low-income kids, and in-home support services (IHSS) would also see cuts.

Also cut: funding for state parks, though nowhere near the level Governor Schwarzenegger proposed in May. Legislative staffers say a few parks would close, and the ones in question will be picked by the
administration.

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(Gann and Jarvis - the boys you can thank your IOU for today)

With California circling the economic drain, it's interesting to consider where this chaos all started. A little populist movement called "Prop 13" that captured the anger of California in 1978 and plunged us into the stone age as the result. It all centered around property taxes, placing a cap of 1% of the property's value as taxable. The anger centered around tax revenues being redistributed to other communities, rather than the community where the tax was being levied, not to mention tax rates increasing for everyone, not just new home buyers. The fear card was played that older home owners would be forced to sell their homes because tax rates would increase to the point of bankruptcy for most, and certainly this became the rallying cry.

The effect was almost instant, with a $5 billion dollar surplus evaporating in a short time with services and education funds slashed to practically nonexistent. Since it has been written into it's constitution, California has slid into depression almost continuously since then.

And Prop 13 has become the infamous "third rail" by which no one dares question - challenges to the laws validity have been struck down by the State Supreme Court and politicians caught even breathing Prop 13 revision have been hounded out of office, or threatened with it. The lobby surrounding the Prop 13 movement has a vice grip on the state legislature. So any thought of revision or modification is ignored.

But on June 9, 1978 the news was pretty much like it is now. Only now we have 31 years of failure to look at.

And we're left scratching our heads.