I know, I know, it’s too easy. But what better headline can one come up with to assess the ridiculous  and ineffective solutions proposed by Leon Panetta’s high-powered, high cost group of high Broderists to solve the budget crisis?

George Skelton’s column provides some of their early recommendations:

* Requiring new or expanded programs — whether created by the Legislature or ballot initiative — to contain a specific funding source. That could be either new taxes or money gleaned from another program that is eliminated.

* Regularly examining spending programs to determine whether they should be revised, reduced or rubbed out.

* Also regularly reviewing tax loopholes to see if they’re still needed: “Treat tax breaks like spending.”

* Creating a rainy-day fund fed by unexpected tax gushes. When revenue dwindles, dip into the fund. Or use it for one-time public works projects or even tax rebates.

* Modernizing the tax system “to reflect the contemporary economy.” Extend the sales tax to services while reducing the overall tax rate.

* Focusing on multiyear spending plans, rather than merely passing one-year budgets.

* Granting more power and responsibility to local governments.

* Changing the two-thirds majority vote requirement for budget passage. It wasn’t suggested what the vote should be, but any change must be tied to “other reforms designed to improve performance, accountability and public trust.”

Nowhere is the structural revenue shortfall discussed. Instead Panetta and friends take Republican framing to the budget, believing that the problem is too much spending. Nowhere are the state’s pressing problems of underfunded education, health care, and public transportation discussed. It’s as if those issues don’t exist – as if this is 1985 and gas is at $1.20, a year at UC at $2,000, and health insurance plentiful and affordable.

The California Forward proposals are as backward-looking as anything we’ve yet seen, an effort to continue obsolete 20th century assumptions, an effort to avoid confronting 21st century realities.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that the group also embraces the unnecessary redistricting reform – an inherently pro-Republican proposal that should suggest where this group’s allegiances actually lie.

Skelton takes their bait in his column, and argues – against all evidence – that the problem is simply that Republicans and Democrats won’t talk to each other:

The reformers are prepared to take their proposals to the ballot in 2010 if they’re ignored by the Legislature. But they’re hoping the lawmakers will adopt at least incremental changes. A good time to start will be during this summer’s budget negotiations. The reforms could “give Republicans a little comfort on spending and how tax dollars are used,” Panetta theorizes.

But first the politicians have to start talking to each other.

Here’s a suggestion: Turn off the BlackBerrys and cellphones.

Better yet, lock them in a desk. Look people in the eye. Smile. Sit down and deal.

This is ridiculous to the point of not understanding California politics. Someone as experienced as Skelton ought to know the real problem is with ideology and the rules. The 2/3 rule allows far-right Republicans to hold the state hostage to their rabid anti-tax views, which are not representative of the state’s public opinion. It’s not gerrymandering that enables this, or a refusal to talk – but the very real fact that the moment a Republican deviates from the firm anti-tax line the Club for Growth, the Howard Jarvis Association, the CRA and even the CRP will come down on that legislator like a ton of bricks. His or her primary opponent will be well-funded and his or her hopes of re-election and higher office are over.

How does Skelton not understand this?

Skelton, Panetta, and the other high Broderists wish it were 1974 all over again. It’s not. It’s a shame what remains of our state’s media prefers nostalgic flights of fancy to realistic assessments of present-day issues.

(bumped, you gotta see Rangel… on the flip. – promoted by David Dayen)

Yesterday the House came very close to passing a bill extending unemployment insurance for 13 weeks.  Under suspended rules they needed a 2/3 majority to advance the bill, and they came up 9 votes short.  They might as well have gone for the 2/3 vote right away, because Bush is likely to veto the bill.  And every rubber stamp from California’s Republican House delegation voted with the President.

Bush claims unemployment is not high enough and the economy not bad enough to justify extending UI for workers who can’t find new jobs. Yet the total number of long-term unemployed is higher than it was the last two times Congress enacted federal extension programs (October 1991 and February 2002). In addition, joblessness is growing. May saw the biggest one-month jump in the unemployment rate in more than 20 years.

Right now, some 1.55 million workers have used up their benefits without finding work and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates about 3.5 million unemployed workers will exhaust their benefits this year.

You can’t come up with a more effective economic stimulus than extending benefits for long-term unemployed Americans who need it the most.  That money gets directly injected back into the economy and makes far more sense than giving random $600 checks to everyone.  It’s targeting with a laser and not a cannonball.

Americans United For Change blasted California Republicans prior to the vote.

“Voting to extend unemployment benefits to nearly 702,000 California workers is the very least Reps. Dreier, Bilbray, Bono, Calvert and Rohrabacher could do after voting time and again to enable President Bush´s failed policies that have contributed to and even exasperated the economic downturn,” said Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Americans United for Change. “The U.S. economy is slipping further and further towards recession after five consecutive months of negative job growth. We understand that Reps. Dreier, Bilbray, Bono, Calvert and Rohrabacher believe that more Bush tax cuts for millionaires are the only prescription for the ailing economy – tax cuts that never manage to ´trickle-down´ to the people who really need it. But, we hope they can make an exception this time and vote to extend a helping hand to the Californians hit hardest by the Bush economy.”

They chose to stand with Bush.

The Democrats are going to try this one again.  It’s so mind-bendingly simple that there’s probably no way that these California legislators come to their senses and vote in the interests of struggling out-of-work constituents instead of the President they adore.

UPDATE: This just passed the House under normal rules (meaning it needed just a majority vote).  The count was 274-137.  Yesterday was 279-144, so a handful of Republicans took a walk today.  Roll call isn’t up yet…

…My bad, 274-137 is exactly a 2/3 majority, so they got this through under suspension of the rules.  The roll call is up, and sure enough, all CA Republicans voted against it again.  Challengers, feel free to blast your opponents.

UPDATE: Watch Charlie Rangel open up a can of whoop-ass on David Dreier.  Here’s a fixed version of the YouTube.

AHIP, America’s Health Insurance Plans, decided downtown San Francisco would be a good place for the health insurance company lobbyists and executives to hold their convention. Not surprisingly, thousands of people will take to the streets at noon on June 19th at the Moscone center to protest getting ripped off by the health insurance companies and rally for SB 840 in California and HR 676 nationally.

One of the key people being protested is none other than former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe who is a keynote speaker for the industry. Which adds some context to his quotes in yesterday’s New York Times on the Clintons’ enemies list and rewarding of friends:

“The Clintons get hundreds of requests for favors every week,” said Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign. “Clearly, the people you’re going to do stuff for in the future are the people who have been there for you.”

Finally, we’ve recovered from McAuliffe’s disaster as DNC Chair when he ran it like the DLC and was proven incapable of moving beyond transactional politics to a post-McCain/Feingold fundraising party that isn’t a subsidiary of special interests. And yes, we’ve also moved beyond his success in perfectly executing a Clinton campaign strategy that took her from undisputed presidential front-runner to junior senator. But there is he is, using his name and connections to help out those who have helped them while Americans suffer.

In my opinion, one of the most important outcomes of Clinton’s loss was that they won’t get back control of the DNC — which is great news for Democrats. But T-Mac is a reminder that we all need due diligence in the process of choosing the next California Democratic Party Chair so that we can reform the CDP to also move into the 21st century.

Currently, there are 1,904 pledged attendees at the rally according to the neat online organizing tool. Check to see which groups have currently pledged how many, get your group involved, and join in this important event.

450 – California School Employees Assn.

400 – California Nurses Assn.

200 – California Alliance for Retired Americans

200 – California Universal Health Care Organizing Project

100 – Cindy Sheehan for Congress

54 – Others

50 – Green Party SF

47 – Health Care for All-Marin

40 – American Medical Student Association

30 – Gray Panthers SF

25 – Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club

25 – United Educators of San Francisco

20 – Amer. Fed. of Teachers, local 2121

20 – Neighbor to Neighbor

20 – West Country Seniors

20 – Senior Action Network

20 – Older Women’s League of San Francisco

20 – Hermanson for Congress

20 – HAT

20 – Green Party San Meteo

15 – California Physicians Alliance

15 – Socialist Action

14 – Health Care for All-Santa Cruz

12 – International Longshore and Warehouse Union, local 6

10 – California Alliance for Legislative Action

10 – Office and Professional Employees International Union, local 3

10 – San Francisco for Democracy

9 – American Postal Workers Union – SF

9 – UC-Santa Cruz students for Single Payer

5 – Chris Jackson for Community College Bd

5 – Young Workers United

4 – Health Care for All-Sonoma

4 – FORUM SF

by Randy Bayne

The Bayne of Blog

The question:

How did the brightest, most promising young political figure in Sacramento lose an election last week that he seemed certain to win?

was posed by Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Bretón.

His answer:

It’s easy. The unions got Christopher Cabaldon.

wasn’t even close.

“The unions” didn’t get Cabaldon. His own supporters got Christopher Cabaldon. His bid to be the next Assemblyman from the 8th district was doomed when EdVoice, running an independent expenditure campaign, took on a successful and popular job training program that Mariko Yamada, Cabaldon’s opponent in the primary, voted in favor of. They called the job training program a waste of money and Yamada a wasteful spender. Voters reacted by handing the election to Yamada.

Yes, Yamada did receive help from “the unions.” They worked to reach out, directly contacting voters with a boots on the ground campaign that took her message directly to them. She did what wins elections &ndash direct, targeted voter contact. Days and hours spent knocking on doors and making phone calls, talking directly to voters and asking them for their vote. And it worked.

It worked so well that EdVoice had to resort to attacking Yamada.

Cabaldon’s fate was sealed when EdVoice sent out the mailer attacking Yamada for voting for the job training program. It labeled Yamada a big, wasteful spender, but didn’t tell the whole story. The funds she and her fellow Supervisors were voting for were funds that would come only with the job training program. No existing county programs would be adversely affected, and in the long run the job training benefits the local economy. This was the reason for the backlash and voters abandonment of Cabaldon.

To be fair, the independent expenditure working to elect Yamada also took a negative tack. They exploited the embarrassing fact that Cabaldon had a boot put on his car for too many unpaid parking tickets. The difference was that they were truthful. Cabaldon’s car was booted, he did have unpaid tickets. Edvoice omitted important facts in their attack making is seem like Yamada did something wrong.

There is not doubt Cabaldon would have made a great Assemblyman, just as Yamada will make a great Assemblywoman. For Democrats it was a no lose situation. We had two of the best candidates possible, and in the end voters selected the one they felt would best represent the district.

What is unfortunate in Bretón’s article is that he is singling out the wrong people. It isn’t “the unions” that are the problem, but independent expenditures in general. They can be as ugly, mean, and nasty as they want to be, and the candidate gets the blame. In this case, the negativity caused enough voters to change their votes it may have pushed Yamada over the top.

Good thing we had to great candidates.

Losing this election, as in all elections, came down to one thing, and one thing only. The other candidate got more votes. It is that simple. The possible exception being presidential elections in Florida and Ohio.