Sen. Steinberg looks pretty peeved in this little impromptu press conference. His frustration with dealing with the Republicans is plainly visible, and for that you really can’t blame him. After all, if you can blame him for anything, it is being too patient with them. The question that is worth pondering now is whether we should have seen this coming three months ago?
Look, the Republicans are content to sit there and let the clock tick down. As we proceed now, Gov. Brown becomes less popular, and there is a decreased sense of unity of purpose after the disaster that was Gov. Schwarzenegger. Really, if your goal is to beat the government into submission, at this point you are just playing the long game.
And so the Republicans just sit there, taking their salary, taking that per diem, and sitting around playing tiddleywinks. They haven’t even proposed anything resembling a full solution to the budget plan. They keep talking about pension reform, but any economist or budget analyst can tell you that even if you did slash into public pensions, the savings wouldn’t come for at least 5-10 years.
In other words, the Republicans aren’t serious about balancing the budget. They are content to watch the teacher layoffs and the elderly lose assistance. It is all one big piece of white noise to them.
So, will the Democratic leadership give up? Well, at some point they won’t have a choice, but the Republicans are aware of that and have their own plan:
As Gov. Jerry Brown mulls his options on how to bring an election on taxes to the voters, Republicans are readying election measures of their own. GOP operatives filed two initiatives with the attorney general’s office Thursday — one to curb public employee pensions and another aimed at capping future state spending — in the event Brown walks away from talks with Republican lawmakers and opts for a November special election.
“I want to make sure appropriate reforms join any potential November election,” said former Assemblyman Roger Niello, the sponsor of the pension initiative. Niello, one of the Republicans to support tax increases in 2009, said he supports the five senators who are trying to broker a compromise with Brown. “My preference is that they work out a deal,” he said. (LA Times)
If it comes to a November ballot, it’s going to be pricey, and there are going to be a lot of ugly measures. This just might end up being 2005 all over again. Whether it will defeat Gov. Brown like it did to Schwarzenegger is a whole other question.
Brian…
Didn’t you know last year that this crisis was inevitable? So why didn’t Senator Steinberg and his like-minded colleagues plan ahead?
And if the Republicans proposed reducing all social welfare programs to the federal minimums to balance the budget, would you think the Democrats would consider it?
Prop 25 virtually made Republican legislators irrelevant, so how can you blame them for exercising their little remaining political power? In Wisconsin, didn’t all Democrats in the state senate attempt to leverage their political power to forestall anti-public employee union legislation?
Whether a political move is good or bad shouldn’t depend upon the identity of the party attempting the maneuver.
Brian…
Didn’t you know last year that this crisis was inevitable? So why didn’t Senator Steinberg and his like-minded colleagues plan ahead?
And if the Republicans proposed reducing all social welfare programs to the federal minimums to balance the budget, would you think the Democrats would consider it?
Prop 25 virtually made Republican legislators irrelevant, so how can you blame them for exercising their little remaining political power? In Wisconsin, didn’t all Democrats in the state senate attempt to leverage their political power to forestall anti-public employee union legislation?
Whether a political move is good or bad shouldn’t depend upon the identity of the party attempting the maneuver.
“They are content to watch the teacher layoffs and the elderly lose assistance. It is all one big piece of white noise to them.”
I don’t understand how this can be a surprise to you. The Republicans have said all along they will cut spending to education and cut social programs to the minimum. Democrats can stomp their feet all they want and yell it is not fair but the Republicans are getting exactly what they want; cuts. They don’t need to do anything to achieve the next round of cuts either.
Everyone here is kidding themselves if they think there are more revenues on the way. The polls don’t support it, the Republicans will not support even putting them on the ballot, and it is unlikely, in the next 5 years, that we will see revenues at a level to support the current 2011 spending allocation even before the next round of cuts. We live in a different world now.
In the words of Gavin Newsom, there are more cuts coming “Whether you like it or not.”
This is great. Pass the popcorn.
I’ll repeat an idea I suggested in another thread – if we’re going to have ballot measures to fight over this November, why not go for the whole enchilada – put raising taxes on the rich and corporations on the ballot. So what if it takes 2/3 majority. Let’s put up a fight and get the issue(s) out there and see where it goes. It seems like a good time for such measures. And if not now, when? The author of the above post seems to think there are going to be a lot of ugly measures without any kind of thought to a counter offensive. Are we rolling over already?
They should put it on the ballot with a majority vote. If there are legal challenges, so be it. I think the courts would tend to let the vote proceed and then the courts would tend to accept the vote.
I don’t think there is much chance of a special June election now. The Republicans wanted to run out the clock and I think they just did it.
So we are going to have some ugly cuts right now and in November, voters can decide if this is what they want for the state or do they want higher taxes. Perhaps with a little experience with what the cuts really mean, we might see a better acceptance for taxes and we might be in a better situation then.
I’m not sure we have much choice right now.
where are you? Some funny, attention getting street theater that makes Steinberg’s point in an up-beat way.
Nurses followed Arnie all over the state and made their point. Why don’t nurses and teachers and parents call out the Rs to make the point? LET the VOTERS DECIDE!
Where are the phone banks to mobilize Dem voters in the districts of the “leaning” Rs to get them to call their legislators? What’s up with this flat footed approach? We need nimble, energetic counter measures.
I blame the courts for letting the 2/3 requirement stand. It is clearly anti-democratic to give a “no” vote twice the weight of a “yes” vote for raising taxes (or any other single thing). It should be reserved for basic changes in procedure, like amending the constitution, yet we allow those initiatives to pass with a simple majority.
Why not an initiative that says you can’t elect a Democrat unless they get 2/3 of the votes? I’m sure it’s occurred to the Rethugs but they just can’t figure out a way to sell it.
From the WSJ.
http://online.wsj.com/article/…
I think it’s a very even handed article on tax rates.