If there’s one thing I learned from my leadership training at West Point and my service in Iraq, it’s that you can’t hide from your problems. Challenges must be met head-on -and with a true understanding of the costs and the consequences of your actions.
It is precisely this lesson that informs my decision to implore my friends, family, supporters and all Californians to vote NO on Propositions 1A-1F.
Make Your Voice Heard–Sign Our Petition
California’s budget is a mess – year in and year out, our leaders in Sacramento have been unable to pass a balanced budget on time. Because of it, our state is being bankrupted, teachers are being laid off and funds are being taken away from our kids and our most vulnerable, including returning veterans.
We don’t need more stopgap measures and backroom political deals to solve this problem – real budget reform will require a comprehensive approach and a wide-ranging set of real, substantive solutions to set us back on the right course.
Right now special interests like Chevron, and other corporations that benefit from the midnight deals cut in Sacramento, are spending millions of dollars on slick media campaigns in a desperate attempt to scare voters into accepting a bad solution.
It’s up to us to remind the Sacramento politicians that they work for us.
That’s why I have set up a people’s petition on my web site, opposing each of these flawed measures and calling on our state’s elected leaders to get back to work and create a real budget solution based on sound principles, not backroom politics.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION NOW
Propositions 1A-1F won’t solve California’s problems because they don’t address the most fundamental problems with our state budget-a broken process, a failure to set clear priorities, and retreating from tough choices. At best, they are temporary fixes – classic “Sacramento Solutions,” crafted in the middle of the night for political purposes.
Now, the same Sacramento politicians that created this mess are “spinning” their backroom deals as real solutions that will help solve our budget crisis and protect our most important services.
In Sacramento, political “spin” is just about all we see these days. Propositions 1A-1F are a classic example of politicians calling what is clearly a defeat, a victory.
On the battlefield there is no “spin.” You are successful or you are defeated. And the consequences of defeat are very real.
If eight years of George Bush, a global financial meltdown, a worsening healthcare crisis, and $4.00/gallon gasoline have taught us anything, it’s that the longer we wait to address our problems head on, the more expensive and more complicated those problems become.
California truly can’t afford more temporary political fixes and we surely can’t hide from our problems.
I hope you’ll join me in voting NO on Propositions 1A-1F – and I hope you’ll work with me in demanding California’s elected leaders get back to work, and craft real, lasting solutions to California’s budget crisis.
Anthony Woods
Democrat for Congress, CA 10
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You seem to be blaming Democratic legislators for agreeing to these backroom deals to prevent the Republicans from letting the State go into insolvency.
Do you really blame them from agreeing to whatever was necessary to get a deal done?
Sure, they should absolutely be faulted what they’ve done since this budget deal was agreed to by them under duress, because they had the ability to start fighting against the leverage that was used against them: the 2/3 rule.
Why are you getting to the core of the problem: repealing the 2/3 vote requirement to increase taxes or pass a budget?
I was imprecise: Democrats should be faulted for their pre-budget deal actions for not pointing out that the Republican extremists were hanging together to use the 2/3 rule to impose their wildly unpopular ideology on the state. They unilaterally gave up their main source of leverage (public opinion). Once their budget was vetoed, they never mentioned it again. Why the hell not? That was the biggest cudgel they had to use against Republicans to show voters how extreme Repub. legislators AND ‘good-cop’ Arnold were being.
So we don’t know why they pretended negotiations were in good faith, but if the plan was to curry favor with the Republicans that spectacularly failed. And for that they should be faulted.
However, when it came down to agreeing what Arnold and Abel dictated their terms behind closed doors, I’m glad they did what was necessary to release the hostage.
I apologize to all for hitting Post on my prior comment prematurely.