California’s economy is the seventh richest in the world, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s draconian 2008-2009 budget calls for 10 percent across-the-board cuts that inevitably hit the most vulnerable among us the hardest

Among other things, services to the poor will be slashed, some state parks will be closed, including both Will Rogers and Topanga in this area, thousands of “non-violent” inmates in state prisons will be released, public transit funding will be reduced, and, of course, school budgets will be cut and Proposition 98 will be suspended.

Why is the seventh richest economy In the world unable to care for its poor and disabled and give its children a first-rate education? Is the state capital inhabited exclusively by twits and scrooges? Are they all in thrall to special interests? Are they corrupt? Or would they rather reduce the golden state to a vast junkyard than raise taxes?

Whatever the basis for our so-called leaders’ unwillingness or inability to do the right thing, it is inexcusable and intolerable. And residents should not tolerate another year of this fiscal assault and battery.