The Washington Post this morning reports that "California Democrats will assume pivotal roles in the new Congress and White House, giving the state an outsize influence over federal policy and increasing the likelihood that its culture of activist regulation will be imported to Washington," or as Senator Boxer puts it "It's like the EPA has been asleep for eight years. The Californians are coming to wake the sleeping beauty."

Now I like California, it is a beautiful state full of wonderful people, but let's not overlook their:

• "deepening budget crisis shows no end"
• "epidemic of home foreclosures"
• "schools started off ranked 46th in per-pupil spending in the United States this year." and if budget cuts are made they will be "dead last and trying to meet the highest educational standards in state history with the lowest funding in the nation."

Regarding the California method of management, let's look first at water:

"In water, as in many other areas, California abounds in governing bodies...To facilitate distribution, California has a long history of large and costly water projects, with more on the horizon, at a time when the state does not abound in money and its credit rating is low...A major impediment to water transfers is “the significant amount of red tape involved in arranging a transfer."

And then to their environmental plans which are presented as:

"a riskless "free lunch" for Californians.  These economic models predict that this regulation will offer us a "win-win" of much lower greenhouse gas emissions and increased economic growth," but upon examination: "the economic analysis is terribly deficient in critical ways and should not be used by the State government or the public for the purpose of assessing the likely costs of CARB’s plans."

California will undoubtedly have an outsized role in the next Congress, starting of course with economic stimulus:

"California is broke and cannot afford thousands of public works projects, but Uncle Sam could be riding to the rescue..."I believe the funds should go to the places that have the toughest times right now," said Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. For Boxer and her Golden State colleagues, of course, that means California."

Now we strongly support infrastructure as stimulus, but until we get the economy turned around maybe we should think twice before allowing the white knights from California to unsheathe their sword of "activist regulation," lest the creators of jobs and wealth in this country suffer "death by a thousand cuts - skillfully applied to keep the victim on the edge of death; alive just long enough to extort the final drop of blood money."