Daily Archives: June 12, 2008

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Congressional Democrats Forget Key Part of Obama’s Relief Package?

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Cross posted at myDD.

CQ Politics is reporting on the Democratic leadership's desire for a second package to strengthen the economy that largely lines up with Barack Obama's plans. But are Congressional Dems omitting aid to state governments, one of the key planks of Obama's plan?:

EDIT by Brian: more in the extended.

Democrats have been contemplating a second effort to inject money this year into the faltering economy. The idea appears to have gained traction, particularly among congressional leaders, since Monday when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois outlined a $50 billion stimulus proposal that will serve as the centerpiece of a two-week economic tour of battleground states.

Though the prospects for a second stimulus package are slim, the debate gives congressional Democrats an opportunity to rally around Obama.

The massive economic stimulus package enacted in February focused on tax breaks for businesses and rebates for individuals and families.

Obama has proposed a second round of rebate checks, an extension of unemployment insurance, aid to state governments and a new $10 billion fund to help stem the tide of home foreclosures.

He also proposed increasing investment in infrastructure such as roads, schools and bridges.

“There’s a need for additional targeted stimulus,” said Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad , D-N.D.

Schumer said infrastructure investment and a second round of rebate checks could be part of the new package, which Democrats are likely to unveil after the July Fourth recess

State government spending is a key prop holding up the economy during a recession. Dem leaders might want to check out the NYT, which pointed out earlier this week:

At $1.8 trillion annually in a $14 trillion economy, the states and municipalities spend almost twice as much as the federal government, including the cost of the Iraq war. When librarians, lifeguards, teachers, transit workers, road repair crews and health care workers disappear, or airport and school construction is halted, the economy trembles.

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What Future For Journalism?

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There was an extremely disturbing editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post by Harold Meyerson, who used to be the executive editor of the LA Weekly, and thus understands the journalism scene here in Southern California.  What is being done to the flagship newspaper, the LA Times, by real estate magnate Sam Zell, is nothing short of a dismantling of the biggest print outlet in the state and one of the biggest in the country.  Zell was not the only owner willing to buy the Times last year; in fact, Eli Broad and Ron Burkle wanted to purchase it, spin it off from the Tribune Company, and return local ownership to the Southland.  Instead, the Chicagoan Zell made the deal, and he’s taking apart the newspaper bit by bit.  It’s a familiar story we’ve seen as the print journalism industry struggles through a disruptive time, and its top managers are responding in all the wrong ways.

During his first year in journalism, Zell has visited the city rooms and Washington bureaus of a number of Trib publications to deliver obscenity-laced warnings and threats to employees that whatever it was they were doing, it wasn’t working. There was too much coverage of world and national affairs, he told Times writers and editors; readers don’t want that stuff. Last week, the company decreed that its 12 papers would have to cut by 500 the number of pages they devoted every week to news, features and editorials, until the ratio of pages devoted to copy and pages devoted to advertising was a nice, even 1 to 1. At the Times, that would mean eliminating 82 pages a week.

As the company prepares to shed more reporters, it has measured writers’ performances by the number of column inches of stories they ground out. It found, said one Zell executive, that the level of pages per reporter at one of Zell’s smaller papers, the Hartford Courant (about 300), greatly exceeded that at the Times (about 50). As one of the handful of major national papers, however, the Times employs the kind of investigative and expert beat reporters not found at most smaller papers. I could name a number of Times writers who labored for months on stories that went on to win Pulitzers and other prizes, and whose column-inch production, accordingly, was relatively light. Doing so, I fear, would only put their necks on Zell’s chopping block. So let me instead note that if The Post’s Dana Priest and Anne Hull, who spent months uncovering the scandalous conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and whose reporting not only won a Pulitzer but caused a shake-up in the Army’s treatment of wounded veterans, had been subjected to the Zellometer productivity index, they’d be prime candidates for termination.

Which is precisely, unfortunately, what’s been happening at the Times. Voluntarily or not, large numbers of highly talented editors and reporters have left. The editorial staff is about two-thirds its size in the late 1990s, with further deep cuts in the offing. A paper that is both an axiom and an ornament of Los Angeles life, that helps set the political, business and artistic agenda for one of America’s two great world metropolises, is being shrunk and, if Zell continues to get his way, dumbed down.

This is really hideous, and ultimately this will reduce even further the level of coverage on our state and its politics at this crucial juncture, in the midst of a housing crisis, a widening budget gap, and soaring energy prices.  There are numerous problems here – bringing a businessman unused to the rigors of journalism in to run a newspaper, the effective elimination of the concept of the public interest, the commercialization of that which informs a citizenry, and all the rest.  Conglomerates which control what news is disseminated and how it is presented not only interfere with the truth (really, read that Ruth Rosen article about her time on SF Chronicle editorial board in the run-up to war), but they have little ability to even manage the situation by their own narrow standards and turn a profit.  Again and again we see major cuts to newsroom staffs, reductions in space for news, shrinking column inches, and the only result is that readers are turned off to the product and they drop their subscriptions.

We in the blogosphere slam the news media early and often, but we actually can’t do what we do without them.  And the electorate can’t make the decisions in their political and personal lives that lead to progress when their sources of information are being chopped one column inch at a time.  Sam Zell is a cancer on the body politic.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

Congress Funds Amtrak – While Arnold Proposes Transit Cuts

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I will be discussing this and the state budget this morning at 8 on KRXA 540 here in Monterey

California is undergoing a profound change. The land where the car was assumed to be dominant always had a higher amount of transit ridership than folks realized – LA’s bus system is one of the nation’s busiest – but with gas prices blowing right past $4 and headed for $5, Californians are flocking to transit – buses, light rail, subways, Amtrak, you name it.

And how does Arnold Schwarzenegger, avowed friend of the little guy, always looking out to protect Californians from taxes that might lighten their wallets, react?

By proposing a $1.4 billion cut to public transit. This is nothing short of madness. Rising ridership is limited by available buses and train cars, while soaring fuel prices put stress on transit agency budgets. MUNI’s Nathaniel Ford puts it well:

“Even with California’s massive deficit, scaling back the state’s support for public transportation makes no sense environmentally or economically,” said Nathaniel Ford, who runs the San Francisco Municipal Railway.

“Every dollar spent on transit helps clean the air by getting people out of their cars. And with gas prices continuing to escalate, we should be doing everything we can to encourage, not discourage, transit use.”

Arnold likes to tell Californians he looks out for their jobs and their wallets, but how on earth is does starving public transit of funds and shackling Californians to their cars and to rising gas prices do anything at all to help grow the economy and keep money in voters’ pockets? The Vehicle License Fee that Arnold cut costs the state $6 billion a year in order to save drivers an average of $150 – which they’ll spend on higher gas prices in the space of a month. He still hasn’t restored the $5.8 billion he has diverted from transportation funds over the five years he has been in office.

Congressional Republicans have voted $14 billion for Amtrak – so why is Arnold instead attacking mass transit alternatives in California? Surely it doesn’t have anything to do with massive contributions he has received from big oil companies.

Arnold’s silence on gas prices – THE topic of conversation across the state right now – provides a golden opportunity for Democrats. Californians are screaming for more transit – more buses, more trains, more opportunities to save money and have an easier, faster commute. Democrats ought to ensure they have it – voters understand that the cost of a new tax will pale in comparison to the cost of rising gas prices. Strong Democratic support for high speed rail would also show voters that Dems mean business, whereas Republicans literally have no plan whatsoever to deal with gas prices.

Orange County

My Husband is going on Thom Hartmann’s Take Back our Country!

Cross posted from Daily Kos

Sounds a lot more interesting than it is but I’m so excited to be able to share that Gary Pritchard, my husband and Democratic candidate for California State Senate is going to be appearing on Thom Hartmann’s Air America show tomorrow morning at 10:50 am (Pacific time).  

More below the cut…

Pritchard to Appear on Air America’s Thom Hartmann Show Thursday Morning

Orange County, CA- California State Senate Candidate, Gary Pritchard will be a featured guest on national Air Americas radio program the Thom Hartmann Show, 10:50 a.m. this Thursday morning, June 12. Pritchard will be interviewed during Hartmanns regular feature, Taking Our Country Back.

During the segment, the liberal talk show host helps Democratic candidates gain traction one office, one seat, one vote at a time. “Its all about getting people to get active and supporting the folks who are willing to put themselves out there to get the job done.” Listeners are asked to help through volunteerism or financial contributions or whatever else they can do. state senatorial candidate Pritchard continued, “I became interested in running because he was tired of the constant threats to the state’s education budget.”  

“A quality education insures the future quality of life for every citizen in our state. We must allow teachers to do more of what theyre trained to do, teach!” the tenured Cerritos College Fine Arts professor explained.

Developing a sustainable economy, decreasing our dependence on oil, establishing greater transparency in government, and universal health care for Californians are issues that Pritchard believes are important and vows to fight for if elected.

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Gary Pritchard is a tenured Professor at Cerritos College in the Fine Arts Division. He has a BA from Chapman University, MA from Claremont University and a Ph.D from UCI. Gary is a native Californian who currently lives in Aliso Viejo with his wife Heather and five year old daughter Charlotte. Gary is also a musician who enjoys to play music with his friends from Jazz, rock and blues.

The California 33rd

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I also want to share something I learned about today during a live blog with David Sirota.  David started an organization called Progressive States Network.  It shows that supporting State candidates is a huge way to affect change and push the ideas and issues we want addressed at the State Level.  I was so happy to hear that not only Thom Hartmann gets this, but David Sirota.  There is so much focus on the National races that the little guys get lost in the shuffle.  


About Progressive States Network

Supporting Change State-By-State

Progressive States Network aims to transform the political landscape by sparking progressive actions at the state level. Founded in 2005, the group provides coordinated research and strategic advocacy tools to state legislators and their staffs, empowering these decision-makers with everything they need to engineer forward-thinking change. Progressive States also works with non-profits and a variety of constituent groups to build a swath of support for coordinated progressive policy. The overarching goals: to get good policy passed into law and change the way issues are debated in the states.

A significant part of Progressive States efforts revolve around supporting state legislative campaigns. The organization offers legislators and their staff members with the technical and messaging support necessary to embrace progressive policy. Tapping into a network of experts in each state, the group catalogues existing or developing legislation related to six key values we support. Progressive States also accumulates research to support new laws in these areas. During the current legislative session, our most important values include:

   * Rewarding work

   * Helping families

   * Strengthening communities

   * Growing the economy

   * Increasing democracy

Progressive States seeks to strengthen communication between legislators and the organizations they serve, facilitating a groundswell of interest in progressive policy that spans state, regional and ideological lines. Our board consists of labor organizations, grassroots and “netroots” groups, and key policy centers. With additional support from these organizations, Progressive States makes it even easier for lawmakers to keep open dialogues with their most savvy constituents.

Finally, Progressive States acts as a “war room” to equip legislators with the information they need to advocate good policy. Organization experts put together best-practice guidebooks and serve as surrogates for legislative staff members who need talking points and need them fast. Additionally, with an up-to-the-minute news service at www.progressivestates.org, the group acts as an information hub that keeps legislators up-to-date on progressive news from other states, helps them identify trends and emboldens them to educate each other on how to succeed.

In short, by supporting state legislators and other groups in their efforts to spark progressive actions and get good ideas passed into law, Progressive States proves that state policy matters, and that good policy leads to good politics for all.

Budget

Cut That OTHER Spending!

By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

For decades people have been hearing that government “spends too much.”  They have been hearing that it’s spending cuts that we need, not tax increases.  They’ve been hearing that most of the government’s money is spent on “waste, fraud and abuse.”  They’ve been hearing that it mostly goes to welfare, for people who won’t work and sit around all day.  They’ve been hearing that taxes are too high, the highest in the world, the liberals who run the world only want to tax and spend, etc. And no one has been reaching the public with the facts.

And after decades of this here is a surprise: people think the government spends too much, that we need spending cuts not taxes, that the money goes to waste, fraud and abuse — and welfare and stuff like that.  Who would have thought?

But ask for specifics like, “What specifically would you cut and by how much?” and you’ll get a blank stare.  Try that question on a conservative politician some time and you’ll get the same blank stare.  (Usually accompanied by an exercise commonly known as “the run-around.”)

OK, occasionally when an elected official is faced with no choice but to cut or raise taxes you’ll get an answer.  We saw this recently when the Governor spelled out drastic cuts in schools and other government services — the actual stuff that our taxes pay for.  The public didn’t like that one bit.  They want that “other” spending to be cut instead.  (Of course, the Governor also came up with that weird scheme to borrow from next year’s lottery revenue.  So what happens next year when we have to pay the bills and don’t even have the lottery revenue because that went to this year’s budget???  What do we borrow on then?)

Things might be changing. The public might slowly be coming around to understanding that taxes really do need to be raised — at least as far as a temporary sales tax increase.  The Public Policy Institute of California recently released the results of a survey titled Californians and Their Government.  (The full PDF is here.)  According to the summary,

Solid majorities of residents (58%) and likely voters (62%) oppose the governor’s plan to raise revenue by borrowing from future lottery earnings, but majorities of residents (54%) and likely voters (57%) favor a temporary increase in the state sales tax if the lottery plan fails.

And, according to the press release,

The potential temporary sales tax increase is the only tax increase included in the governor’s revised budget. Asked whether they believe tax increases should be part of his plan, residents are split (48% yes, 46% no), although the percentage favoring tax increases has risen sharply since December (30%). [emphasis added]

Of course, this doesn’t get the budget solved.  It’s a start but as for real-world solutions today, the public still isn’t ready to face facts.  This may be because no one has dared explain that there isn’t really some “other” spending yet to be cut.  Also from the press release:

Californians fail budget math quiz – Page 12

When asked which area gets the biggest share of state spending, only 20 percent of residents correctly identified K-12 education. Asked where the biggest chunk of revenue comes from, only 32 percent give the correct answer: personal income tax.

Let me leave you with a few suggestions for helping solve the budget mess:

Proposition 13, an initiative that was sold as keeping little old ladies on fixed incomes in their homes, cut both residential and commercial property taxes. How about bringing commercial property taxes back to market rates?

Oil companies don’t pay a “severance fee” when they pump our oil out of the ground to sell back to us.  How about they pay for the oil before they sell it back to us?

How about we ask the wealthy to pay sales taxes – the same sales taxes that the rest of us have to pay – when they buy yachts and airplanes?  And how about we ask the wealthy to pay their fair share of other taxes as well?

If you are talking to friends and family about the budget, point out that when Governor Schwarzenegger — who solved previous budget problems by borrowing — tried to balance the budget without raising any taxes he had to cut schools, health care, parks and much more, and still find ways to borrow.  He is a Republican, not a “tax and spend” liberal, so if there were ways to cut “other” spending he would have done that.  

There is no other spending to cut because it takes money to rin a government and provide the services we want and need. “The line at the DMV” is an example because if you cut DMV spending the line you hate just gets longer.

Take a look at the Next 10 site and consider how you would revise the budget.

Click through to Speak Out California

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The CA GOP keeps misleading about “voter fraud”

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Since Dave Cogdill has taken over as Senate Minority Leader, the Senate Minority has been sending out missives on one policy area or another on a weekly (ish) basis.  Today’s was another doozy, this time on the identification requirement for voting:


Those opposed to showing ID at the polls raise as their primary objection the fact that there is no empirical data to support the allegation of widespread voter fraud. Therefore, they argue that there is no justification for erecting what they call “a barrier to voting” that disproportionately affects minorities, the poor, and the elderly. Those in favor of ID at the polls argue that fraud is a real problem, though it is extremely hard to detect without a voter ID requirement. Nevertheless, they point out that there is plenty of documented anecdotal evidence to show that in-person voter fraud is a problem. They also point out that research and experience show that, contrary to the claims of opponents, voter ID requirements in other states have not impacted voter turnout.

These facts are important to consider and debate, but they fail to account for what voters believe about fraud and what effect this belief has on voter confidence in the electoral process. Voters are losing faith in the electoral process partly because of a belief that fraud is a problem in our elections. Polls show that voters increasingly distrust the integrity of the electoral process. A recent Rasmussen Reports survey found that 14% of voters believe there is “a lot” of fraud in American elections, while 50% believed there was some fraud. Only 33% believed there was hardly any fraud.

There’s really just so much in the ways of deception here, it’s hard to even know where to start. But I’ll go with the whole “voter fraud” angle. The Bush Administration really wanted this BS to be true, because they believe ID requirements scare Democratic-leaning voters away from the polls. So, they dug, and they dug, but nothing came up, other than politically motivated garbage cases where the prosecution of the cases boggled the mind of even some federal judges:

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

***

“I find this whole prosecution mysterious,” Judge Diane P. Wood of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, said at a hearing in Ms. Prude’s case. “I don’t know whether the Eastern District of Wisconsin goes after every felon who accidentally votes. It is not like she voted five times. She cast one vote.”(NYT 4/12/07)

So, now that we have the first talking point cleared up, let’s look at the other: voter confidence. If we want to improve voter confidence, well we need look no further than our own Profile in Courage winner, Debra Bowen. Bowen is working incredibly hard to restore confidence in our voting system. The greater issue is confidence in our voting system, rather than these supposed instances of voter fraud.

And if Sen. Cogdill wants to decrease the level of voter anxiety about the so-called fraud? Well, he could start by not sending out missives exaggerating the instance of fraud. The Republican DoJ couldn’t even find any evidence of any systemic issues of fraud. Enough of the politically-inspired concern for voter confidence, while objecting to doing anything about Diebold, Sequoia and the lack of paper trails. It is naked, and transparent, political posturing that is unbecoming of an elected official and unhelpful to our small-d democracy.

UPDATE: I should have included a link to this Pandagon post about a 97-year old woman in  Arizona who was denied the right to vote because of a voter ID law.  Yup, there’s no problems with that at all.

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This Brave Nation



Brave New Foundation (disclaimer: my employer)just launched episode 2 of This Brave Nation, a documentary series born out of a collaboration between BNF and The Nation magazine.  In this episode, two legendary Californians, Dolores Huerta and Bonnie Raitt, are featured in conversation with one another.  (Episode 1 also features two Californians: Van Jones and Carl Pope.  Really serves to remind you just how outsized a role our state has played in building the progressive movement in the U.S.)

Here’s the trailer with Bonnie Raitt.  You can view the entire 30-minute episode at http://bravenation.com/bonnie_…

Future episodes will include Anthony Romero and Ava Lowery, Majora Carter and Pete Seeger, and Tom Hayden and Naomi Klein. At a moment when progressives are healing the wounds of a divisive presidential primary, this series reminds us of the solidarity of our movement.