Minister of Finance: Here is the Treasury Department’s report, sir. I hope you’ll find it clear.

President of Fredonia Rufus T. Firefly: Clear? Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. (Long pause.) Run out and find me a four-year-old child, I can’t make head or tail of it.“

– From the Marx Brothers’ movie, “Duck Soup.”

The Sacramento Bee just reported there is no progress in reducing a $24 billion budget shortfall. With hours remaining before the newest financial humiliation, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and leaders of the state Legislature continue to talk past each other. Unless common sense makes a surprise appearance between now and midnight, the pauper State of California will begin paying its bills with IOUs.

A few weeks ago, the Economist magazine described California as “the ungovernable state” and the New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman described the state as a “banana republic.”

On this day, we are left with the question: How could a state with so much wealth and talent produce a government so inept – and so isolated from its real-world responsibilities?