Showing posts with label jerry brown. Show all posts
Footloose: California Tries To Ban Raves
Just as it's a myth that Republicans are the "party of Wall Street," it's also a myth that every GOP politician is a prissy-faced blue stocking who wants to "ban" things like rock'n'roll and raves. It was Tipper Gore who founded the notorious PMRC back in the Reagan-Bush era. And it's Democrats Fiona Ma and Jerry Brown who are trying to ban raves in California. Amazing stuff:
Can you ban a style of music? California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma learned the hard way that doing so might not be so easy when she tried to ban electronic rave music.
"We found out later on that, Constitutionally, you can not ban a type of music," said Ma. "Plus, I, like my opponents said, I didn't really know what was going on."
Despite the inability to ban rave music outright, Ma was able to squelch aspects of rave culture like LED gloves and pacifiers by keeping the pressure on event organizers with Assembly Bill 74 (formerly the "Anti-Raves Act" ), which became law on Oct. 9, 2011 when CA Governor Jerry Brown signed it.
The Assemblywoman first became concerned with raves when a 15-year-old girl named Sasha Rodriguez died at the popular Los Angeles rave, The Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC).
Ma's bill only bans some of the accoutrements of raves, although it's hard for me to see how you can "ban" pacifiers. As she discovered to her barely suppressed regret, Ma could not ban music or mass dancing because of the First Amendment. Hmmm. Sounds like some Constitution shredding, not that you'd ever hear about it when speech is suppressed by people with a "D" after their name.
Ma, btw, represents a neighborhood in the supposed hipster haven San Francisco, not that this will do anything to hurt her career. As long as she voted the progressive line, she can legislate in the manner of a "movie Republican" without bearing the consequences that would be visited on a real life Republican who tried to legislate this sort of nonsense.
The Lone Voice: Tom McClintock's Warning To America
Hard as it may be to believe, there are conservative Republicans in California. A few of them have even managed to win elections here and there. One of the best is Congressman Tom McClintock who gave a speech recently that was essentially a warning: if you re-elect Obama, America, your future will look like California's present:
Bad policies. Bad process. Bad politics. Those are the three acts in a Greek tragedy that tell the tale of how, in the span of a single generation, the most prosperous and golden state in the nation became an economic basket case.
When my parents came to California in the 1960’s looking for a better future, they found it here. The state government consumed about half of what it does today after adjusting for both inflation and population. HALF. We had the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country. California offered a FREE university education to every Californian who wanted one. We produced water and electricity so cheaply that some communities didn’t bother to meter the stuff. Our unemployment rate consistently ran well below the national rate and our diversified economy was nearly recession-proof.
One thing – and one thing only – changed in those years: public policy. The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and has imposed a disastrous agenda of radical and retrograde policies that have destroyed the quality of life that Californians once took for granted.
That's just an excerpt from a very long piece. You really should read the whole thing. It's a sharp attack on the state's Can't Do society, which is no longer able to build dams, roads, prisons, or schools, but never fails to send out welfare checks to illegal immigrants.
While McClintock's unsparing in blaming liberals and liberalism for California's dysfunctions, he also has some choice words for those Republicans who dealt with the state's liberals by presenting a moderate "me, too" facade:
(Nationally) Republicans rediscovered why we were Republicans, and Republican leaders rediscovered Reagan’s advice to paint our positions in bold colors and not hide them in pale pastels.
The result was one of the most dramatic watershed elections in American history.
California Republicans did exactly the opposite, and ended up replaying the disaster of 2008 while the rest of the country was enjoying one of the greatest Republican landslides ever recorded.
In California, the Democrats attacked Republicans for imposing the biggest state tax increase in American history. The Democrats attacked Republicans for obstructing pension reform to protect the prison guards union. These attacks had the unfortunate element of being true.
Meanwhile, the Republican ticket attacked Arizona’s immigration law. Republicans attacked the Proposition that would have stopped AB 32 – California’s version of Cap and Trade.
The sad truth is that we were more like the Democrats than the Democrats.
A few days after the election, a Republican leader whose mission in life has been to redefine the Republican Party in the image of Arnold Schwarzenegger said he just couldn’t explain the results.
I can. We didn’t need to redefine our principles. We needed to return to them. House Republicans did. California Republicans did not. Any questions?
It's often forgotten that McClintock ran in the recall campaign that resulted in the election of the Governator. As I recall he managed to attain about 20% of the vote. Sadly, I was not one of those 20%. I actually believed that electing Arnold Schwarzenegger would be a boon to GOP fortunes. I admired McClintock's principles, but thought Ah-nuld had enough pizzazz to sell conservatism to reluctant Golden Staters. How wrong I, along with many others, was.
Today, Jerry Brown - a decent, intelligent, but profoundly misguided man - signed into law some classic "only in California" legislation. We are banning the sale of shark fins. We are limiting state initiatives to the November ballot, a sop to unions, who only want to have to do one GOTV effort per year. We are requiring public utilities to put "safety over profits." (are we legislating slogans now?)
And, of course, we are going to be paying public money to illegal immigrants so they can receive grants to go to college. We are closing state parks and releasing thousands of prisoners for lack of funds, but it's roll out the red carpet for people who flout the law.
McClintock has a message that's easy to articulate, and undeniably true. Yet there are very few Republicans, either in-state or nationally, who are up to the challenge of repeating it. And, that's too damn bad.
Prison (Un)bound: CA's Daring New Prison "Experiment"
You may have heard that CA was ordered to release tens of thousands of prisoners to deal with a level of overcrowding that is, apparently, unconstitutional. Even Jerry Brown is not eager to have a re-run of the soft-on-crime Seventies; but, since the one practical solution - that would be building some new prisons - is impossible in CA's can't-do society, prison "reform" is taking the form of releasing prisoners to county sheriffs.
Starting Monday, California will radically change the way it sentences criminals, sending the first of thousands to serve time behind bars in their local county jails instead of in state prisons.
Drug dealers, shoplifters and other felons deemed to be nonviolent or non-sex offenders will become wards of the counties in which they are convicted, under a plan signed in April by Gov. Jerry Brown to reduce the flow of inmates entering the overcrowded state prison system.
The plan also changes parole rules so that thousands of inmates who are released from state prisons will no longer be considered "parolees" nor be supervised by state parole officers. Instead those inmates who served time for nonviolent, non-sex offenses will be "probationers" who are monitored by county probation officers - and the supervision period will be shortened.
Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten recently called Brown's plan the most "significant reform of California sentencing law in a generation."
Critics, meanwhile, have warned that the plan, known as realignment, will overwhelm counties with offenders who should be locked up in state prisons.
What's really lame about this - besides the state's refusal to pay for more than 9 months worth of jail-level incarceration - is that the counties will be just as ham-strung as the state. Want to bet that if some So-Cal sheriff decides to put his charges into tents that there'll will be an ACLU lawsuit and permanent injunction in place before the sun goes down? Instead of the state releasing criminals, now it will be county sheriffs, as if that makes a big difference.
What's especially galling (a lot of things have been galling me) is that this has become a back-door method of doing away with the three-strikes law, which is one of the few law & order initiatives that has bi-partisan appeal, at least among voters. Liberal politicians hate it, of course, and now they look to be on the verge of getting rid of it by refusing to build new prisons. Add this to the long list of CA woes that you can blame on liberals who seem electorally immune to the consequences of their lousy ideas.
The Death of the West: CA's Latest Poverty Numbers
Poverty levels increased for a fourth straight year in California, according to census data released Tuesday.
Nearly six million California residents fell below the national poverty threshold of $22,113 for a family of four in 2010, while one in five lacked health insurance.
The numbers represent a negative trend sweeping the nation as close to 46.2 million Americans reported living in poverty last year -- the fourth year in a row the country has seen an increase in poverty.
The Broken Clock: Jerry Brown Gets One Right
"While I appreciate the value of wearing a ski helmet, I am concerned about the continuing and seemingly inexorable transfer of authority from parents to the state. Not every human problem deserves a law."
Supporters were quick to criticize the veto, pointing out that Brown's Republican predecessor supported an identical bill last year and that the bill mirrored existing bicycle helmet laws for children. Jo Linder Crow, executive director of the California Psychological Association, said Brown "chose to ignore the scientific evidence (and) the ski industry's support."
Bird In Hand: Jerry Brown Nominates Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court
Goodwin Liu, the UC Berkeley law professor whose federal appeals court appointment was blocked by Republicans, emerged on a judicial forum of at least equal stature Tuesday when he became Gov. Jerry Brown's first nominee to the California Supreme Court.
Liu's appointment to the court comes two months after his nomination to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco was scuttled by Senate filibuster. He would succeed Carlos Moreno, who retired in February as the only Democratic appointee on the seven-member state court.
Liu has "the background, the intellect and the vision to really help our California Supreme Court again be one of the great courts in the nation," Brown said at a news conference. He said the only criticism of Liu has come from "some of the more fanatical Republicans ... the ideologues on the right."
The governor had widely been expected to name a Latino. The state high court has no Latino or African American justices.
The new appointment would fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Carlos R. Moreno, 62, the only Latino and only Democrat on the court. Moreno was appointed by former Gov. Gray Davis in 2001.
Some Latino bar leaders expressed anger and disappointment at Liu’s selection.
“It should have been a Latino and somebody who was native to Southern California,” said Victor Acevedo, president of the Mexican-American Bar Assn.
“We are almost the majority of the people of the state of California, and for the governor to say there isn’t one Latino who is qualified to serve on the court is extremely troubling,” he said. “That to me is like the governor turning a cold shoulder to the Latino community in Southern California.”
The court has no justices who currently reside in Southern California since the retirements of Moreno and Chief Justice Ronald M. George.
No Gratitude: Liberals To CA Business - Love It Or Leave It
"If you want to live in a Republican state with very conservative right-wing laws, then there's a place called Arizona," Brown spokesman Gil Duran said.
Blue On Blue: Jerry Brown Vetoes the Democrats' Budget
With just two weeks left until the start of the fiscal year, California's budget plans stalled Thursday after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a spending proposal by Democratic legislators, saying it was inadequate, and insisted that Republicans compromise on taxes.
"California is facing a fiscal crisis, and very strong medicine must be taken," Brown said while rejecting the budget that Democratic legislators passed Wednesday as an alternative to his plan. "I don't want to see more billions of borrowing, legal maneuvers that are questionable and a budget that will not stand the test of time."
Brown blamed Republican lawmakers for "obstructing" a vote by Californians on his plan to extend and raise taxes to balance the budget and prevent deeper cuts to education and courts. But it was Democratic legislative leaders who reacted angrily to Brown's action, saying they were "deeply dismayed."
The leaders, who spent most of the year taking direction on a budget strategy from the governor, appeared blindsided by the governor's veto, which marked the first time in California history that a governor had taken such action.
"His decision is apparently part of some elaborate strategy to force a confrontation," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, adding that Brown's continual push for his budget plan "ring(s) hollow if he is unable to deliver Republican votes."
Cut Rate: CA Dems Prepare the Dreaded "All Cuts" budget
Democrats at the state Capitol, unable so far to win the four Republican votes needed to pass Gov. Jerry Brown's budget, introduced an alternative plan Tuesday that would close the state's remaining $9.6 billion deficit and could be approved on a majority vote, without GOP support.
Facing today's constitutional deadline to adopt a balanced spending plan, Democrats pushed forth a plan that avoids the tax extensions and increases sought by Brown, and instead delays some payments to schools, makes further spending cuts and raises certain fees.
Democratic leaders said both houses would vote on the new plan today, barring a last-minute deal with GOP legislators. Lawmakers, who almost always miss the budget deadline, this year face the prospect of permanently losing their pay for each day the budget is late.
The Democrats' proposal would further cut the University of California and California State University systems - after the $1 billion reduction approved in March - delay billions of dollars in payments to K-12 schools, and increase vehicle registration fees by $12 a year, along with other measures.
Don't Cry For Me California
With negotiations over how to solve California's $26.6 billion state budget deficit stalled, a new poll released today shows strong bipartisan support for something Sacramento lawmakers this year haven't seriously debated: raising taxes on the wealthiest residents.
Seventy-eight percent of likely California voters support a 1 percent increase in the income tax rate for Californians earning more than $500,000 a year, according to the poll, which was conducted by Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin and sponsored by the California Federation of Teachers.
A one percentage point increase, which would raise an estimated $2.5 billion a year, offers a possible Plan B for helping solve the budget deficit, with 60 percent of Republican respondents and 79 percent of independents and other voters backing it, along with 89 percent of Democrats. The maximum income tax rate is 9.55 percent, according to the Californian Franchise Tax Board.
"There is a populist anger out there that cuts across all lines," Tulchin said. Many voters felt it was unfair that the wealthiest Americans got their Bush-era tax cuts extended last year.
"They see that these (state) service cuts would affect middle-class and lower-class people, and they want rich people to pay their fair share," Tulchin said.
Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Association, said, "Those are the highest numbers I've ever seen. On a tax scale - that's pretty much a perfect score."
Finding Fault Lines: Jerry Brown Gives Up on Special Election To Raise Taxes
Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday said he has abandoned talks with Republicans on closing California's $26.6 billion deficit, a move that effectively ends what has been the governor's primary goal since he took office in January: a bipartisan plan that would include a vote of the people.
After weeks of intense negotiations, Brown released a statement saying that Republicans' demands would make the deficit worse and that he would now focus "on speaking directly to Californians and coming up with honest and real solutions to our budget crisis."
He did not indicate what he plans to do, but a Democratic leader said there would not be a special election in June to allow voters to decide whether to extend and increase taxes to eliminate about half of the deficit. Lawmakers and the governor already have enacted about $11.2 billion in spending cuts and funding shifts.
"Each and every Republican legislator I've spoken to believes that voters should not have this right to vote unless I agree to an ever-changing list of collateral demands," Brown said.
Hang Your Heads In Shame, California GOP
California Governor Jerry Brown’s bid to dissolve about 400 redevelopment agencies and use their revenue for schools and local government may be resurrected in a compromise on tax increases to close the budget deficit, according to a fiscal adviser to the Senate’s top Democrat.
“It will follow the larger budget deal,” Steve Shea, an aide to Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg, said of Brown’s proposal at a redevelopment conference in Sacramento yesterday. “It will fall into place as the larger budget deal comes together.”
Brown proposed abolishing the agencies, which have revitalized downtown San Diego and spruced up a Palm Desert golf course, to help bridge what was a $26.6 billion gap. The $5 billion plan, opposed by several big-city mayors, fell short of passing the Assembly by one vote on March 16.
Brown, a 72-year-old Democrat, took office in January on a pledge to repair financial strains that have brought the lowest credit rating to the most populous state. He signed budget bills yesterday with cuts, loans and transfers that lowered the deficit to $15.4 billion through June 2012.
The governor’s proposal to wipe out local redevelopment agencies and enterprise zones won support from Assembly Democrats and one Republican. Passage requires a two-thirds majority, which would take one more Republican.
Many Republicans voted against shuttering redevelopment agencies because their party was united against Brown’s overall budget, not redevelopment in particular, said Assemblyman Chris Norby, a Republican from Orange County. He was the only one to break with his party.
Norby, who also spoke at the conference, said redevelopment has become a form of corporate welfare and that some agencies had abused their powers of eminent domain to seize private property.
“For a number of them, it was a difficult vote to vote with the agencies,” Norby said of fellow Republicans, in an interview after the conference. “Many of them have been fighting the abuses for years.”
Norby declined to forecast the bill’s chances of passing, saying its fate is tied to Brown’s attempt to persuade at least four Republican lawmakers to put $9.3 billion in tax extensions on the June ballot.
Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway, agreed with that view.
“Assembly Republicans oppose the budget overall because of the gimmicks and the borrowing that got us into this mess,” Lockhart said by phone yesterday.
Rhetorically Speaking: California's Special Political Discourse
"We have to find more revenue or more and more drastic cuts, and certainly the next round of cuts will be much more painful and much more disruptive than the cuts to date," he said. "I want the people of California to understand we are in a serious bind here and we are going to get more revenues or get some drastic cutbacks."
During the 30-minute news conference, Brown's tone varied. At times he was optimistic, but he also leaned hard on Republicans.
"It's shocking they can say so cavalierly, 'Shut up, you have no right (to vote)'," he said at one point. "I have beseeched (Republicans) to give the people the right to vote on what California should look like over the next several years ... I think this is bigger than the Democratic Party, this is bigger than the Republican Party or the Legislature."
Sick Pay: State Employees' Retirement Windfalls
One public employee received a $594,976 lump-sum payment from the state when he retired last year; another got $553,253.
The two - a surgeon and a dentist who provided care to prison inmates - topped the list of some 300 state employees who left or retired from their state jobs in 2010 and collected six-figure payments for unused vacation and other paid time off accumulated during their careers, according to records obtained from the state controller's office.
The records reflect a widespread failure by the state to control the amount of paid time off that employees amass. State policy caps the number of vacation hours an employee is allowed to bank at 640 hours - or 16 weeks - and sometimes higher for public safety workers. But many agencies do not enforce the limits.
Controller's data shows that in 2010, California paid $293 million in lump-sum payments to 20,048 state workers who retired or left. But while some checks were as low as 41 cents, others were for hundreds of thousands of dollars - reflecting months upon months, or in some cases years, of banked leave.
We Can't All Be California Girls
Budget negotiations have moved at breakneck speed since Brown took office, but Monday's stall indicates that lawmakers and the governor could face a long, hard fight.
Brown said outstanding issues - including teacher seniority in schools - were holding up negotiations. He did not elaborate.
But later in the day, five Republican state senators sent Brown a letter that said that although they embraced the governor's call to bring him ideas for structural reforms in the state that could be part of a compromise for a budget, the process was stalled.
"Although it is clear that you engaged in our conversations seriously, it appears we have reached an impasse in our discussions about how to move the state forward," stated the letter signed by Republican Sens. Tom Berryhill of Modesto, Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, Anthony Cannella of Ceres (Stanislaus County), Bill Emmerson of Hemet (Riverside County) and Tom Harman of Huntington Beach.
All have declined to join other Republican lawmakers in a written agreement to oppose Brown's plan to place a tax measure before voters. Two other Republicans in the Senate - Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga (San Bernardino County), the leader of that caucus, and Bob Huff of Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County), the highest ranking member of the budget committee - declined to sign on.
The five Republicans offered their own ideas for significant changes, including a spending cap, pension reform, changes to existing regulations, ending hiring restrictions and tax reform. They also want to keep redevelopment agencies and tax enterprise zones, which Brown has proposed eliminating.
"We were therefore disappointed to find that our reforms were either rejected or so watered down as to have no real effect on future spending or the economy," the letter states. "We have therefore concluded that you are unable to compel other stakeholders to accept real reforms."
Hiding The Scissors: California Democrats Refuse To Identify Spending Cuts
Democrats are divided over whether to reveal to the public exactly what might be cut from the state budget if voters do not approve tax increases and extensions to help close California's $25.4 billion deficit.
Gov. Jerry Brown has challenged Republicans in the Legislature to put taxes on the ballot in an attempt to stave off what he says will be deeper budget cuts. But Brown so far has refused to tell people exactly what they would be deciding.
He has said he does not want to appear to be threatening voters.
The state Senate has requested that the Legislative Analyst's Office prepare a list of possible cuts, but members of the Assembly have avoided the subject.
On Monday, Gil Duran, a spokesman for Brown, said generally the cuts would be made in public and higher education, public safety, and health and social services, but he was not specific.
Pension reform or shrinking the bureaucracy - let alone closing destructive agencies like the Air Resources Board - aren't even on the table. No, it's schools and prisons.
Meanwhile, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, who had to run a gauntlet of harsh media attacks on his character and business record, is going straight at the one thing Jerry Brown won't touch.
Florida Governor Rick Scott is planning sweeping changes that has public unions howling but corporations thrilled.
Budget Plans
- Cut property and corporate income taxes by $2 billion
- Transfer Medicaid recipients to managed-care plans
- Require existing public employees to contribute 5% of their salaries to the retirement system
- Put new public employees in 401K plans
Republican governors are taking on the bureaucracy and unsustainable pensions. Democrat governors are raising taxes and slashing services, all so Blue State voters can continue paying for the "retirements" of able bodied adults in their fifties. At least now we can have a side-by-side comparison between left and right governance.
The View From The Back of the Bus, California GOP Edition
A day after Gov. Jerry Brown challenged Republicans to put tax measures on the ballot and chided them for not having an alternative plan, GOP leaders said that proposing a balanced budget is the governor's job, not theirs.
Speaking to reporters after the speech Monday, Brown said of Republicans, "Just show me an idea. I've had drinks with people, but I haven't gotten any paper or any articulated position other than 'no' or 'no for now but check back later,' " Brown said.
But Republicans said they have for years put out ideas for changing the state that have been summarily rejected by the majority Democratic Legislature, and they have no reason to expect something different. The challenge from Brown is a red herring, they said, and an attempt to knock Republicans off their message.
"The governor is the one who is supposed to prepare a balanced budget," said state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County), who is the top Republican on the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee. "The governor put out his own budget with an $11-to-$12 billion hole in it. That's not our responsibility, that's his responsibility."
He added later, "We're the minority party here, we don't have a lot of say."
The Analogy Pathology
Ah, yes! The Guidance! Of the People! We are all knowing and all wise, don't you know. Good luck with that, as voters rejected a similar proposal back in 2009. Supposedly, the plan is that The People will be more willing to trust Jerry Brown because he will "level" with them. Also there seems to be a threat out there that, if we don't raise taxes, then Brown will move towards making deep cuts in K-12 education. I don't know. He might find that voters recognize there's a difference between cutting, say, classroom supplies - which people will hate - and cutting teachers salaries/pension, which I'll bet a lot of voters won't mind seeing go lower.Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday that lawmakers have an obligation to let California voters decide whether to extend taxes to stave off huge budget cuts, taking a forceful stance in his State of the State speech on what is likely to be the biggest debate over how to close the deficit.
...
"In the ordinary course of things, matters of state concern are properly handled in Sacramento. But when the elected representatives find themselves bogged down by deep differences that divide them, the only way forward is to go back to the people and seek their guidance."
Speaking of public sector unions, Brown's speech included one of the most inapt political analogies of the year, warning that if California doesn't act quickly, we could see street riots just like the one in... Tunisia and Egypt??
Brown's 14-minute speech to lawmakers and other state leaders in the Assembly chamber referenced uprisings in Arab nations as he argued that it would be "unconscionable" to make deeper cuts than he has proposed without asking voters to weigh in.
"When democratic ideals and calls for the right to vote are stirring the imagination of young people in Egypt and Tunisia and other parts of the world, we in California can't say now is the time to block a vote of the people," Brown said.
Uh, no. I think the riot-torn country you're thinking of is Greece. You know, unsustainable pensions, overweening public sector unions, too much debt and taxes. I am sure you've seen that on the news. Not sure how Egypt fits in there, unless you think the Nurses Union is "just like" the Muslim Brotherhood.
De-development: Jerry Brown Steps On Some Urbanist Toes
Gov. Jerry Brown defended his controversial plan to eliminate redevelopment agencies in California, speaking at an event hosted by one of the biggest supporters of the agencies and telling them his plan is what's best for the state.
Afterward, Brown told reporters that some of the more than $1.5 billion of redevelopment projects approved by cities in recent days - essentially an end run around his proposal - may not be legal.
At a gathering for new mayors and council members hosted by the League of California Cities, which has been one of the most vocal opponents of Brown's plan, the Democratic governor said the budget cuts this year are a "zero-sum game."
"If we don't do redevelopment, then what do we do, what do we take? Do we take more from universities? Do we cut deeper into public schools that have been cut year after year?" Brown told the group, some of whose members displayed posters and buttons opposing his plan. "I think we have to, all of us, rise above our own particular perspective, get out of the comfort zones and try to think of California first."
But League of California Cities leaders at the event, where Brown received three standing ovations and brought the crowd of several hundred people to laughter multiple times, said that while they would work with the governor, they flat-out oppose his proposal.
"We've told him we're willing to work with him, we will continue to work with him, but his proposal is so draconian, it's so bad for the creation of jobs in California ... it's so contrary with so many things he wants to accomplish," said Chris McKenzie, executive director of the league of cities.
The (D) Is For "Different"
Last month, Gov.-elect Jerry Brown argued that Californians were "in no mood" for new taxes. But on Monday, the new governor shifted gears and unveiled an austerity budget that proposed five-year extensions of increased rates in sales, income and some corporate taxes.
Brown's plan includes $12.5 billion in cuts, which would address what he called years of "gimmicks, tricks and unrealistic expectations," and the legislative analyst said the tax extensions could reap as much as $12 billion for a state awash in $25.4 billion of red ink over the next 18 months.
Those moves, and his calls to get the budget plan to the legislative floor by March 1, have been called bold by pundits of all political stripes.
But with some Republicans already lambasting what they call "the largest tax increases in California history," the penny-pinching governor now faces a formidable political test: fashioning a bipartisan truce to push it forward
More important, those of you who followed the campaign will remember that Brown repeatedly promised not to raise taxes without consulting the voters. His tax hikes will thus have to go before the voters as part of (yet another) proposition. As we just voted on - and rejected handily - a "let's raise taxes to balance the budget" proposition back in 2009, this would seem to be a tall order. Brown says that, as long as people believe there is a realistic plan, they will back him up. We'll see. People were all set to back up the Governator's plan to shrink state government, but when he proposed even the most penny-ante budget cuts, all those fiscal conservative voters vanished, replaced by aggressive public unions and self-proclaimed "moderates" quailing about partisanship.
And that brings us to the other "solution" from past budget crises: the search for bipartisanship. Brown is casting about for some Republican votes who can sign on to his tax increases. This brings to mind the budget negotiations in the spring of 2009 when the Governator and Sacramento Democrats spent their time chasing moderate Republicans, looking for the magic "third GOP vote," rather than, say, trying to cut more fat from the budget, passing pension reform or (God forbid) eliminating some public sector jobs. Profound questions of the size and scope of state government are tossed aside in favor of horse-race analysis about "recalcitrant" (and, of course, "extreme") right wingers.
All very flattering, but the fact is that Republicans had little to do with creating California's budget problems, and thus ought not feel compelled to "help" Democrats to save themselves and their political allies. I'd much rather sit in the back of the bus sipping a Slurpee, or whatever, instead of helping liberals to continue to tax and spend California to death.
