California Budget Datapoint

This one has probably been around for s while, but it's a new one on me:

To be sure, none of the GOP lawmakers who demanded that the state close its $42-billion shortfall without raising taxes detailed the doomsday cuts that approach would entail, nor did the activists who lobbied against the tax increases. If the state had laid off its entire workforce of 238,000 -- every prison guard, firefighter and clerk -- it still would have fallen billions shy of a balanced budget.

I suppose it's disingenuous in the respect that the state budget is more than salaries. And a sensible defender of spending knows how to threaten the most visible, crippling, generally horrendous budget cuts imaginable (the librarian will threaten to close during the busiest hours, or to cancel all email accounts).

But the flipside is equally true: I have never yet met a budget-cutter active in electoral politics who will offer a detailed and candid account of just how much he will cut, and where (possible exception: Tom McClintock).