Fresh from his defeat at the polls, Governator Ahnold is in D.C. with his new “strange bedfellows,” the liberal fat cats running the federal government, with his hands out begging for TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds to save California from bankruptcy.

As with General Motors and Chrysler, however, the very best solution for California’s woes is just that–bankruptcy–following state voters’ sound rejection yesterday of ballot measures to raise taxes and restore funding to schools while raiding future lottery funds, etc., etc. You know, your typical Democratic schemes to raise ever more money to satisfy their public employee and teacher union backers’ demands, all in the guise of saving government services (an oxymoron if I ever heard one).

Wait, you say, isn’t Ahnold a Republican? Not really, before he slept with the Obamacrats, he started sleeping with California Democrats following his previous attempt to balance the budget in 2005, when he was trashed by union dollars and demonized in the public eye by nameless teachers’ warning on TV about: “Oh, our poor children. They’ll be denied education, health care, their parents’ love, and the very air they breathe if we balance the budget.”

Now, as with the two car makers, Schwarzie, once he gets his handout, will be endlessly repeating his famous movie line, “I’ll be back,” as he tries hopelessly to provide Californians everything free with no new taxes–at federal taxpayers’ expense.

Which is what California voters seem to want. They keep voting into power Democrats with their endless grabbag of gifts and tricks, but then refuse (rightly) to let the government tax them to death to pay for their freebies (which, as a California resident, I certainly can’t find anywhere). So it’s now fed dollars or nothing since the tax-crats in the state legislature will never agree to balance the budget, which would mean laying off thousands and thousands of their precious unionized supporters.

California used to be a sensible state. Voters passed Proposition 13, which stripped away government’s power to capriciously raise taxes ever year to match ever-rising public employee union wage and benefit demands. At the same time, they approved the Gann Amendment, which capped spending and created a true rainy-day fund.

As with all things sensible, however, the unions found a way to get around and then rid of responsible governing, so the Gann Amendment fell to teachers’ union conniving through stealth ballot propositions designed to gut the government coffers.

Anyway, you get the picture: Whenever unions take charge, destruction and bankruptcy ain’t far behind. Witness Detroit. Witness California.