Let 'em starve

California smokes its own seed corn:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama signed a memorandum Monday requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider an application by California to set more stringent auto emissions and fuel efficiency standards than required by federal law.

If the EPA grants a waiver allowing California to set its own emissions standards, the nation's largest state will be allowed to require automakers to produce trucks and cars that get better mileage than what is required under the current national standard.

With California and any number of its counties and municipalities facing economic doom, it is somehow heartening to see that they are still attempting to make it harder for companies* to do business there. Obama is making half the right decision in letting states set their own standards**; that California will use that freedom to inconvenience and disemploy even more of its citizens shows that they know how to make decisions as well, the consequences of which they ought to be left to deal with on their own.

Of course, they'll surely receive a bailout*** like everyone else. But the obstinacy with which they cling to poor decisions means that if anyone has a chance to outstupid even the current spending spree and really, really suffer, it just might be California.

* And car manufacturers, no less.

** The other and more important half would be to let states lower - or completely opt out of - such regulations.

*** It's not their fault that they are bankrupt. I mean, who could have known what would happen if they spent so much more than they took in?