Earlier this month the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District voted to close my neighborhood elementary school. Even though it was consistently the best performing elementary school in the district, recent state budget cuts meant that MPUSD could no longer afford to keep it open – with a smaller campus and therefore a smaller enrollment, the district was spending more to keep the school open than they received in state aid payments. Kids will have to attend another school in another part of town that’s much less accessible (Monterey is basically split in two by the Presidio of Monterey). This came on top of dozens of teacher layoffs in the district, part of thousands of such layoffs across the state.
I use that story as a microcosm of the crisis that engulfed California in 2009. From domestic violence victims to people dependent on in-home supportive services to college students, to name just a few of the people impacted by budget cuts, the state of California in 2009 decided that destroying the safety net and the programs that created and sustained the prosperity this state had enjoyed over the last five or six decades.
Those cuts, in turn, have killed the California Dream. The dream is that anyone can come to California, enjoy its natural beauty, and reinvent/find/embrace themselves here, all enabled by the availability of basic economic security and prosperity. That’s really what it’s about, the notion that people can create, innovate, dream, and be themselves in this beautiful place, and do so without having to worry about how they’ll make ends meet, because the state has backed policies that will ensure such fundamental prosperity.
No longer. Now California’s government has decided to begin the slow process of abandoning its people to their fates. Well, unless you’re a corporation or you’re rich, in which case you still have power that you can wield to enable government to not only keep protecting your interests, but to enrich you even further, as seen by the corporate tax cuts made in the February 2009 budget deal.
There’s still a long way down, more public services that can and may well be slashed in 2010 and 2011 as the state’s economic crisis is prolonged.
And yet, amidst the pain of 2009, there were rays of hope. The same February budget deal saw taxes increased – and hardly anyone noticed the effect. The taxes, which began on April 1, didn’t worsen the recession. They haven’t created an unbearable burden on people. They haven’t produced a massive political backlash. The notion that Californians will never accept new taxes to preserve core services seems discredited. Not every tax will be supported or approved, but it’s a much less black and white matter than the pundits and politicians assume.
Another ray of hope came on May 19th, when Californians rejected an inherently right-wing set of budget proposals that avoided the core problems and would have made the current cuts permanent through a spending cap. Progressives refused to be swayed by legislative Democrats who used all kinds of scare tactics to try and get us to ratify that bad deal. Our rejection of that deal hasn’t cured the budget crisis, nor did we expect it to. But we do have more freedom to act on that crisis than we would have if we’d passed those propositions.
Progressives learned one of the key lessons of 2009: don’t support bad deals because you’re afraid of the alternative. Californians want progressive solutions to these problems. They want their neighborhood schools to remain open, with a full complement of teachers to maintain small class sizes. They want guaranteed and affordable health care for everyone, not just those who can afford it. They want government to take the lead in creating good, sustainable jobs, instead of sitting on the sidelines.
2010 is going to offer an opportunity to achieve some of that. The November 2010 ballot in particular could be full of initiatives designed to address various pieces of the budget crisis. Some of those solutions, such as marijuana legalization, will be very progressive. Others won’t be. And some of the biggest fixes, like a full restoration of majority rule, may not appear on the ballot at all.
Still, progressives are well positioned to play the deciding role in the key political battles of 2010. We have a big organizing and messaging task ahead of us, and we don’t have nearly the resources we need to match what the moderates and right-wingers have. But what we do have is powerful enough to help mobilize other progressives, whether activists or just voters, to step up and start the long process of rebuilding the California Dream in 2010.
You wrote: “The dream is that anyone can come to California, enjoy its natural beauty, and reinvent/find/embrace themselves here, all enabled by the availability of basic economic security and prosperity. That’s really what it’s about, the notion that people can create, innovate, dream, and be themselves in this beautiful place, and do so without having to worry about how they’ll make ends meet, because the state has backed policies that will ensure such fundamental prosperity.”
That’s what it is all right – A Dream, and just a dream. Come on, who’s gonna pay for that. Just because the state backed policies that tried to bring such a dream to fruition means very little. Where does the money come from for me (or millions others)to find self-enlightentment?
It’s summed best by Prime Minister Thatcher who said, “The only problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money to spend.”
I think the most promising strategy is to start offering ballot initiatives with funding tied to particular programs. Steinberg’s mental health initiative did that. An oil severance tax for higher education (like Texas) is a possibility. Ballot initiatives which lay out benefits to every neighborhood (such as the Monterey school closing) tied to revenue from the wealthy (individuals and corporations)–such as split roll, additional tax brackets,
etc. Is this incrementalism? Sure. But consider this–if Schwartz had not killed the car tax the state’s financial condition would be far better, even with the recession.
You have a very government-centric view of the California dream.
Almost all of the good things in life arise from your personal freedom and the private sector. Your own personal faith, family, job, friends and prosperity have very little to do with government — and that’s a good thing.
You shouldn’t be surprised by the recent government cuts in programs to assist the poor. Government serves the goals of the rich and powerful. In California it’s the unions that have the most power and they look after their own first. Look at the most recent budget and you’ll see real cuts to programs for the poor, but very few cuts to union interests.
In the long run, a small state government and low taxes provide the best protection for the poor. Low taxes allow businesses to prosper, reduces the unemployment rate and increases worker wages. Small government reduces the influence of the rich and powerful who use the power of government to promote their self interests.
Most of the good in our lives comes from our freedom and the private sector. If you’re waiting for government to look after your interests, you’ll be waiting a long time.
Where to start?
OK, first with the school. It’s too bad a good little school had to close, but if consolidating sites helps save enough money to keep the teachers who help make it a success on staff, it’s a sensible decision in my book. So the kids will ride the bus. Boo-hoo.
There have been some teacher layoffs, but (thanks to the federal stimulus) far fewer than threatened last spring. Indeed, the EDD says the number of people employed in educational services in the state rose from 303,100 last November to 310,700. That does not reflect waves of layoffs.
Then there’s this:
You don’t say exactly what those policies are, but it has been years since California was doing anything to ensure fundamental prosperity. It is so painfully difficult to establish and expand a business in California, that we were left with no underlying economy other than selling overpriced houses to each other. And when that popped, we were left with unemployment worthy of Detroit.
Ask 10 business site-selection specialists where their clients are opening plants. Given the choice, 8 of them wouldn’t think of California, not so much because of the taxes as because of the insane regulations.
Yes, if you’re running a software or biotech company, you want to be near Stanford and Berkeley, but what about the 90 percent of the population that doesn’t have an advanced degree?
Bill Watkins gets closer to the heart of the problem.
http://www.newgeography.com/co…
My parents would never have put me in public school in Mississippi. I advised my son not to move back to CA due to the same ranking of our public schools. Thanks to many of the commenters above, we now have not only a dysfunctional state, but one where the power brokers are ready to finish off what remains of representative democracy. At least in other states they do not do end-runs around the legislature using the proposition system that favors the wealthy. My pet peeve is that commercial property that sells less often than residential has not been reassessed in 30 years. Howard Jiveass knew how to make a buck off the tax payers. We can now join the south with our banana republic government using the same ideology. Thanks for a great article R. Cruickshank. Sorry about your public school. We lost police. No doubt there is more to come this year probably to the cheers of the Grover Norquist supporters. You have already washed us down the drain. Get a clue.