think on this.

Californians object to increasing taxes in order to pare the state’s massive budget deficit, and instead favor closing the breach through spending cuts. But they oppose cuts—and even prefer more spending—on programs that make up 85% of the state’s general fund obligations, a new Los Angeles Times/USC Poll has found. That paradox rests on Californians’ firm belief that the state’s deficit—estimated last week at nearly $25 billion over the next 18 months—can be squared through trimming waste and inefficiencies rather than cutting the programs they hold dear. Despite tens of billions that have been cut from the state budget in recent years, just a quarter of California voters believed that state services would have to be curtailed to close the deficit.

Only one in four voters favored trimming elementary and high schools, which make up almost 42% of state general fund spending. Just over one-third approved of cuts to state colleges and universities, or, separately, to state-financed health care for children or the poor, the poll found. The only state-financed enterprise that voters favored chopping was the prison system, which more than 70% of voters wanted to cut either minimally or by a large amount.

Voters rejected Proposition 21, which would have raised the state’s vehicle license fee by a mere $18 to support California’s beleaguered state park system (which currently has a maintenance backlog of more than $1 billion); they approved Proposition 22, which prevents the state taking transportation monies from local governments and whole bunch of other stealth things to tighten the state’s budget; and most importantly, they approved Proposition 26, another stealth initiative sponsored by Chevron, Philip Morris, and Anheuser-Busch, which erases the distinction between “fees” and “taxes”, might undo this year’s budget deal, further restricts the state’s ability to raise revenue, and probably emasculates the state’s environmental agencies (potentially making the victory in Prop 23 meaningless).

Essentially, then, the voters have given formal political power to the Democrats, and told them to fix the state’s problems. They then have tied the Democrats in a series of straitjackets and thrown them into the Pacific Ocean.

A supplemental appropriations bill that passed the House earlier this month would take $400 million from post-Katrina recovery programs like Road Home in order to fund other projects, including $304 million for Deepwater Horizon-related remediation and investigation. To some Louisiana residents, using any taxpayer money, much less hurricane-relief money, to clean up BP’s oil just adds insult to injury. “Any provisions related to the spill should be paid for by the responsible party,” says Monika Gerhart, director of policy and government relations for the Equity and Inclusion Campaign, a nonpartisan advocacy organization. “We’re not yet recovered. So don’t take our housing money.”

For anyone who hasn’t been to New Orleans lately, here’s an update: It still needs so much work that visitors pay to take “disaster tours.” In a June 7 letter to the House Committee on Appropriations, Louisiana Recovery Authority Chairman David Voelker pleaded that the rescission of already-dedicated rebuilding funds be stricken from the bill. Without them, Voelker estimates, 19,000 homes statewide will go unrestored, nearly 7,000 of them in Orleans Parish. “If you just drive around, you can see the people need it,” says Taylor Henry, communications director for Republican Congressman Anh “Joseph” Cao, whose district includes New Orleans.

Ms. Cerbelli who lost her 30-year-old son, Kevin, on the night of Oct. 25, 1998, and has long hoped to change police training and policy regarding the handling of emotionally disturbed persons, or, in police shorthand, E.D.P.’s. Mr. Cerbelli was incoherent and hostile when he walked, shirtless, into the station house of the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst, carrying a knife, a screwdriver and a rosary. He tried to stab an officer with the screwdriver, but the officer’s bulletproof vest stopped it. Several officers loosely surrounded Mr. Cerbelli in a partial circle, a tactic taught to cadets and generally known as a “zone of safety.” In this and other cases, the zone turned lethal. After officers simultaneously shouted at Mr. Cerbelli to drop his weapons, three of them opened fire, killing him and wounding a lieutenant with a ricochet shot, according to court filings.

The lawsuit, filed in 1999 in United States District Court for the Eastern District, sought $90 million. Instead, Ms. Cerbelli got a two-hour meeting, to take place on or before July 30 at the Police Academy, that her lawyers called unprecedented.

Ms. Cerbelli’s lawsuit initially called for substantive changes to the department’s policy manual, the Patrol Guide. But in 2008, the city won its argument for summary judgment and was removed from the case. Any chance of putting the Patrol Guide on trial also evaporated, leaving Ms. Cerbelli with the prospect of going to trial against two remaining police officers.

Now, with the case settled, there is no guarantee of any changes. The police are not obligated to take any action after the meeting.