Yesterday's SacBee has a Q&A with Darrell Steinberg on the budget. His answers are brief but brilliant - along with Speaker Karen Bass it is clear we now have leadership in Sacramento that finally understands not just what is wrong with the budget but how to properly frame it:
Q: Why would the Democrats roll out a tax plan that they knew ahead of time the Republicans wouldn't vote for?
A: There's actually some consensus that has developed over the past several years. It's clear from even the way the Republicans are acting in the budget negotiations, there is a common recognition that we cannot cut our way out of this problem. The Republicans aren't putting $15 billion of cuts on the table, for good reason. ... That would implicate the department of corrections and law enforcement, public education, transportation, a whole host of other policy areas that are not necessarily partisan in nature, so now the debate is framed very clearly.
This is very good framing. He's pointing out that Republicans tacitly accept that spending cuts are not a realistic option - that even Republican programs like prisons would be crippled. California voters need to hear more of this - that spending cuts are just not possible.
Q: Are the Democrats concerned that the increase in taxes would have a negative effect on business retention in California?
A: I think the Democrats are approaching the tax question in an intelligent way. Look at the upper-income tax. This was a tax that (Pete) Wilson, a Republican governor, pushed through. I know the claim is made that wealthy earners would leave California, but that belies the facts. I did Proposition 63, the mental health initiative, which was just a surtax on earnings over $1 million, and there hasn't been some great flight out of the state. ... People choose to live in California for a lot of good reasons, and ensuring that we have the resources to properly invest in education and health care and an infrastructure, I think, is more important to the business community.
These are excellent evidence-based arguments and build off of what Speaker Bass and John Laird have been saying - that California has previously turned to taxing the wealthy without cost to our economy. The lie that taxing the wealthy hurts the overall economy has been the cornerstone of conservative anti-tax sentiment for decades, and it is long past time for Democrats to be rejecting it.
Further, Steinberg touches on a point that should be made more explicit. It's not just the business community that finds more value in good government services over low taxes - it's working Californians. Most of us understand that Californians get far more in value from affordable, quality schools; affordable, quality education; affordable, quality mass transit, etc - but that message hasn't been truly embraced by Democrats ever since Jerry Brown's notorious "born again tax cutter" emerged the day after Prop 13 passed in 1978.
California owes its current economic prosperity - such as it is - to the legacy of Pat Brown. We've been living off of earlier government spending. Even Ronald Reagan increased taxes when faced with a similar crisis (in 1967). If Democrats can make that argument loudly and as often as possible they will undermine the Republicans.
Q: Does the state of California have a revenue problem or a spending problem?
A: That's a question that is always asked in the political context, and I believe we have a revenue problem. ... The governor went through the stage of blowing up the boxes ... he didn't find a lot of the waste, fraud and abuse. We have a very complex state, with a growing population and with significant unmet need, and so I think we have both a revenue problem, and we have a major structural problem. ... We're misaligned, for example. Local government has significant responsibility to provide services and little authority over the revenue side of the equation.
This is pure gold. Steinberg points out that Arnold's own performance review failed to find the "waste, fraud and abuse" that we were told we'd find in the budget. It no longer exists, if it ever did. You cannot cut something that isn't in the budget. Plus it's nice to see him using the structural revenue shortfall framing I've been using for months.
Q: Why is it that the state always seems each year to spend more money than it takes in?
A: The system of public finance that we have in California is not keeping up with the public demand for public education, for more and better quality transportation, for improved access to health care, and for first-rate local government public safety and other services.
Steinberg refuses to be baited by the Bee's leading question here, and insists that the problem is a government that cannot play the central role it needs to play in guaranteeing economic stability to all Californians.
Overall Steinberg is pushing out some great frames that attack the heart of the Republican nonsense that we can cut wasteful spending that does not actually exist. The Republicans are left to propose massive cuts to core services which they are of course unwilling to make. All they have left is a dogmatic stance that everyone now sees right through. If Niello is an emperor then he's clearly got no clothes. |
