I will be on KRXA 540 AM at 8 this morning to talk about this and other issues in California politics
I don’t know about you, but I can’t find anything in the outcome of the May 19 election that justifies, say, ending welfare entirely, or denying AIDS patients life-saving medicines, or throwing a million kids off of health care, or closing the state park system, or eliminating affordable access to higher education. Can you?
In fact, even though polls show voters emphatically reject that kind of budgeting Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone ahead and proposed it anyway. In his best effort to play the role of a modern-day Herbert Hoover he has decided to interpret the election as a mandate to push through the radical attack on government he has always wanted to lead.
In recent hearings in the Legislature – which in themselves prove the value of an open budget process – the scope of the cuts has become clear, and even legislators who were just last week speaking of the need for cuts are starting to have second thoughts, as Anthony Wright reported:
Some members, like Senator Denise Ducheny, asked whether some of these cuts would not create more costs, as people end up in emergency rooms or elsewhere, even within the budget year. “What makes you think this doesn’t create a cost shift?… Will people just die and we won’t have to take care of them?” she asked.
Senator Mark Leno talked about how the AIDS Drug Assistance Program “literally keeps people alive,” and asked for information about the increased cost of ermegency room visits as a result of the cut. Senator Alan Lowenthal asked if there was a “longitudinal” analysis, and asked for the “long-range implications” of these cuts.
Assemblywoman Noreen Evans was alarmed when she noted that dialysis would be cut for some patients, exclaiming that her father was going through such treatment, and was not optional. She also noted that some cuts, like the elimination of HIV Testing, would have public health impacts. Assemblyman Kevin DeLeon pointed out the cuts to community clinics, arguing that for many Californians, “this is the only safety-net they have.”
As the Sac Bee reports, even some Republicans acknowledge that there is such a thing as a successful government program:
Assemblyman Danny Gilmore, R-Hanford, wrote an opinion piece this month for the Bakersfield Californian telling constituents how to apply to Healthy Families and touting it as a program that works “especially well.”
Of course, the Zombie Death Cult still has its adherents, like Chuck DeVore:
But Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said the state must scale back because it cannot afford the benefits it provides. DeVore asserted that overregulation and high taxes have stifled businesses and led to layoffs, while California has compounded the problem with too much public aid.
“When you have an unemployment rate as high as it is in this state, it should be a signal to people to look for jobs in other states with more jobs and a lower cost of living,” DeVore said. “We have had policies subsidizing poverty in this state for years, and we can’t keep doing that.”
And this freak wants to be in the US Senate! The irony is that even his own constituents disagree with him. Orange County residents don’t want their parents to lose dialysis treatment. They don’t want their kids to lose Cal Grants. They don’t want to be barred from going to the nearby beach.
As we have been explaining for months now, these kinds of cuts are suicidal. They will make the budget picture worse by costing more money than the cuts would save. They will certainly make the economic crisis FAR worse by forcing consumers to pull back even further on spending in order to replace the lost state aid. Arnold Schwarzenegger is demanding a Depression.
Unfortunately the legislative leadership has woefully unprepared themselves to respond. Instead of spending the months leading up to the May 19 election talking about protecting Californians against horrific cuts, the Democratic leadership instead went along with Arnold’s scare tactics and made a cuts-only budget sound inevitable – and then doubled down the day after the election.
It’s time for legislators to “just say no” to these cuts. And not say it in order to accept lesser but similarly damaging cuts, but say “no” in order to walk through the wide open door that leads out of the Jarvis nightmare scenario. We have a golden opportunity to bury 30 years of anti-tax nonsense – Californians understand that taxes are necessary to prevent people from dying and to provide economic recovery. There is widespread support for raising taxes on the wealthy, closing the loopholes, and ending a failed prisons policy that costs us billions.
It’s time for legislators to move beyond outrage and to start showing real leadership against this madness. If they want to restore their reputations with voters, the best way to do so is to show that the Legislature still understands common sense and can give the people what they want – a fair tax system that will stop these cuts in their entirety.
It’s a potentially winning strategy (and really, the only one the Democrats have left) to pass a majority-rule fee increase/tax swap with new taxes on corporations and the wealthy, send it to Schwartz, and then just go home until he signs. The state runs out of money in July which means
pretty much everything comes to a halt. Schwartz wants medical care for the poor, college, etc to come to a halt but prisons and police to continue. Let’s just stop everything and the C of C will start to bring pressure and Schwartz will cave.
Here’s my theory. I think that the Governor is so angry with the GOP that he is trying to destroy it. He has been so frustrated by his own party that he is now going to stop protecting it.
Look at his four major cuts:
1. Ending welfare payments. Not cutting it back. Ending it. We lose the $3.7 B from the feds but we save the $1.8B that the state pays.
2. Ending Cal Grants. Not cutting back. Ending it. 200,000 students depend on those grants.
3. Stealing $2 billion from cities and counties. In some circles, this is called larceny. I guess when government does it, it’s somehow ok.
4. Ending medical insurance for 2 million Californians.
These cuts require 41 votes and I just cannot imagine that there are 41 people (let alone 41 legislators) who would support all of this.
I think that his goal right now is to completely destroy the GOP. As a champion for these right wing ideas (rather than a more nuanced approach to reigning in the bureaucracy, reducing labor costs, etc.) he is going to end the Republican Party. Not cutting back. End it.
Our child will lose her Cal Grant this year – we will suddenly owe $9000 more!
Our local high school will lose a counselor, the 7 period day, support for music.
That’s the tip of the iceberg.
My State Sen. Loni Hancock suggests:
and
Just really wanted to highlight this quote.
Refuse billions in federal funds, cut services for the poor, and if you’re broke, leave California.
Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin home every day,
Beatin the hot old dusty way to the California line.
‘Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin out of that old dust bowl,
They think they’re goin’ to a sugar bowl, but here’s what they find
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
“You’re number fourteen thousand for today.”
Oh, if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see
But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot
If you ain’t got the do re mi.
You want to buy you a home or a farm, that can’t deal nobody harm,
Or take your vacation by the mountains or sea.
Don’t swap your old cow for a car,
you better stay right where you are,
Better take this little tip from me.
Cause I look through the want ads every day
But the headlines on the papers always say
If you ain’t got the do re mi, boys, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see
But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot
If you ain’t got the do re mi.
I got tapped to give budget testimony on behalf of CNA. I had a nice little sheet of prepared remarks with all the good policy reasons not to make the cuts, but there was long line of people waiting to testify – so many that the time limit was set at 90 seconds. I listened to one person after another make the points I was going to make, so I just tossed the prepared stuff and told them what I thought. The LA times reporter caught some of it for their online edition later in the day:
My other observation is that – now that the cuts are actually out there on the table – there is being huge mobilization of all kinds of groups to protest. Where the hell was all that back in the winter when the budget negotiations were going on? My understanding is that the unions offered to mobilize people to support the Dems at that time and the Dem leaders turned them down, preferring their closed door negotiations to an open process with the people engaged. For some reason, they seemed to think they were negotiating with actual humans who could be moved by normal human considerations. Not.
There shouldn’t be any cuts made to Medical or Education. That’s a point we need to make Loud and Clear. The cuts don’t save the middle-class or the working-class a dime – the cuts COST them thousands of dollars and put their lives and future at risk. Let’s organize a rally/Protest at the governor’s office and get some supporters involved before this proposal is passed. I urge you to not just talk about it but to take action and do something about it. Join me in the mission to stop the Terminator from passing this insane budget cut proposal. Tell me where and when and I’ll bring a group of people to protest.