Arnold, Vacationing in Idaho, “Wants To Act Immediately”

December 31, 2008 David Dayen 2 Comments

The Schwarzenegger Administration unveiled a new budget plan today, calling for more tax hikes and increased borrowing. One notable omission from the plan was Arnold Schwarzenegger himself.

“We are facing a major crisis, probably the most challenging budget situation the state has ever faced,” said Mike Genest, Schwarzenegger’s finance director. “The governor believes in acting immediately.”

Schwarzenegger is out of state and vacationing at the family residence in Sun Valley, Idaho.

That’s some amusing juxtaposition from the Sacramento Bee.

On to the proposal, which is little more than just a warmed-over recapitulation of earlier proposals the Governor has made, with some new elements from right out of fantasyland.

That plan called for a temporary increase in the state sales tax, expanding the sales tax to cover some services, a nickel-a-drink alcohol tax, a new tax on oil production and a $12 hike on vehicle registration fees. It also called for $15.4 billion in spending cuts, including requiring state employees to take two-days-a-month unpaid furloughs through June 30, 2010 and give up two paid holidays each year.

The new elements include reducing the dependent care exemption on state income tax returns from the current $309 per dependent to $103; carrying over some of the deficit into the 2010-11 fiscal year; borrowing funds from voter-created programs that service the mentally ill and pre-kindergarten children’s health services; changing the operating rules for the state lottery in an effort to make it more profitable, and borrowing $4.7 billion from the private sector.

If there’s one thing the private sector is desperate to do right now, that’s take it’s carefully guarded cash and give it to the state with the worst bond rating in the country. They’re really dying to get that done.

The real patterns we see here are familiar to all of Arnold’s budget – a deep lack of concern for the most marginalized elements of society, and a hearty desire to break unions. Schwarzenegger’s lowest point as a politician as maybe as a person was getting blown out in the 2005 special election. He still believes the ideas he put forward in that election were sound, and blames unions for his defeat. Thus you see Arnold going after union members’ livelihoods, insisting on state employee furloughs and generally trying to roll back labor protections that this state has held for decades.

In addition, there’s a recognition that this budget hole is impossible to fill without a magic angel. The proposal names that angel “private borrowing,” but that’s just not going to happen. The angel is going to have to be federal relief from a stimulus package. California reducing its public spending by $10-15 billion at a time when no other entity can pump money into the economy is counter-productive and deeply dangerous to any recovery. The feds are going to have to make up the gap.

Finally, a new proposal looking at the entire $40 billion dollar deficit suggests that the Governor isn’t interested in going forward with the $18 billion dollar work-around budget which he has been negotiating with Democratic leaders. That would be a mistake, because of the exponential effect of continuing to do nothing in the immediate term. Then again, if he were interested in action, the Last Action Hero wouldn’t be in Idaho right about now.

…if you want to go through it yourself, the budget plan is here.

…statements from legislative leaders on the flip.

Steinberg:

If the administration’s point today in putting forward a $41 billion solution is to try to impress upon us the urgency of the situation, it’s not necessary. We feel the urgency of the situation, and that’s why Speaker Bass and I and our staffs have been working diligently throughout the holidays to try to meet the administration halfway or more on their economic stimulus proposals. The fundamental problem, of course, with what the administration laid out today is that they don’t bring a single Republican vote to pass the revenue elements of their proposal.

Bass:

The governor’s proposal released today has one positive message: he may finally be coming around and realizing he needs to approve the responsible package of budget solutions the legislature passed December 18.

That package includes $18 billion in real cuts and new revenues to head off the cash crisis and take a big swipe at the deficit. It includes $3 billion in new funds for transportation projects and $3 billion in expedited projects voters have already approved. That means we’d be creating 367,000 new jobs at a time California needs all the new jobs we can get.

So far, legislative leaders have compromised, but the governor has been holding up these budget solutions and these new jobs. We’ve compromised by easing environmental restrictions for transportation projects. We’ve compromised by expanding public private partnerships. We’ve compromised by putting half a billion dollars in state employee compensation on the table.

The governor’s latest proposal assumes the cuts and revenues from the legislative budget solution package. That’s progress. So let’s get agreement on that package, keep California from going over the financial cliff, and then tackle the next round of hard challenges to find solutions to the rest of the deficit.

There are significant questions about what revenue the lottery can really bring in…there are concerns about whether California can manage the additional borrowing the governor is proposing … and there are problems with cuts that seriously harm the students in our schools.

All those issues can be addressed as we move through the rest of the budget process. Right now the most important step is for the governor to recognize that all his demands aren’t nearly important as the jobs we want created.

I appreciate the governor acknowledging today the necessity of the cuts and revenues the legislature approved and I hope the governor’s first act of the new year will be to sign the responsible package we are putting before him.

Villines:

Republicans believe the Governor took important steps to address California’s growing budget crisis by including budget reform and proposals to streamline government in his latest budget plan. We also join with him in making economic incentives and job creation a top budget priority.

We are also pleased to see the Governor has adopted the Republican’s proposal to let voters choose to redirect billions in existing tax dollars to protect the priorities of working families in these tough budget times. However, Republicans cannot support the Governor’s proposal to impose $14 billion in higher taxes on Californians. We believe this will devastate an economy already in turmoil and will hurt people who are struggling to make ends meet. Before we should even consider raising taxes on people, we need to take action to reduce government overspending starting with the elimination of all automatic increases, and enact an economic recovery plan to grow our economy and create jobs.

We cannot wait until the summer to enact responsible budget solutions for California. When the Legislature comes on Monday, we should vote immediately to pass the over $6 billion in common solutions that were in the special session budget plans put forth by Democrats, Republicans and the Governor. Taking urgent action to pass these reductions can get us through our immediate cash flow crisis. If we also take action now to get Californians back to work and to help stimulate our economy, we will be in a better position to address our state’s budget problem for next year and the years ahead.

(that’s cagey. “We all agree on $6 billion in cuts, just do them now!”)

Cogdill:

I applaud the Governor for including elements of the Republican budget plan into the proposal released today. During these tough economic times, it makes sense to go back to the voters and ask them to redirect money for their intended purposes, such as children’s health and mental health programs, instead of sitting idly in the bank.

While Republicans have serious concerns about raising taxes during a recession, we appreciate that the Governor’s proposal includes difficult, but necessary reductions to bring state spending closer in line with revenues.

Instead of simply asking taxpayers to send more of their hard-earned money to Sacramento we should focus on economic stimulus. Growing and protecting jobs in California has a direct relationship to a robust state treasury. Stimulating our economy should be the Legislature’s top priority and it is unfortunate that the majority party has blocked these common-sense reforms to get more Californians back to work.

In addition, we need to ensure the state never again faces a deficit of this size by enacting long term structural reforms such as a spending cap and rainy day fund.

Republicans continue to stand ready to be a part of a responsible budget solution. The Governor’s early release of his budget underscores the magnitude of the state’s budget problems and the need for urgent action in addressing this crisis.

California

Looking Backward

December 31, 2008 Robert Cruickshank 3 Comments

2008 was the year change came to California. And by that I don’t just mean the successful Obama campaign. 2008 was the year the 20th century model finally broke down on the side of the road, as the privatized, financialized, sprawlconomy collapsed. California has been hit harder than almost every other state by the economic crisis, which has shown Californians the desperate need to move in a new direction.

The dominant political development in the state was the battle over that future. The budget crisis, which took up all of 2008 and will likely do the same in 2009, isn’t just about taxes and spending, but about what kind of state we will live in.

The one thing all sides agree is that the future will not look like the past. Arnold Schwarzengger wants to roll back 40 years of environmental and labor laws, while his Republican legislative colleagues want to go back to the early 19th century before even public schools, in their desire to destroy state government. The Yacht Party is openly rooting for a Depression, which they believe will enable them to finally destroy their liberal enemies. If that requires sacrificing the middle class, so be it – Republicans only ever saw them as easily manipulated fellow-travelers anyway.

Democrats have not articulated a future as clearly as their opponents, but Californians have done this on their own. In a year that saw some bitter electoral defeats, voters pointed the way forward by approving nearly every mass transit proposal put to them, including those that required a 2/3 supermajority to raise taxes. Whether it’s high speed rail, the Subway to the Sea, BART to San José, or the Marin-Sonoma train, Californians showed that anti-tax Hooverism has its limits.

In one of the most important speeches of the year, Van Jones called for progressives to move from opposition to proposition. The only way we can defeat the New Hoovers among us, those who want to despoil our environment and make working Californians suffer worse during this economic crisis, is for progressives to clearly articulate and defend a better alternative. The successful mass transit votes show how powerful that effort can be when it is made.

It also shows that Californians are now ready to redefine the California Dream for the 21st century – they are beginning to understand that the 20th century model of an economy built on sprawl has failed them and cannot provide broadly shared prosperity. Since so much of our politics stems from that sprawlconomy, Californians’ willingness to look beyond it is a much-needed shift, even if the old ways die hard.

If that better, sustainable and prosperous future is to be realized, California progressives need to be better organized. The other great lesson, and the most important single political event of the year, was the passage of Proposition 8 – which showed how totally the old ways of politics had failed.

Many Caliticians have dissected the failure of the No on 8 campaign, laying the blame at a top-down consultant-driven media-focused campaign that did not speak clearly about the issue, about who would be impacted, and did not reach out to those Californians we need to reach. When we fight this battle again we will fix those mistakes. If Obama showed how a grassroots effort can change the country, Prop 8 showed how the lack of one can hurt the state.

The battle over Prop 8 also showed the maturation of the gay rights movement, which is the direct descendant of and now the heir to the Civil Rights Movement. It showed that even California is not immune to successful gay-bashing, but also showed how wide and deep support for equal rights has become. Prop 8 has galvanized a new generation to become politically organized, has turned average people into committed activists, and has united the progressive movement around a plan to bring communities together to organize for everyone’s right to marry.

2008 was not a good year for California, and we enter 2009 with enormous challenges, with at least one wheel over the edge of the cliff. But 2008 has also shown us the way forward, how a grassroots, bottom-up politics centered on full equality for all and a sustainable model of prosperity can break through the failed politics of the 20th century and renew California’s promise as a progressive, free, and beautiful place to live.

Uncategorized

Latter-Day Protest? Proposition 8 and Sports

December 31, 2008 Chino Blanco 4 Comments

By Dave Zirin

x-posted from Edge of Sports with permission.

As supporters of Gay Marriage have discovered, it’s never easy to be on the Mormon Church’s enemies list. The Church of Latter-Day Saints backed the anti-Gay Marriage Proposition 8 in California with out-of-state funds, and gave the right a heartbreaking victory this past election cycle. But the Mormon Church has been challenged in the past. Just ask Bob Beamon.

If you know Beamon’s name it’s almost certainly because he won the long jump gold medal in legendary fashion at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Beamon leapt 29 feet, 2.5 inches, a record that held for twenty-three years. Great Britain’s Lynn Davies told Beamon afterwards, “You have destroyed this event.” This is because Beamon was not only the first long jumper to break 29 feet, he was the first to break 28.

But you may not know that Beamon almost never made it to Mexico City. Along with eight other teammates, Beamon had his track and field scholarship revoked from the University of Texas at El Paso, the previous year. They had refused to compete against Brigham Young University. Beamon and his teammates were protesting the racist practices of the Mormon Church, and their coach at UTEP, Wayne Vanderburge, made them pay the ultimate price.

They weren’t alone. As tennis great Arthur Ashe wrote in his book, Hard Road to Glory, “In October 1969, fourteen black [football] players at the University of Wyoming publicly criticized the Mormon Church and appealed to their coach, Lloyd Eaton, to support their right not to play against Brigham Young University. . . . The Mormon religion at the time taught that blacks could not attain to the priesthood, and that they were tainted by the curse of Ham, a biblical figure. Eaton, however, summarily dropped all fourteen players from the squad.”

The players, though, didn’t take their expulsion lying down. They called themselves the Black 14 and sued for damages with the support of the NAACP. In an October 25th game against San Jose State, the entire San Jose team wore black armbands to support the 14.

One aftershock of this episode was in November 1969, when Stanford University President Kenneth Pitzer suspended athletic relations with BYU, announcing that Stanford would honor what he called an athlete’s “Right of Conscience.” The “Right of Conscience” allowed athletes to boycott an event which he or she deemed “personally repugnant.” As the Associated Press wrote, “Waves of black protest roll toward BYU, assaulting Mormon belief and leaving BYU officials and students, perplexed, hurt, and maybe a little angry.”

On June 6th, 1978, as teams were refusing road trips to Utah with greater frequency, and the IRS started to make noises about revoking the church’s holy tax-free status, a new revelation came …

Whether a cynical ploy to avoid the taxman or a coincidence touched by God, the results were the same: Black people were now human in the eyes of the Church. African Americans were no longer, as Brigham Young himself once put it, “uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable, and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.” The IRS was assuaged, the athletic contests continued, and the church entered a period of remarkable growth.

Similar pressure must be brought to bear on the Mormon Church today for its financing of Proposition 8 in California. One nonprofit crunched the numbers and found that $17.67 million of the $22 million used to pass the anti-gay marriage legislation was funneled through 59,000 Mormon families since August. It was done with the institutional backing of the church, though many pro-gay Mormons have spoken out defiantly against the church’s political intervention.

The question now is whether this latest tale of social conflict and the Church of Latter-Day Saints will also spill onto the athletic field. Men’s athletics have been one of the last proud hamlets of homophobia in our society (although the attitudes of male athletes is more progressive than you might think). But women’s sports has been historically more open around issues of sexuality.

Will any women collegians raise the specter of Proposition 8 if they have to travel to the schools of Utah? Will we see the ghosts of Black 14 emerge from the past? If any athletes choose to act, the ramifications could be “Beamonesque.”

Chino Blanco

Uncategorized

Audra Strickland’s chief of staff charged in Westlake protest incident

December 31, 2008 Marie Lakin

While writing is a cathartic experience for some, putting painful episodes of my life into words has always been difficult for me.

And so it went with the final outcome of the State Senate District 19 race between Hannah-Beth Jackson and Tony Strickland. Jackson lost by just 857 votes to an opponent who ran the dirtiest, most deceitful campaign I have ever witnessed.

It was the blog entry that never got written.

But today brought news that finally drew me out of the deep well I had been residing in, a well dug by a temporary loss of faith in our system of democracy. It was a pit dug even deeper by an incident that I witnessed last summer in which I once thought justice would never be served.

Today I heard that Assembly member Audra Strickland’s chief of staff — and Tony Strickland’s former chief of staff — will indeed go to trial for actions that occurred June 17 outside a Westlake fundraiser for Tony’s campaign.

The State Attorney General’s Office has filed a complaint in Ventura County Superior Court against Joel Angeles on four counts: interference with civil rights (involving Louis Pandolfi of Simi Valley); battery causing serious bodily injury (involving Jack Phillips of Camarillo); battery (involving Pandolfi); and battery (involving Sandy Quiring of Simi Valley). The trial is scheduled for Feb. 6.

These incidents allegedly occurred against three people gathered to protest the acceptance of more than $130,000 in direct and indirect campaign contributions from the tobacco industry for Tony Strickland.

As one of more than 50 anti-tobacco protesters at the Hyatt Westlake, I am also one of 11 witnesses who had to provide a statement about what I had seen that day. I remain unwavering in my account that Angeles’ actions were unprovoked and I watched as he knocked 67-year-old Phillips, a minister, to the ground. Phillips later underwent surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff.

Legal experts tell me that Angeles could serve a year in jail for each offense, and while he could work out a plea bargain arrangement, the civil rights complaint will make it harder to do so. The violation of Pandolfi’s civil rights was filed as a “hate” crime and the battery against Phillips was filed as a major crime with great bodily injury. These charges were carefully crafted to open the door for a civil lawsuit as well as restitution.

No doubt forces were at work throughout the election season to keep the story under wraps. And the file seemingly languished on Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten’s desk for an eternity before he recused himself and passed it up to the State Attorney General’s office.

Despite the sensitive nature of his office, Totten was a most ardent campaigner for Tony Strickland. The recusal was certainly warranted.

I am more than happy to let the courts determine the final outcome and have no wish to try this case via the press. But the decision today restored my faith that sometimes people determined to do the right thing can prevail.

Marie Lakin is a community activist and a blogger for the Ventura County Star. Her blog can be found at http://blogs.venturacountystar…

Marriage Equality

We’re the next Harvey Milk. Come to EqualityCamp

December 31, 2008 alevin

(If you around you should try and make it. – promoted by Julia Rosen)

The demonstrations against Prop 8 that have been organized using Facebook and wikis are promising signs of an opportunity to build a stronger, grassroots-powered movement for marriage equality. The “Please don’t divorce…” photo project is a fabulous grassroots action to help people build a personal connection to and empathy for people who are hurt by Prop 8.

As Julia Rosen, Madprofessah and others have written, one of the great weaknesses of the No on 8 campaign is that it did not take advantage of the opportunities for online organizing and grassroots organizing. Also, the campaign made a big strategic error by hiding the faces of gay people, when we know that personal heart connection is what moves many people to change their minds about supporting gay rights.

The Web has changed organizing; it will never work top-down again. The Web has shown us how to bring people together to make change. EqualityCamp is a pilot event on January 3 in San Francisco to bring together netroots organizers and Web 2.0 geeks who know the lessons of the Web well together with activists for marriage equality and equal rights for gays.

HUGE: 9th Circuit Rules Three Strikes Sentence Unconstitutional

December 31, 2008 David Dayen 2 Comments

This is a major, if tentative, victory for criminal justice reform advocates.

California’s three-strikes sentencing law suffered a blow Tuesday when a federal appeals court struck down as unconstitutional a 28-years-to-life sentence for a sex offender who failed to register with local police at the correct time of year.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case of Cecilio Gonzalez back to federal district court in Los Angeles for resentencing after finding his 2001 penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the 8th Amendment.

Gonzalez’s harsh sentence was grossly disproportionate to his “entirely passive, harmless and technical violation of the registration law,” the appeals court said.

This case represented the unintended consequence of three-strikes carried out to its most ridiculous extreme. 28 to life for registering, but not at the right time of year? Nuts. This isn’t a crime in 11 states, and the maximum sentence allowed by customary law in California is three years.

In case the “tough on crime” absolutists start shieking about “activist liberal judges” overturning the will of the people, consider who wrote this opinion: Jay Bybee. Nominated by George W. Bush Jay Bybee. Writer of the fucking torture memo Jay Bybee. Even a guy who justified the torture of prisoners considers this cruel and unusual punishment. There is no indication whether or not Jerry Brown would carry this to an appeal, but considering the opinion of this very conservative jurist, I would imagine the US Supreme Court would at least potentially rule the same way, although they struck down a similar challenge to three strikes in 2003 on a 5-4 vote. Put it this way, I don’t see Bybee as more conservative than Anthony Kennedy.

This does not invalidate three strikes entirely, but it certainly gives a ray of hope to those locked up for a minor third crime to challenge their sentencing. And it provides a framework to show how unjust and counter-productive these stringent mandatory sentences are. Three strikes is more of a symptom than the entire problem – the legislature has approved over 1,000 higher sentences in the past 30 years. But this is an important start, to end the tyranny of “tough on crime” absolutism that has contributed to busting the state budget and making this the worst state in the union when it comes to the corrections system.

Budget

Hope you didn’t want that tax refund

December 31, 2008 Brian Leubitz 1 Comment

Because the state simply doesn’t have the money to give it back to you. But you will get a shiny new IOU note from Controller John Chiang. And you’ll be in good company, the Legislators will be the first to get the IOU notes from the state. From the Bee:

State Controller John Chiang warned Tuesday that the first group to get hit in the wallet by California’s budget debacle is likely to include legislators – and it could happen as early as Feb. 1.

The bad news is that next in line to get IOUs instead of cash would be state income taxpayers awaiting refunds and companies that do business with the state.

In a letter to state agencies, Chiang said his office was projecting the state would run out of cash around the beginning of March. (SacBee 12/30/08)

At this point the situation is so precarious, that it isn’t even clear that if the Democratic Legislative Leaders and the Governor come to some sort of agreement, that we’ll even be able to implement it in time. Perhaps we’ll be in a better position to borrow money, but that depends a lot on the credit markets. And at this point, our position at the mercy of the credit markets is not an enviable one.

You know, it’s really getting hard to think of new ways to describe this mess. I mean, FUBAR is putting it quite mildly. The state of California, the seventh largest economy in the world, will literally be out of cash in March. Such a collapse would make the collapse of Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns look laughable.

Paul Krugman advocates for the obvious solution, aid to states in paying for social services such as unemployment and medicaid. California will need a very large chunk of change, but the stimulus package appears to be growing by the day. Right now, it looks to be at least $850 Billion. With any luck, that will come down sooner rather than later.

In the interim, perhaps we should have a naming contest for this mess. My Entry: Minerva‘s Moola Mess.

calitics

Daily Archives: December 31, 2008