Hundreds of thousands of elderly, blind and disabled Californians and those who care for them will hereafter be treated as common criminals. All of them will have to be fingerprinted, except, thankfully for amputees (I’m surprised Arnold didn’t call for retinal scans for these unfortunates). All care givers will have to get criminal background checks and, unlike state workers and others with far higher incomes, they will have to pay for the background checks themselves.

The reason: The governor’s specious claim that there is “massive” fraud in the IHSS homecare program. During the budget debate, Arnold claimed that some 25 percent of all IHSS claims are fraudulent.

But the figure seems to have been pulled out of thin air. “I’ve never had anyone tell me where that number comes from,” Virginia Bella, the IHSS specialist in the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, told the Sacramento Bee. In fact, repeated investigations, including one conducted by Schwarzenegger’s own “Quality Assurance” survey in 2007, have found the incidence of IHSS fraud in the program to be minimal – 1 percent at most.

Nevertheless, the governor, along with partisan ideologues and ambitious district attorneys have succeeded in branding some of California’s most vulnerable citizens and those who care for them as fraud criminals. And gullible Democrats seeking illusionary budget savings, fell for it hook, line and sinker.

How low California has sunk!