When is a budget not a budget? When it's the California Republicans' specious proposal for cutting $22 billion in state spending. The Times editorial board today explains the difference between the GOP's offer and a real attempt to negotiate:

The problem with the $22-billion GOP plan as a starting point is that it doesn't bring the state the cash it needs today. Instead, it's in some sense a shopping list of things the party's lawmakers wish hadn't happened over the last 10 years.

The board urges Washington to give General Motors and Chrysler some short-term help, then come up with a better reason not to let the companies go into Chapter 11. It also calls on California to implement the recommendations in the state EPA's "Green Chemistry" report.

On the Op-Ed side of the ledger, former Screen Actors Guild President Melissa Gilbert exhorts fellow thespians to vote against authorizing a strike. A work stoppage in the midst of a recession is not just a "foolhardy" idea, Gilbert writes, but also a move SAG simply can't afford:

The cost of the current negotiations, which have dragged on since the spring, must be approaching $1 million. The guild reports that it has about $48 million in reserves, but nearly every penny is already allocated for operating costs. Where are the millions more needed to fund a strike, including the staff overtime and travel expenses that are inevitable?

Columnist Tim Rutten looks peers into the staggeringly large Ponzi scheme allegedly perpetrated by Bernie Madoff, a regulated securities broker-dealer, and sees -- gasp! -- the bitter fruits of deregulation. Hmm. I thought Madoff was accused of perpetrating much of the fraud during the years Eliot Spitzer -- Wall Street's self-appointed regulator-in-chief -- was New York's crusading attorney general. Perhaps Spitzer needed more rules in the securities rulebook. Or maybe he was just distracted?

Rounding out the day's brother-can-you-spare-a-dime theme, physician Jan Gurley, who treats homeless patients in San Francisco, calls on the better off among us to spread some holiday cheer to those living on the streets:

When you personally give a gift to a homeless person, you aren't playing Santa -- you are Santa. I'm a doctor who treats the homeless, and I can promise you, no one else is likely to drop off a present out of the blue to the huddle of human misery you pass by every day.

At a loss for what to give a stranger who has nothing and needs everything? Check out Gurley's suggestions here.

AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli