For a while, a bunch of liberals in California seemed to have a hard on for Joe Mathews due to his work on California Crackup. But it’s time to end that love affair. It seems that Mathews is intent on claiming the role of Mickey Kaus as the world’s biggest concern troll. (Of course, Mickey will wait until he’s 75 to retire because that’s what he thinks is good for everyone else.)
The best I can figure is that Mathews feels that he needs to attack unions and Democrats in order to get “credibility.” You know, centrism, bipartisanism, all of that good stuff that the press loves but everyone else hates.
Last fall, he fell down the rabbit hole with the L.A. Times’s crusade to blame teachers for the problems in education with its ridiculous lynchmobish publication of teacher scores and then accused a University of Colorado study of being nothing but a piece of union propaganda (remember: in the concern troll world, unions are corrupt, but billionaires’ philanthropies poo smells like roses, and corporations are totally on the up-and-up all the time).
So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he penned this editorial that blames our budget woes on teachers’ unions. You see:
Which is why it’s unfair that Republicans get so much blame for protecting the two-thirds vote requirement for taxes.
This brand of tired “pox on both your houses” nonsense is how the GOP constantly escapes with its hide after every disaster they bring about. You see, it’s not the two-thirds threshold for raising taxes that matters. Heck no! It’s the teachers’ unions and their hypocritical love of Prop 98 that’s doing it.
Joe: could it be that public education is the biggest expense because it’s something that virtually everyone uses? or is that just a coincidence?
And, also, Joe: how many times has each Democrat in the California Legislature voted to suspend Prop 98 over the last several years? What’s that you say? They all have every time? And how many Republicans have voted to raise taxes? Wait, say again? The absolute minimum to do anything?
Yes. It’s ridiculous. But it’s what it takes to make your name in the “liberal media” these days.
Mr. Matthews may deny it, but can he really prove it?
Joe Matthews is one of the few consistent voices of reason in this state dominated by barking heads from the extreme fringe.
Joe calls them like they are and if that means apportioning the CTA their fair share of the blame for the mess public schools are in then than goodness someone has the cojones to do just that.
If you honestly believe that the public employee lobby, the loudest richest and most influential voice in Sacramento for a generation is completely poxless or blameless for the mess California is in, then you’re a fool.
Keep up the good work Joe.
If you asked Joe who is to blame, he’d give you the same answer I give you. The people of California are to blame, they voted for all of the structural impediments to rational government and majority rule and if they got the chance tomorrow to reaffirm their support for gridlock they would, in huge numbers, do so.
We currently have the government we chose and the one we deserve.
Right now I’m checking my Capitol Enquiry Pocket Directory and looking at the top 5 donors by sector to members of the legislature. All Democrats have either public sector employee unions and/or general labor unions listed..most top 1 or 2. Many Republicans also have public sector employee unions in their top 5. They far out represent any other sector.
They own the legislature. If the Chamber of Commerce owned the legislature you’d have to think it would look a little different.
If you actually take the time to read the op-ed in its entirety…all the way to the end, if you can do that without your knee jerking into your face when you see anything that resembles criticism of a union…you’d see that JOe Matthews is not knocking the CTA as much as he is knocking the dysfunctional system. Both sides have built in dysfunction to protect their fifedoms.