The current budget crisis was mostly caused by enthusiastic politicians who believed that the surge of tax income would last forever, and went nuts in the candy store.

However, the illegal alien inflow, added to the increase in population in general (4.1 million over the past ten years, or about ten times the population increase of Pennsylvania over the same time) does help to give California chronic financial problems that do not affect many other smaller states. Those millions of newcomers get access to schools, medical care, and state services. And nobody in Sacramento wants to deny anyone anything.

Of course, most are also hard workers, and end up productive citizens, not burdens. Ideally, the net result would be a plus for California. But there is an endless supply of new ones trying to get their piece of the pie.

I just get a bit tired of snide comparisons between small states and large, populous ones. Listening to Howard Dean bragging about how he balanced the budget in a state with less population than the city of San Francisco falls into that category, as do the ever-popular comparsons between social and other problems in America and those in tiny nations like Switzerland, or nearly monocultural ones like Sweden.

The simplistic libertarian solution is open borders, and no welfare programs. Easy to say, just like the demand from some conservatives that we just "round up" all the illegals and deport them is easy to say. The real world, the one we have to work in right now, is much more complicated. Ramping down services to illegals would help, but it's a tough sell in a Democratic state.

It may be past time to take another look at the Constitutional provision that makes anyone born here, no matter what the parentage, a citizen. Originally, this was to protect freed slaves and their children, but that was long ago, and I think the concept needs some reworking. It's being seriously abused.