I thought this was the key moment in the Appropriations Committee debate over ABx1 1, which passed the Assembly yesterday.

Republican Assemblywoman Mimi Walters asked Nunez and the Department of Finance whether they were certain financial projections would come through. AB x1 1 relies on $4.5 billion in federal dollars in addition to other revenue sources. Department of Finance staffer Tom Sheehy said one provision in ABx1 1 would not be implemented unless the Director of Finance declared that money to pay for the program was in hand and in state coffers.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, Democrat chairman of the Appropriations committee, followed up with questions about whether the program could be turned off if money did not come in as expected. Nunez’ staff responded that ballot initiative would contain provisions to assure that insufficient funds would trigger a series of events to pull back the program, including the individual mandate and the market reforms. It would first allow the governor and legislature to fix any fiscal imbalances. If lawmakers and the governor did not act, then the pieces of the legislation would be repealed, including the public program expansions and tax credits, returning the state to the status quo.

This is the key because this is what has happened to every single state that has tried to implement anything approaching universal health care.  They pass the bills with a lot of fanfare but are either unable to control costs or keep up with population or their numbers on revenue fall short (nobody EXPECTED the $14 billion dollar budget deficit this year, to use a parallel example), and the program has to be scaled back and eventually scrapped.  And there’s no massive celebration or gathering on that day, where everyone gets in a room and congratulates each other.  But that’s what’s happened very single time.

The bill has some advances on the health reform front, and is not an ignoble effort.  But nobody seems to want to deal with these historical facts.  “This is better than nothing” doesn’t mean anything when 5-7 years down the road, you’re ACTUALLY left with nothing.  And I think walling off the funding and claiming that it’s revenue neutral makes it more likely that road will be travelled again.  The state budget should reflect priorities.  We all want every Californian to have access to health care.  Paying for it with part gimmick taxes, part wishes and hopes of federal support, et cetera, shows that you really don’t value it all that much.  And admitting that the program will fall apart unless people continue smoking a lot of cigarettes… well, you see where I’m headed.

UPDATE: Ezra Klein, the sharpest commentator on health care in the progressive blogosphere, on the plan:

It is, in short, a pretty good plan — better, in certain ways, than those offered by the national Democrats — and it’s got the support of folks ranging from the Democratic legislature to Arnold Schwarzenegger to Andy Stern. I’m not super confident in its long-term prospects, as various groups are going to spend hundreds of millions to defeat the ballot initiative containing its financing package, and even if the plan survives that, I still don’t believe states have the fiscal strength to sustain universal health care in times of recession. But I’d like to see it pass, if only for the momentum it would give the national conversation over health reform.

Klein doesn’t get back to his native California much, so I can forgive him for later plaudits in the post about Schwarzenegger.  But I definitely associate with the remarks I’ve bolded.

UPDATE II: Shorter Sen. Perata: Fuhgettaboutit.

“I think it’s DOA. I haven’t found anybody yet that I have talked to that can make any sense out of it. It sounds ridiculous to say that we’re going to have health care for everybody in four years, but in the meantime most people won’t have health care because we have to cut the budget,” Perata told KPIX.

On Monday, the Senate leader sent a letter to the nonpartisan legislative analyst asking what the fiscal impact of the health plan would be on California’s budget deficit.

“You couldn’t balance your home checkbook that way, much less run the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world,” Perata continued in the interview.

Then he ended with this: “He simply does not understand the way in which this works,” though it’s not clear from the clip who the Oakland Democrat is referring to.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fabian Nuñez have made agreements behind closed doors on a new $14 billion dollar health care plan, and despite the fact that we’re on the brink of a fiscal emergency, even though Don Perata has favored a go-slow approach, asking to deal with the burgeoning budget deficit before a new health package, it appears that we’re going to have a vote in the Assembly on Monday.  And that has displeased some key stakeholders.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez’s effort to speed a healthcare overhaul plan through the Legislature is being opposed by the trade group that represents California’s labor unions, which is taking the rare step of urging Democratic legislators to defy their own leader.

In a letter obtained Saturday, the California Labor Federation’s leader, Art Pulaski, urged Assembly members to postpone the Monday vote on the bill, which Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) submitted Friday after reaching agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the scope of a plan to require almost all Californians to hold healthcare insurance.

Writing that “we are dismayed at the process,” Pulaski complained that neither labor nor lawmakers had had enough time to vet the complex measure and decide whether it offered adequate protections against middle-class workers’ being forced to purchase insurance policies they could not afford.

“We feel cheated of the opportunity to take a position on a bill that will impact the lives of every working family in California,” Pulaski wrote. “We do not know whether this bill will protect working families who cannot afford a healthcare mandate or whether families will be driven into low-quality, high-deductible plans.”

So we have a bill submitted on a Friday which lawmakers are expected to vote coming Monday.  It’s 239 pages long and completely unclear, not just on affordability for the insurance itself, but on the floor for basic coverage and the ceiling for deductible costs.  Health care experts have not fully made that determination.  Add onto that the struggles of states to manage large-scale universal plans with their particular constraints, mainly on constitutionally mandated balanced budgets.  We are in a $14 billion dollar budget hole and with a Governor itching to balance that on the backs of poor and elderly Californians with a 10% across-the-board budget cut.  There simply aren’t all that many areas you can cut that aren’t protected by voter initiatives other than those in the health and human services sector.  Does that factor in to this parallel plan at all?  Not to mention the fact that so much of the funding option is predicated on federal funding at a time when the Democrats can’t get SCHIP past the President’s veto pen, which will result in tens of thousands of California children being denied coverage within a matter of weeks.

Despite all of these questions and concerns, the Assembly is being asked to rush through legislation that they probably haven’t read or vetted.  I think health care is simply too important to do so.

Let me clear out my Inbox and set you on your weekend way:

• The Megan’s Law website apparently is being used as a hit list and may have led to at least one death.  This is the downside of a “what about the children?” über alles mentality.

• I’m not entirely certain about this claim that state lawmakers could have solved the mortgage crisis back in 2001 by cracking down on predatory lending practices.  It’s a boilerplate story, a typical “they bought off the politicians” frame.  But the problem, as Paul Krugman notes today, is that home prices lowered, leading to negative equity for homeowners.  Not sure what the lawmakers could have done about that.  This is a national crisis that required federal action.  And what action could be taken on the state level is in the purview of the Attorney General.  Jerry Brown is investigating home loans from Countrywide Financial for improprieties, particularly forcing buyers with good credit into subprime mortgages.

• For all the talk about Steve Poizner, he is doing his job in suing Blue Shield for their loathsome practice of dropping patients retroactively after they seek coverage.  Blue Shield’s response?

The state’s interpretation of laws governing policy cancellations “is simply wrong.”

Stupid state, not knowing their own laws as well as a private entity!

• Nancy Pelosi is under fire for saying that Republicans like this war.  Juan Cole is right to slam her for assuming that Republicans would act in good faith and help to end the war after the 2006 elections.  What Republican Party was she talking about?

• Anthony Wright has the new amendments released to the public on the new health care reform.  I should have a lot more on this over the weekend.

• I know that I didn’t execute a House roundup in November, but honestly there wasn’t a whole lot going on in the races.  So I postponed it and will have a December roundup in the next few days.

• And finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the California Democratic Party buying three grand in French wine from Fabian Nuñez, who’s now a wine salesman, I guess.  I have to acknowledge Kevin Spillane (two Republicans in one day, I know) from the No on 93 campaign for the funny move of sending a bottle of Two Buck Chuck to Nuñez’ office.  It is an award winner.

It’s an open thread.

You may remember that in August, Gov. Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto pen to cancel $55 million in funding for the treatment and care of mentally ill homeless people.

If you don’t remember it, shame on you.  It should be the only thing you think of when you think of this governor.  He should be forever known as the “Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator.”

The claim was that Prop. 63, passed by the voters, adequately funded this need, and so the dedicated funding that passed the legislature as AB 2034 could be eliminated.  That’s not true.  What was actually going on was that the governor was trying to limit political damage by cutting funding for people who don’t vote and therefore aren’t of his concern.

Well, now some advocates of the homeless are suing this governor’s ass.

Advocates for the mentally ill filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger subverted the will of voters when he eliminated a $55-million program for the homeless mentally ill — a program he himself had touted as a success.

The suit asks a judge to restore the eliminated funding, order the state to continue paying for the program and declare that the governor acted illegally — an important provision, the advocates said, in establishing precedent for future disputes over mental health system funding.

The suit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court, chosen because the plaintiffs include several mentally ill people in the county who credit the program with improving their lives — helping them kick a drug habit, for instance, or move from the streets into their own apartment.

Allow me to file an amicus brief:

The Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator is a callous, small man.

Well, it was obvious, but we apparently know how the Governor is going to deal with the massive projected budget deficit.

Faced with what his staff now estimates as a $14 billion budget hole, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to seek across-the-board cuts to state operations.

The administration last month asked departments to prepare hypothetical budgets based on 10 percent reductions for the fiscal year beginning July 1 in case such a move was sought.

But now, as the fiscal outlook has worsened, the Republican governor has decided to go forward, according to advocates for social services and local government the governor has summoned in recent days for budget discussions.

That’s 10 percent across the board, but of course there are some spending mandates in there, so some of those cuts will not be allowed.

Schwarzenegger also said that he is hesistant to call for tax increases because of legislative and voter resistance.  In other words, he’s hesitant to lead.  This seems like one of those classic trial balloons to check the reaction.  Well, here’s one.  It’s clear that Republican policies of creating, artificially and against the will of the majority, a structurally unsound revenue model, will not be changing, at least not next year.  And so we’ll end up with a one-sided approach to a dire budget problem, when such an approach will only put off the problem.  This is how government shrinks, this is how public confidence in government saps, and this is how a belligerent, UNPATRIOTIC minority (California and America are worth paying for) gets its way.

UPDATE by Brian: I wanted to tack Sen. Perata’s statement on health care onto this post. (h/t CapitolAlert  )He doesn’t sound very optimistic:

“I am encouraged by the progress the Governor, the Assembly Speaker and I have made this year developing a plan for extending health care insurance to the many Californians who do not have it.”

“While I still strongly favor the concept, I have been shocked by the recent revelation that next year’s budget is facing a $14 billion deficit and what that could mean.”

“It would be imprudent and impolitic to support an expansion of health care coverage without knowing how we’re going to pay for vital health programs the state now provides for poor children, their families and the aged, blind and disabled.”

“The real issue now is the deficit and how this squares with everything else that we are going to do.”

An amazing thing happened this week.  The Supreme Court, by a 7-2 margin, ruled that federal judges have the leeway to reduce sentences for possession of crack cocaine relative to powder.  The disparity in sentencing, which has significant racial overtones, has long been unconscionably unfair.  And get this: the US Sentencing Commission unanimously decided to make the guidelines retroactive which could result in thousands of convicts who were unfairly sentenced to be released.

See, there’s a national sentencing commission that reviews information and makes recommendations based on logic and common sense, taking the hot-button issue of sentencing out of the political sphere.  Yet here in California, we have been stymied at any effort to create such a sentencing commission, and all sentencing legislation moves in the direction of being more punitive rather than less.  This is how our jails have become clogged with so many nonviolent offenders, who in the overcrowded environment without proper treatment and rehabilitation often return to jail more violent than when they got there in the first place.  The executive branch of this state knows this, yet they refuse to reveal their documents and communications that would confirm it.  

States have the ability to break free from the “tough on crime” box and actually change the tilt in favor of jailing more and more citizens for longer and longer periods.  Heck, in New Jersey this week they voted to ban the death penalty.  But the only way to see any early prison releases in California is when the state miscalculates their sentences.

more…

Up to 33,000 prisoners in California may be entitled to release earlier than scheduled because the state has miscalculated their sentences, corrections officials said Wednesday.

For nearly two years, the overburdened state prison agency has failed to recalculate the sentences of those inmates despite a series of court rulings, including one by the California Supreme Court. The judges said the state applied the wrong formula when crediting certain inmates for good behavior behind bars.

Some inmates released in recent months almost certainly stayed longer in prison than they should have, said corrections officials, employees and advocates for prisoners. Some currently in prison most likely should be free, they said. But many whose sentences are too long are not scheduled to be released for months or years.

The inmates in question — 19% of the state prison population — are serving consecutive sentences for violent and nonviolent offenses. The sentencing errors range from a few days to several years.

Corrections officials say they have been unable to calculate the sentences properly because of staffing shortages and outdated computer systems that force analysts to do the complex work by hand.

This directly results from the overcrowding crisis.  An overburdened corrections industry cannot keep up with the processing given the meager resources they have.  This ends up costing the state more – approximately $26 million annually – than what it would cost to put the proper resources in place, particularly if you factor in the possibility of lawsuits from inmates, as we are now seeing in other respects.

Fixing miscalculations is a step.  But until you have the courage and fortitude to address the root causes and meet the same responsibilities that even the federal government has decided to meet, nothing will change.

P.S. There are pending mandatory minimum sentencing bills in the federal government, which would fix the crack/powder sentencing disparity even further.  It won’t surprise you at all that the version of the bill that Dianne Feinstein supports is completely insufficient to deal with the problem.