February 1 has come andgone, and the California government has not yet shut down.

Walkingaround the typical California town, one could even go so far as tosay that things feel exactly the same way they did before February 1.

Why February 1, you might be asking?

Whilemost of California and the nation was transfixed this week on whetherthe $789 billion federal stimulus package was going to be approved inWashington, another drama -- no less important to Californians -- wasplaying out in Sacramento.

The economic scholar Ronald Coase once characterized themarket as "islands of butter in a pail of buttermilk." Similarly,President Obama's stimulus package could be characterized as islands of sensein an ocean of politics-as-usual. And one of those islands happens,fortunately, to be the Congress's efforts to remove $70 billion from thealternative minimum tax, a cruelly designed trap for the successful, with theexpress purpose of maximizing bracket creep while minimizing upward mobility.

The percapita income in Californiawas $33,749 in 2005, according to U.S. Census Bureau Data.

If thealternative minimum tax fix that expired in December isn't renewed, taxpayersmaking as little as $30,000 to $50,000 could be hit by a levy aimed 40 yearsago at making sure the creative and well-heeled pay up, according to the TaxPolicy Center.

$70 billion is the magic number being floated right now by Congressional memberstrying to push along the federal government stimulus package throughboth houses of Congress with bipartisan support. Those billions wouldgo toward fixing a terribly flawed system known as the AlternativeMinimum Tax. By Wednesday, Congressional leaders announced a middleground, of a stimulus plan with a price tag of $789 billionrather than the previous bills costing upwards of $800 billion -$1 trillion.

In the endlessstream of panicked budgetary suggestions, there is one area which oftenreceives the most unpleasant amounts of irrational hatred from itsopponents, and which spawns the greatest number of guilt-basedarguments from its proponents. That area is California's educationbudget, a massive, Leviathan entity which consumes more than 40 percent ofCalifornia's budget.

Businesseslargeand small loathe it.

The nation's giggling about it, though everyone'smissing a much better laugh line in South Dakota's proposed tax on rodeo clowns.

The People of the State of California hereby find and declare all of the following:

(a) Purpose. The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act is hereby adopted by the people of California to protect and preserve the right of every Californian to vote for the candidate of his or her choice.

The impending budget cataclysm, having drawn all the politicalcourage it possibly can out of California's politicians, has now begunproducing the much-less-desirable opposite reaction: namely, panic.

They say we now live a "post-partisan" world.

The phrase implies that in 2009 we have all risen to a practical,solutions-based approach to politics that flies above your gardenvariety partisan rancor.

I'm not so sure.