If the economy doesn’t feel like it’s really improving to you (even though the numbers might suggest otherwise), here’s a pretty good summary of why from the Center for American Progress. The dow may keep going up, but that’s not doing much for most of us out here!
Monthly Archives: October 2006
Schwarzenegger veto bad news for environment, families, taxpayers
In a move that raises serious doubts about whether Governor Schwarzenegger intends the new laws he trumpets to have any teeth, the Governor vetoed legislation sponsored by California’s Attorney General Bill Lockyer that would have kept the playing field level when our state’s top cop tackles corporations that violate California’s laws. Schwarzenegger’s veto is also a slap at taxpayers, who foot the bill for curbing illicit activities, and should be able to recoup those expenditures when the lawbreakers are caught and the People of California win in court.
The stakes for our state are enormous. If you visit Attorney General Lockyer’s website, you’ll see case after case where he won billions of dollars in refunds for California consumers, forced polluters to cease spewing toxins into our air or dumping them into our water, stopped tobacco companies from handing out free cigarettes to kids, curbed securities frauds perpetrated on stockholders and employees, cleaned up phony charities that ripped off donors, reined in lumber companies from decimating protected forests, and enforced hard-fought civil rights laws.
It’s the philosophy
Great article in the SF Chron today about the Republican party civil war that’s just getting under way. The only thing it’s missing is an identification of why exactly it is that their revolution is falling apart, which is that their governing philosophy never made any sense and still doesn’t. Libertarian-anarchist extremist and conservative movement darling Grover Norquist’s thoughts, charming as ever:
“I’m more radical than these idiots who are whining that we haven’t gotten there fast enough,” Norquist said. “I work every day trying to move the party and the government toward the more-freedom and lower-tax position. I know why things aren’t moving faster — because it’s difficult.”
(Emphasis added.) “More-feedom and lower-tax:” that is the essence of the problem. The American people simply do not agree with the relentless conservative obsession with the sole kind of freedom they care about, the freedom that comes from owning property. The vast majority of us like the freedom that comes from having education and opportunity available to everyone. We like the freedom that comes from security, whether it’s related to retirement or the availability of high paying jobs or (we wish!) health care. Those freedoms are utterly incompatible with a relentless program of tax cuts and attempts to starve “the beast.”
The Republicans have run into the problems they have not just because they’re corrupt, which at this point they have carried beyond anyone’s wildest imagining, but because it turns out that the people they represent really don’t mind the beast. They don’t think of it as a beast at all. The Republican revolution has failed because of the weakness of the underlying philosophy. The coming progressive revolution will no doubt find new and interesting ways to fail and falter, but it won’t be because of the underlying philosophy.
People like Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s former press secretary and now the editorial page director of the conservative Washington Times, are in denial:
“As much as I wish the Republican majority had controlled spending better, I don’t have the slightest doubt that if the Democrats were in, particularly if they had a Democratic president, the spending would increase and the deficit would increase. So you’re not going to gain anything.”
What, like under Clinton? Look at the numbers, Mr Blankley. As Phil stated unequivocally in last night’s debate: Bill Clinton showed us the way to run an economy and starving the “beast” has nothing to do with it. Lowering taxes and protecting the wealthy doesn’t give anyone more freedom, it just turns our economy into a kleptocracy. It’s time for this philosophy and its adherents to find new lines of work.
The 2006 General Election
The November 7th 2006 election is proving to be an epic battle for defining the future of our state. There are several outstanding progressive candidates and reforms on the ballot – as well as some truly scary conservative ones. See our 2006 General Election Voter Guide for the details…
