Category Archives: The Budget

CA Budget – Where Is The Public?

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As the state’s budget woes grow it is increasingly difficult to gauge what the public wants (or even understands.)  The information channels are stuffed with corporate/conservative propaganda and astroturf like the “tea parties” but there is little comprehensive, accurate and truly objective information available to help the public understand what is happening.  For example, few stories about the budget explain that a minority of only 1/3 of the legislature is blocking the passage of a budget, or that a budget was passed by the legislature in January and was vetoed by the Governor.  Few stories explain the extent of budget cuts the state has already made.

The uninformed public isn’t helping solve this.  Turnout for the special election was only about 28 percent of our 17.1 million registered voters, which is about 20% of the 23,385,819 eligible voters.  So the election didn’t tell us what about 80% of our citizens want to do.  It did show that a solid majority of 20% of us didn’t want those particular ballot initiatives. But what does this mean?  While 31% of Los Angeles County voters were for proposition 1a, just this last November 68% voted for the Measure R sales tax increase. This corresponds with other gauges of the meaning of the special election.  So the special election provides little guidance for policymakers.

An April Field Poll of Californians showed that Californians are against raising taxes and against cutting school budgets, health care and higher education.  Should we conclude from this that they are just in favor of bankruptcy?  Before we conclude bankruptcy is what people really want, we need some polling to see if people understand what it would mean to their own lives.  For example, do pepole understand the economic effect from laying off all of the state employees, teachers, etc., closing down the schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and stopping all the firefighting and police services that people expect.  Are they really in favor of this, or do they just not understand what they are asking for?

Meanwhile, the poll found that 74% approve of increasing taxes on millionaires, and 56% favor legalizing and taxing millionaires marijuana.  So maybe there is some guidance from that.

These figures on taxes are supported by an April 15 Gallup poll finding that 48% of Americans think they are
paying the proper amount of taxes, but 60% believe the wealthy are
under-taxed (and “23 percent think they pay their fair share, and 13
percent feel that they are overburdened”).

The SEIU has just released a TV ad which they will be spending $1 million to run, along with a new website, CommonSenseForCA.org. They are asking for a balanced approach to fixing the budget, not just through cuts but also with new revenue.  Here is the ad, and please visit the website. 

Let us know what you think.

New Budget Essay One: the “Meaning” of the Prop 1A Vote

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This is a guest post from former State Senator Sheila Kuehl.  This is a more accurate analysis of the real reasons the initiatives failed than the spin you are probably hearing on the radio or word-of-mouth.  As we discussed the other day, polls show a number fo reasons the voters rejected the proposals, few of them related to taxes.

The Problem With the Rhetoric

Immediately
after the election, the Governor announced that the “voters had spoken”
and that the defeat of Prop 1A “clearly” meant that Californians stood
adamantly against any new taxes or fees.  He must have been reading the
leaves in the bottom of his tea cup in order to come to a favored
conclusion, however, because there was no evidence to support his
assertion.  Quite the opposite, as a poll taken between May 16 and May
20 showed.  (see below)

The Governor didn’t stop there. 
Building on his unsubstantiated assertion, he went on to maintain, that
he, therefore, had no choice but to propose a budget that would put the
wrecking ball to California’s safety net for healthcare, children, the
elderly and schools.  As shown below, his conclusion as to the meaning
of the “No” vote on Prop 1A is not true, and, therefore, these proposed
cuts, and a budget with no new revenues, is not the most acceptable
answer for California’s voters.

What Would Prop 1A Have Done Again?

Many
voters indicated they were confused by Prop 1A and with some good
reason.  Like every one of the Propositions on the May 19th ballot,
Prop 1A was originally constructed to satisfy Republican demands in
exchange for a minimal number of “aye” votes on the February budget. 
As such, Prop 1A would have placed a spending cap on future budget
expenditures.  Then, in order to placate Democrats who did not agree
with the spending cap as drafted, an extension to the new sales tax was
added to the Proposition, giving virtually everyone something to hate.
 
An Interesting Irony

It
seems sadly ironic that, just as the rest of the United States is
rejecting the right wing’s long stranglehold on our rhetoric,
California, the long hold-out, is embracing it.  Years ago, Grover
Nordquist, one of the right’s mouthpieces, said that his goal was to
shrink government down to where it could be drowned in a bathtub.  By
patiently denigrating government, valorizing private enterprise,
establishing inflexible term limits to guarantee an inexperienced
legislature, setting up a 2/3 vote requirement to raise a tax, but only
a majority to lower one, government in California was set up for the
shrinkage.  

But California proved stubborn.  Support of schools
and the safety net continued.  Since, by definition, these are jobs
only the government can perform, government continued to be an
important part of all solutions to poverty, education and healthcare. 

Until
now.  This month, even our moderate Republican Governor, along with a
seemingly cowed Democratic majority in both houses, contemplates
throwing in the towel and balancing the budget with nothing but cuts,
cuts, cuts, thus fulfilling Grover Nordquist’s desire. 

But
the call for these cuts is predicated on misreading the tea leaves of
the defeat of Prop 1A, in an election in which only 23% of registered
voters voted (4 million out of 17.1 million, or about 10.5% of
Californians).

What Did The Voters (and the Non-Voters) “mean” by the Defeat of Prop 1A

The
only real information we have about voters’ intentions is a poll
conducted between May 16th and May 20th of 603 people who voted in the
election and 405 who did not.  According to several sections of the
poll:

1) 3 out of 4 voters and non-voters simply thought these propositions should never have been put to them for a vote.
2)
7 out of 10 did not like that the Governor and the Legislature keep
balancing the budget “on the backs of average Californians” instead of
requiring special interests to pay their fair share.  Only 20% thought
all Californians were being asked to share the pain equally.

How About the “No on 1A” voters specifically?

This
is the result that puts the lie to the Governor’s interpretation.  Of
voters who voted “no” on Prop 1A, less than half said the government
should rely entirely on spending cuts and not increase taxes.

65%
of all voters agreed that shared responsibility should be part of the
solution and not simply reliance on spending cuts to balance the budget.

Do “No” Voters on Prop 1A Support Any Taxes?

According
to the poll, 62% of “no” voters supported increased taxes on alcohol
(75% of “yes” and “no” combined supported this tax), 62% supported
increased taxes on tobacco (74% of all voters), 60% supported an oil
extraction tax on oil companies drawing oil and gas in California (73%
of all voters), 58% supported not allowing corporations buying property
to be protected by Prop 13 (63% of all voters), 55% supported not
allowing tax credits for companies to go over 50% of what they owe in
taxes (59% of all voters).

Conclusion:  Voters Would Support a Balanced Approach

Even
so, the budget will have to incorporate deep cuts no matter what the
solution.  The only question is how much, and whether some of the cuts
can be made less deeply because revenue solutions are part of the
answer.

Next:  A Possible, Though Still Painful, Way to Balance the Budget

Election Results — What The Public Wants

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Did the results of the special election on the budget propositions really show that the public is against taxes and government, as the Republicans claim?  Recent polling looked at the reasons the propositions failed.  Polls are a useful way to understand what people really thing because they take a scientific sample, actually asking the voters what they think, instead of just repeating something that Republicans just say.  Let’s see what the voters give as their reasons for opposing the propositions.  From the polling:

  • 74% of voters polled thought the election was just a gimmick, not an actual fix for California’s budget problems.
  • 70% of the voters polled said the legislature is a captive of special interests (possibly because people are learning that the “budget deal” that they came up with in the middle of this emergency included a huge tax cut for large, multi-state corporations.)
  • In a budget battle dominated by Republican demands for spending cuts instead of asking the rich and corporations to pay their fair share only 19% of voters polled said that Californians are being asked to share the pain equally. 
  • And to drive that point home, only 29% of voters polled said that the budget should be balanced only with spending cuts.  According to the polling “even among ‘No’ voters, less than half (46%) say the government should rely entirely on spending cuts with no tax increases.”

In summary, voters resented that the legislature is held captive by the 2/3 rule, and want them to address that instead of coming up with short-term gimmicks to get through another year while making things even worse later.

Additionally, and completely contrary to anti-tax and anti-government claims, the polling showed “broad support for new revenue streams.”  According to the polling report, the public supports:

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Don’t Forget The Governor Vetoed A Budget That Passed

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As we face this state budget crisis, we would like to remind people that it didn’t have to be this way. The Democrats in California’s legislature tried to do the responsible thing to keep the state running and head this off, and passed a good budget in January. The Republicans and the Governor instead wanted to create a crisis and force the state into bankruptcy.
From January, Schwarzenegger vetoes budget bills,

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this afternoon vetoed the Democratic plan to reduce the budget deficit by $18 billion and will urge lawmakers to use his January proposal as a template for implementing midyear cuts…
The move forces leaders to start over in their efforts to close a budget deficit estimated at $40 billion over the next 18 months. It jettisons — for now — what Democrats hailed as “the only game in town” — because it included tax increases approved without Republican votes.

Schwarzenegger rejects latest budget proposal,

Democratic leaders sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger an $18 billion deficit-cutting package on Tuesday, a plan he quickly vetoed as anti-tax groups filed a lawsuit to stop it.
The activity came amid the Legislature’s third special session since the November election to deal with California’s worsening budget deficit, projected at $42 billion over the next 18 months.

For some reason, it has been forgotten that this budget would have solved this problem and avoided the May 19 election and resulting chaos. But the anti-tax extremists blocked it because they don’t want government to work, they want it to shut down. It is a strategy they are following because it keeps their base active and brings them corporate donations. They do not believe in government, they have said so, and they have all signed a pledge to that effect.
The Democrats should be strategic as well as responsible and pass this budget again. This time if the Governor vetoes it or the anti-tax extremists take it to court they will be doing so while people’s own schools are forced to lay of teachers, and their own police departments are being forced to reduce patrols. It won’t be hypothetical, it will be happening in their neighborhoods and their cities. The public will be able to see for themselves who is trying to keep the state running, who is trying to keep their schools open, and who is trying to shut the state down. And if it goes to court they will be forced to ask why we do not have majority rule in California, how there can be a law allowing a small number of extremists to block everything.

A Dialog On State Spending

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Over at Calitics there is an interesting diary from ‘zeroh8’ asking “Why Are We Spending So Much More?”  zeroh8 looked at the changes over the last ten years in how the state spends money.  The result, according to the diary, is a per-capita increase of $1088 as follows:

California Government Department
2007-08 less 1997-98 Per Capita Spending

Criminal Justice $185
General Government $14
Health $265
Higher
Education $109
K-12 Education $399
Resources & Environmental
Protection $27
Social Services $59
Transportation $30
Total $1,088 

Robert Cruikshank commented that the appearance of an education spending increase is an illusion, (sadly California still ranks 47th in education spending-per-pupil)

Much of the “increase” in K-12 funds is illusory. When Arnold cut the VLF in
2003 that money had to be backfilled by the state. That backfilling is listed on
the books as “spending” and so it appears as a huge “spending increase” when in
fact it is no such thing. Schools didn’t actually get more money. It’s an
accounting trick.

Robert is pointing out that this appearance of a large increase in education spending is actually just replacing spending that was already there, but that was cut from local budgets when Governor Schwarzenegger cut the Vehicle License Fee, so the state had to make up (backfill) the loss.  The state is spending more because local governments are spending less, but the total hasn’t increased.  Lesson: you have to look at the whole picture including local budgets to see the whole story because the state has to step in when local governments lose their funding sources.

Health care spending increases are certainly not isolated to California state government.  This is the health care crisis that is eating up government, business and family budgets around the country.  So far We, the People, in our wisdom, had avoided the kind of “socialized medicine” that the rest of the world has, which means we spend vastly more for health care with vastly worse results.  There is little California can do about it, except to further deny health care to people.  Is that the kind of people we will decide to be? 

Then there is that huge increase in criminal justice (prison) spending.  Was that necessary?  Well, we decided to pass laws that put people in prison for life for stealing a pizza or for years for smoking a joint.  And in the last few decades we have cut education spending, which to some extent has necessitated the increases in prison spending, because we know where that inevitably leads,

“18-to-24-year-old male high school dropouts have an incarceration rate 31 times
that of males who graduated from a four-year college”      

We’re seeing the health care crisis eating the state budget, and the problem of the prison costs.  Part of our problems today are because yesterday we were “penny wise
and pound foolish,” saving some money by cutting education only to
spend it on prisons (and who knows how many other ways) later.  Along with foolish tax cuts like cutting the VLF, and cutting property taxes for big corporations, and instead borrowing which has led to huge interest payments, those are the spending problems that brought about the budget crisis and that keep our government from being able to spend more on things We, the People need.

About those choices:  zeroh8 did a ton of research because no California citizen would know any of this from sources available to most of us.  The corporate media is not explaining the state budget and the functions of government to the public.  The example of the state making up local revenue losses in order to save our schools is a great example — instead it is just presented to people that the state is “spending even more”.

So what is the point of this exercise? To give the people the facts, not the phony sound-bites designed to further anger people against government and rail even further about having to pay taxes to fund the programs and services. The goal of the conservatives is to simply unfund government, thus making “We the People” powerless against the big moneyed interests — the people who brought you the sub-prime fiasco, the Wall Street boondogles, the Haliburton no-bid contracts and the Blackwater mercenaries.  As long as the bucks are flowing, what do they care if government can’t do its job…. what do they care about long lines at the DMV, wildfires that burn down communities, gangs that take over our streets and oh, yes……swine flu epidemics that kill millions?  They can just fly away in their private jets or sail away on their yachts — that california won’t tax.

Don’t Blame Me, I Didn’t Vote For Anything

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The Republicans in Sacramento refused to vote for any budget, saying each budget didn’t cut spending enough, while also refusing to specify what items they wanted to cut and by how much.  The result was that the Democrats in the legislature had to vote to dramatically cut the school budget — along with everything else the state does.  And then after the legislature came up with those cuts, the Republicans voted against them, too. 

Now citizens are weighing in expressing their anger over these massive budget cuts, and the same Republicans are sending letters saying “don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for the cuts.”  A recent letter to constituents from State Senator Tony Strickland is most likely a standardized “boilerplate” budget statement that has been provided to Republicans to send out.  Let’s see if we can translate it into English:

As your Senator, I voted against the budget and the education cuts included in the proposal.  To answer your questions, I would like to share my reasons for opposing the budget and education cuts as well as why the Legislature decreased spending on K-14 education. 

Translation: don’t blame me for budget cuts, I voted against them.  I voted against everything you don’t like, and will claim to support everything you did like.  Whatever it was.  I can do that because I didn’t vote for anything.

In order to ease the impact of the funding decreases, the budget has granted local educational agencies unprecedented funding flexibility, which is the authority to move state funding for most categorical (special-purpose, such as principal training, English learner programs, and the arts) programs to supporting the highest locally-determined priorities through 2010-2011.  The spending flexibility should provide local agencies significant relief during this economic downturn.  However, if the agencies abuse the funding, then they have missed the opportunity to demonstrate that local communities are superior to managing their education funds than the bureaucrats in Sacramento. 

Sorry, I can’t figure out what this means.  Leave a comment if you can figure out what it says.

I will continue to support protecting education and providing local communities the flexibility to determine how to invest in their children.  Please be assured I will continue to oppose cuts to education because the state’s greatest asset – our children – will be the future workforce essential in reviving our economy.  Thank you, again, for contacting my office and sharing your concerns.  It is citizens like you who make the difference.

Translation: While voting against every budget, and being against any form of revenues — especially if they would be collected from the large corporations that funded my campaign — I now claim to support not cutting the education budget. 

This is an interesting strategy: Just vote against everything, and leave it to the responsible people to come up with ways to get around this obstruction.  And then, when citizens are angry about the huge mess this creates, send them letters saying you supported whatever spending they wanted, and that’s why you voted against everything.  Meanwhile, you collect your state paycheck, and receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate “contributions.”  Nice work, if you can get it.

This is a dilemma for responsible legislators.  When you face an extremist group with just enough votes to block everything, how can you keep the kids in schools, provide oxygen tanks and other necessities to the elderly, provide police and fire protection and continue other essential government services?  When the state’s major media just won’t inform the public of the facts and makes this budget standoff seem as though government is little more than children squabbling over some cookies, with “both sides” refusing to compromise, the state slides toward becoming ungovernable.

What you you do about this?  There will be a ballot initiative tp roll back the rule that any revenue increases require a 2/3 majority to pass.  This initiative is currently named Restore Majority Rule, and you can visit the early website at ca.restoremajorityrule.com. Please sign up to help pass this initiative, and tell your legislators, friends and family that you support this change.

Tea Party Contradictions

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Let’s take a look at yesterday’s tea parties.   I am hearing from people who attended tea parties around the country that the people who showed up were by and large good, honest Americans who are upset about the bailouts, deficits and general direction that things have been going for some time.  I say good for them for getting involved, speaking up and showing up.  We need more of that in this country, after so many decades of apathy.

There is a problem with the tea party events as presented, however, in that the sentiments and concerns of these regular people were largely hijacked by professional manipulators, who wanted to make it appear that the the people at the rallies support an anti-democracy, anti-government, pro-corporate and right wing agenda.  These were the FOX News and Rush Limbaugh audience, and the people from militias with racist signs, and paranoid people convinced that President Obama is a “fascist,” etc. and who claim that the economic distress we are experiencing is somehow the fault of Obama’s and the Democrats’ policies even though he only took office less than three months ago

There are distressing photos of these event-hijackers, and there was troubling and violent rhetoric at many of the rallies. The Governor of Texas actually talked about his state seceding from the union — the very definition of hating America and the kind of talk once that led to a savage civil war. (FOX News called such talk “patriotic.” One has to ask, “patriotic to what country?”)

An obviously focus-group-tested phrase was repeated at the rallies: “Obama is going to raise taxes on our kids by borrowing for unnecessary government spending now.” But what did the people at these rallies think us “liberals”
have been saying all this time about the effect of all the Republican borrowing to pay for these huge tax cuts they gave to the rich and corporations, and to pay for the Iraq war and other military spending increases? This is the reason we have these huge deficits!

And, of course, no one ever says which spending is “unnecessary.”  Do they mean unemployment checks? Bush made those necessary.  How about money to rebuild roads and bridges and schools? Bush made that necessary.  How about money to reduce our oil use? Bush and Cheney, both former oil company executives, made that necessary. How about money to continue funding the Iraq war? Bush made that necessary. The bailout money? To the extent that it was necessary (I don’t agree that it was) it certainly was not Obama who wrecked the economy.

Which spending in the stimulus plan, specifically, is “unnecessary,” and which was made necessary by the Republicans who messed things up so badly?

Some contradictions from the rallies: 

  • The people at the rallies were presented as protesting tax increases, yet in the current Obama budget only tax cuts have been proposed. (There are hints that there will be a request for a small tax increase on the very wealthy after a few years.)
  • Many at the rallies were protesting against “government spending,” but did not seem to understand where the government actually spends a huge portion of our budget, such as on military and huge subsidies for big oil, agriculture and other corporations (like Wall Street bailouts) — but instead were protesting against imagined spending like “welfare” and foreign aid, which add up to only a tiny fraction of the budget. 
  • Reagan’s and Bush’s tax cuts for the rich have created so much debt that we
    currently pay out over $500 billion to interest each year — paid to people who can
    afford to loan us trillions.  Now that is some serious government spending. 
  • Many rallies were rebranded by their corporate-funded organizers as “Fair Tax” rallies. But the so-called “Fair Tax” is really about cutting taxes on the rich and making up for it by raising taxes on everyone else. This is an example of corporate astroturf convincing people to support raising their own taxes or cutting their own benefits so that taxes on the wealthy and big corporations can be further reduced.  (You can’t cut taxes for that group without making up for it somewhere.)

This all brings to mind something that I have said about marketing: with good enough marketing you can convince people to kill
themselves.  Think about cigarettes and the comet-suicide cult and you’ll understand what I mean.

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A Warning About The Tea Parties

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A number of people I have spoken with are planning to attend a “tea party” tomorrow, so I thought it might be a good idea to write about this.  They are not what they claim to be.  They are not “spontaneous” or “grassroots.”  They are another corporate-funded campaign to trick people into supporting more cut taxes for the rich.

The idea is supposed to have started on February 19, when Rick Santelli of CNBC “spontaneously” complained about plans (click link for video) to help people avoid foreclosure, saying this is the government “subsidizing the loser’s mortgages.”  Santelli called for organizing a “Chicago tea party” against helping people pay their mortgages.  But investigators starting finding clues that the on-air rant was not spontaneous, and signs that the campaign was organized by the right-wing, corporate-funded Freedomworks .  According to a March 2 New York Times story,

“Mr. Santelli’s televised commentary appeared spontaneous to viewers. However, the Internet domain name ChicagoTeaParty.com was registered in August 2008 — well before his commentary — but not used until afterwards.”

The events have been widely promoted by corporate-funded conservative PR professionals who specialize in “astroturf.”  This is a term for the use of money to create an appearance of widespread “grassroots” support.  Currently the corporate-funded conservative lobbying groups Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity, are organizing the events and conservative media including talk radio and FOX News are widely promoting them.  Support appears to be coming from Koch Industries, the largest privately-owned company in the country.  According to the Think Progress blog post, Spontaneous Uprising? Corporate Lobbyists Helping To Orchestrate Radical Anti-Obama Tea Party Protests,

“This type of corporate ‘astroturfing‘
is nothing new to either organization. While working to promote Social
Security privatization, Freedom Works was caught planting one of its
operatives as a “single mom”
to ask questions to President Bush in a town hall on the subject. Last
year, the Wall Street Journal exposed Freedom Works for similarly
building “amateur-looking” websites to promote the lobbying interests of Dick Armey …

Americans for Prosperity is run by Tim Phillips, [a] former partner in the lobbying firm Century Strategies. The group is funded by Koch family foundations — a family whose wealth is derived from the oil industry. Indeed Americans for Prosperity has coordinated pro-drilling ‘grassroots‘ events around the country.”

The “tea parties” are promoted as a “grassroots uprising” against “high taxes.”  Tea stands for “Taxes Enough Already.”  However, 95% of Americans will received a tax cut in the next year if the upcoming Obama budget passes.  Only Americans with incomes above $250,000 will receive a small tax increase — and even then their taxes will be much lower than almost any time in the last 80 or so years.   This increase on the top incomes will help pay for some of the Republican-caused economic damage as well as reduce the budget deficits that the country has faced ever since the same income group received tax cuts after George W. Bush was elected.  (This is similar to the tax increase in first Clinton budget that led to the great economy of the 1990s and large budget surpluses.)

The other complaint from tea party organizers is that President Obama is “spending too much.”  The increased spending in the stimulus package and upcoming budget funds education, unemployment checks, efforts to ward off foreclosures and other programs designed to help bring us out of the recession and provide jobs.  These are programs that benefit regular people instead of big corporations and the rich.

So regular people who go to these corporate-organized tea parties are asking the government to undo their own tax cuts and reduce their own government services in order to keep taxes low for the very rich.  I wonder if people have really thought this through?

Forbes List Of Highest-Taxed States Lists California

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Not.

The Forbes list of states that tax their citizens the most is out!  And California ranks … well, California isn’t even on the list.

Forbes: Where Americans Are Taxed Most:
10. Pennsylvania (not California)
9. Wyoming (not California)
8. Washington (not California)
7. Massachusetts (not California)
6. New York (not California)
5. New Jersey (not California)
4. Minnesota (not California)
3. Connecticut (not California)
2. Hawaii (not California)

Drum roll ….

… keep scrolling …

— And the winner is …

1. Vermont (NOT CALIFORNIA!)

So yesterday I’m driving and KGO radio has a show about the “tax revolt” that is “taking place all over California,” with people rising up and having “tea parties” to protest the “incredibly high taxes” in California.  Here is KGO’s program listing:
 

2 PM – Growing Anti-Tax Revolt in California? And What About Prop
13?

Taking inspiration from a landmark 1970s tax revolt, a determined group of
activists say the moment is right for another voter uprising in California,
where recession-battered residents have been hit with the highest income and
sales tax rates in the nation. And like Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot measure
that transformed the state’s political landscape and ignited tax-reform
movements nationwide, they see the next backlash coming not from either major
political party, but from the people. How real is the latest anti-tax sentiment
and has Prop 13 run it’s course?
Guest: John Coupal, president Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Mr. Coupal was on the show to say that California is the highest-taxing state,
and state taxes should be lower, and the government wastes all the
money it takes in, and can’t be trusted, and is too big.  He talked about how other states get by with lower taxes while providing better services than California. He said, for example, that there is no income tax at all in Texas — without mentioning that Texas taxes oil taken out of the ground while California doesn’t.  He said that California spends more on schools than any other state, and called for “school choice” — which is getting rid of public schools and
only having
education for those who can afford it.

He said a lot of things that turn out not to be factual if you look into them.  But you can’t bother be factual and argue for lower taxes and spending.  As Dave Dayen points out at Calitics,

“Right now we’re at the bottom of per capita spending in almost every major
category – 44th
in health care, 47th
in per-pupil education spending, dead last in
highway spending and 46th in capital investment among all states.”   

But here’s the thing.  HE was on the radio, telling Californians that we are the highest-taxing and spending more on schools, etc. than any other state.  And the other side was not on the radio telling Californians the truth.  So he wins. 

Californians don’t really have much choice except to believe the anti-tax, anti-government, pro-corporate arguments because they are not hearing anything else. 

This was just one radio show of the hundreds of radio shows every month that repeat this message.  And the newspapers repeat it.  And the TV shows repeat it.  And there are even public speakers, funded to go from civic group to civic group around the state to repeat this message!

Why is it that he was on the radio and the other side was not?  Because there are so few “other side” organizations for radio stations to call on, funded, with people trained and ready to talk on the radio and TV, write columns, speak to public groups, and generally make the case that government serves a purpose, roads and schools and public safety and are beneficial and that democracy is better than rule by corporations.  Corporations are enabled by our laws to amass incredible sums of money with little oversight, and are using some of that money to influence the state’s policies, always to further reduce oversight and amass ever greater power.  That money leaks out of the corporations and into the political system, while pro-democracy organizations have few sources of funding.  

The result is that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is very well funded and is widely quoted in the media. Organization that makes the case for government and democracy are not.  And democracy in California is the loser.  So if we think we’re going to be able to persuade Californians to overturn the 2/3 vote requirement for a budget or to increase taxes, we’re going to have to come out swinging… At the moment, we don’t even have a batter at the plate.

Teachers Fired To Pay For Huge Corporate Tax Cut — Why?

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I’ve been asking around and it seems that most Californians don’t know that the budget deal that fires so many teachers also has a huge tax cut just for big, multi-state and multi-national corporations.
But it’s true. Last month’s budget deal that fires teachers, cuts essential government services, and guts the investments that bring future economic benefits also has a huge tax cut for the largest of corporations. While this part of the deal has been kept pretty quiet, the LA Times had a story, Business the big winner in California budget plan. From the story,

The average Californian’s taxes would shoot up five different ways in the state budget blueprint that lawmakers hope to vote on this weekend. But the bipartisan plan for wiping out the state’s giant deficit isn’t so bad for large corporations, many of which would receive a permanent windfall.
About $1 billion in corporate tax breaks — directed mostly at multi-state and multinational companies — is tucked into the proposal.

But wait, won’t a big corporate tax cut cause companies to come to California, creating jobs? No, they are already here and it will drive them away, because it is paid for by firing teachers.

A study by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, released in 2005, found that most companies decide where to locate based not on tax breaks but on factors such as the availability of a highly educated workforce. California’s proposed plan would cut spending on higher education by hundreds of millions of dollars.

So how did this happen? This was part of the deal to get a few Republican votes. And why did the Republicans want this so bad? Because they understood who really elected them.
If you look at the independent expenditure reports for the 2008 California election you’ll see a massive amount of last-minute money. For example, in the 19th Senate District, a political action committee (PAC) named “Californians for Jobs and Education” put almost $1 million into just one race: $570,653 into defeating Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson, and another $373,778 to help elect her opponent, Republican Tony Strickland. When you look this group up on ElectionTrack you learn that this money came from corporations like Arkansas’ Wal-Mart, Blue Cross of Ohio (Ohio?), Reliant Energy, major real estate companies, and from other PACs.
Now it gets interesting. Many of the contributions to that PAC came from other PACs, especially one called Jobs Pac. When you track down Jobs PAC you find that it is a conduit for huge, huge amounts of money coming from large corporations like Philip Morris, ATT, Chevron, Safeway, Sempra Energy, Verizon, big insurance companies, big pharmaceutical companies, big real estate companies … and other conduits like the Chamber of Commerce.
Why did these huge corporations put so much money into California state elections? Because we let them, and because of the return on investment they receive from tax cuts like the one that is forcing us to fire so many of our teachers.
There is a key lesson to learn from this. When it comes time to choose, that is when you can really see who is for or against something — where their priorities really are. And in this case, when push came to shove, in the end who did the conservatives come through for? The large corporations. They danced with the ones that brung them.