When business groups began to object to various provisions in the Parsky Commission effort to upend the tax structure in California, including anything that even smelled like an increase (even though the plan had to be revenue-neutral to clear the Legislature), I figured the effort was dead and buried.  It appeared that the entire effort was a complete waste of time, and the effort to Latvia-ize the state by shifting the tax burden from the upper class to the lower class had been sniffed out and extinguished.  However, the recent secrecy on the part of the commission, after a pledge of transparency, has many wondering if the shock doctrine is alive and well.

The plan is that, just about 24 hours from now – or 11 a.m. Thursday, to be precise – a state commission will consider and potentially adopt a proposal for an entirely new tax system for the state of California.

It would be a radical undertaking, slashing some taxes, eliminating others and establishing a new tax about which no one in California is familiar. No one can say with anything approaching certainty how much it would cost businesses and consumers or how much revenue it would generate to finance state services.

Yet, despite the significance of the task, despite all the unanswered questions and despite the imminence of a decision, as of this writing – midafternoon Tuesday – the details of the proposed new tax plan have not been made available for public review.

A spokeswoman told me a little after 3 p.m. there was still hope that the detailed proposal would be posted on the commission’s Web site before the day was out.

The Legislature has made no indication that they would take up whatever plan the Parsky Commission votes out, even after the Governor orders a special session to deal with it.  And with both sides of the aisle condemning aspects of the plan, liberals for the tax burden shift, and conservatives for the unknown tax increases that may be part of any deal, I wouldn’t call the prospects likely for a Parsky Commission plan to become law.  But the secrecy is certainly troubling, as well as the revival of provisions voted down by the people on multiple occasions.

But members of the tax commission are reviving the rainy-day fund idea once again. Most notably, the idea has had some of its strongest support from Democratic-appointed commissioners.

Former Assemblyman Fred Keeley said recently that while many commissioners believe the state can reduce its budget volatility through changes in the tax system, he believes the tax system isn’t so much the problem.

“My belief is that volatility of the general fund, to the degree it’s a problem, is due to the governor and Legislature with regard to spending,” Keeley said. “That can be solved by way of an appropriately designed rainy-day fund or lockbox.”

Another Democratic appointee, University of Connecticut law professor Richard D. Pomp, reminded the commission this month that he has long believed the reduction of volatility was a spending issue.

“From the outset, I have argued, and continue to believe, that volatility, which is a feature of every state’s tax system, is a spending problem and not a tax problem,” Pomp wrote. (That comes awfully close to the oft-used GOP line that California’s budget problems are “a spending problem, not a revenue problem.”)

I think these Democrats are trying to argue that volatility in the tax structure is a good thing, which it is.  But the leap from that to a spending cap doesn’t follow.  There’s a difference between spending wisely in good years and a third-party mechanism that limits the ability to restore chronic budget cuts from bad years, which is what a cap would inevitably do. (A rainy-day fund without a cap would be different, but may end up serving the same purpose.)

I stick with my prediction that the commission is doomed, but it still bears watching.

…Kevin Yamamura has more.

Despite the assumed end to the prison crisis, there’s still no bill to clarify the $1.2 billion dollars in savings assumed from cuts in the July budget.  The Assembly passed a bill that fell $200 million dollars short and had almost no prison reform in it (some parole reform, but no prison reform), and the Senate has yet to take that bill up.  After word yesterday that the Senate would do so, Darrell Steinberg backed away from it, seeking to give more time to the Assembly to add more reform and more cuts into the bill.  Because the bill only requires a majority vote, it takes effect 90 days after passage.  Which means that every day with no bill costs the state $3.3 million dollars.  This is the consequence of so-called fiscal conservatives in the Yacht Party, as well as their higher-office-seeking bretheren in the Assembly Democratic caucus, wanting to look tough on crime.  As the State Worker notes, this delay is taking a daily hit on the savings gained from furloughs:

Here’s one way that furloughed state workers could look at this: The CDCR budget impasse is whittling away at savings from furloughs. If you take that $3.3 million and multiply it by the 70 days from July 1 through today, you realize the state has burned through $231 million.

A single furlough day cuts about $61 million from the state’s payroll, although not all of that savings is in the general fund. (The rounded math: $2.2 billion divided by 36 furlough days in the fiscal year.) If you narrow it down to just salaries that the administration defines as being in the general fund, one furlough day equals about $35 million. (Double check our rounded numbers: $1.3 billion divided by the 36 furlough days.)

In other words, this budget-stalemate-in-miniature has squandered the equivalent of about four furlough days for everyone or nearly seven furlough days if you look only at general fund employees.

Other states have used smart on crime policies to reduce spending without any loss in public safety.  They are taking new looks at non-violent offenders, relaxing draconian sentencing policies, targeting parole resources to those who need supervision and concurrently lowering recidivism rates through rehabilitation.  Right now, California has the exact wrong set of policies on prisons.

In fact, California is nationally known “for having the most dysfunctional sentencing and parole system” in the country, according to Stanford University professor Joan Petersilia, a criminologist who has spent years working with state officials trying to implement reforms.

“We’re too harsh and too lenient. Simultaneously,” Petersilia said.

Our mix of tough laws and fixed terms doesn’t give prison officials the flexibility to push low-risk offenders toward rehabilitation and keep dangerous criminals behind bars.

But reform efforts haven’t gained public traction because we’re too busy trying to keep people behind bars — with Jessica’s Law, Megan’s Law, the three-strikes law — to take a hard look at whether locking up more people actually makes us safer.

“The public doesn’t understand how illogical the whole system has become,” Petersilia said. “We think that somehow we’ve created something that is able to call out the most dangerous people, send them to prison and keep them in for a very long time.

“And the public is willing to pay whatever it takes to get that type of crime policy.”

I disagree with the last sentence.  The public is willing to be frightened into initiatives that do nothing for public safety and just spend money needlessly, because they’ve seen no leadership on the other side for an alternative conception of how to protect the public sensibly and best manage our cirminal justice system.  Nobody has argued in public for a more intelligent system for so long, that the public willingness to believe in its possibility has atrophied.  We can keep the lock-em-up policies or we can look to a better future.  Either way, we’re blowing $3 million a day while some Assembly Democrats go on a desperate search for their spines.

The message from the panel of judges to Sacramento yesterday was, you broke it, you bought it:

Reporting from Sacramento – A panel of federal judges, accusing California officials of obstruction, on Thursday denied the state’s request to delay an order to produce a plan for reducing its prison population by 40,000 inmates.

Aides to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said they would take their request to the U.S. Supreme Court today.

The judges issued their order on Aug. 4 in two long-running lawsuits by inmates. The state asked for a delay pending its appeal of the order to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was filed separately Thursday.

In rejecting the state’s motion for the delay only two days after it was filed, the judges said they had been “more than patient with the state and its officials” and harshly criticized them for “conflicting representations” in court that have caused the cases to drag on.

It’s getting comical at this point.  Thelton Henderson initially found California’s prison system to violate individual rights in 2005.  Over those four years, state officials have resisted, bargained, shouted, and appealed their way into oblivion, trying all along to do as little as possible about the clear crisis.  The judges are asking for a plan that essentially mirrors the Senate’s version of prison reform working through the legislative process right now.  For all the protests about “wasting taxpayer dollars” to come up with a workable plan, the judges are essentially asking for a copy of what’s already being done.

The state doesn’t want to give them one, because they now it’s insufficient to conform with the clear guidelines on reducing the inmate population.  And they’d rather appeal and appeal and be forced to respect Constitutional rights than do it themselves.  With the taxpayer money and effort spent to studiously ignore this problem, we could have already solved it.

George Skelton writes about some of the accomplishments on deck in the next week in the Legislature.  Beyond the renewable energy standard, which would be a solid accomplishment, and water, which really is kind of an unknown, Skelton looks at the prison “reform” bill, where he is both right and wrong.

The goal is threefold: to reform a system that has the worst-in-the-nation recidivism rate — 70% — for inmates released from prison. To begin substantially reducing the overcrowded prison population before federal courts do, as they’ve threatened. And to save the $1.2-billion already slashed from the prison budget on paper, but not in reality.

There apparently will be no compromising with Republicans. They’re having no part of it, playing the law-and-order card as they have for decades — advocating long lockups but opposing any tax increases to pay for the bulging prisons […]

One thing that’s needed, he and other reformers contend, is more education, drug rehab and job training for inmates. Another is a better parole system. A scaled-down bill passed by the Assembly on Monday seeks to encourage the former and achieve the latter […]

Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) are trying to restore much of the Senate version, which also included an independent commission to update California’s sentencing structure. But their problem is Assembly Democrats. Some are scared of being portrayed as a crime softie by a future campaign opponent. Steinberg took a shot at them Tuesday.

“It’s time to say, ‘Come on,’ ” the Senate leader told reporters. “We have a law-and-order Republican governor who is willing to sign a comprehensive package with absolutely essential reforms that protects public safety. It’s time to get real […]

Steinberg and Bass may coax more votes from the skittish Democrats.

But if they can’t, the good-time incentives and parole improvements alone would be worth passing. They’d mark substantial progress toward prison reform.

As I’ve said, the current bill is not a prison reform bill, but a parole reform bill.  The education, treatment and job training encouraged is immediately undercut by the Governor’s slashing of those programs as part of the deal.  And the lack of an independent sentencing commission means that we’re likely to see both increased sentencing laws and increases in the prison population continue, and we’ll all be back here in 10-15 years.

That said, parole reform IS a key element.  Changing the situation where 2/3 of the convicts returned to prison get sentences for technical parole violations is urgently needed.  The Phillip Garrido case is an example of how increased case monitoring on the most serious offenders could have benefits for public safety.  But it does not totally stand in for full reform.  The sentencing commission goes hand-in-hand with fixing parole.

Sentencing commission: In other states, a sentencing commission looks at who is being sent to prison and for how long, and what sentences work best to lower reoffense rates. Sentences are based on the severity of the crime and the offender’s prior record. Instead of a system driven by relatively low-level property and drug offenses, prison sentences are focused primarily on violent and career offenders. The result in other states is that fewer offenders go to state prison, but the offenders who do go to prison are serving longer. For lesser crimes, offenders go to county jail.

Skelton only touches on who’s really to blame for our intransigence on prison reform – those allegedly fiscally responsible Republicans who refuse to bear the costs of their policy desires.  They’ve joined the appeal of the federal judge order to reduce the population by 44,000 on the grounds that their beautiful minds tell them there’s no problem in the system:

State Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) said the judges had ignored the state’s recent “huge investment” in spending on inmate healthcare, as well as statistics showing that California spends more on healthcare per prisoner, and has a lower mortality rate among them, than many other states.

“We believe there is constitutional care today,” he said. “We believe there always has been.”

If you want the long form of this lie, read Tom Harman.  Either way, it’s just not true.  Inmates have died, around one a week, before a federal receiver was instituted.  Republicans fought the implementation of investing in prison health care, and the continued presence of infirm prisoners based on draconian sentencing laws like three strikes can account for the increased costs.  Republicans typically call for increased rehabilitation and treatment for offenders while cutting the funding.  It’s a shell game.

However, we are well beyond that at this point.  We have a bill that needs only a majority vote.  And Assembly Democrats are petrified of justifying votes they had no problem with as recently as 2007.  By the way, opponents can go back to those votes too, and make the same mailers.  You either can act like you have the courage of your convictions, or not.  Ultimately, the people will pay the price.

Last week I discussed the legislative fixes being made to save half a million kids from being dropped from the Healthy Families rolls.  This fix would push more costs onto the families, making the program less affordable and the coverage stingier, and would extend a gross premiums tax on insurance companies, which was set to phase out in October, at a lower rate than they are now paying.  Keeping that tax at the same rate would have spared families from increased premiums and co-pays.

But saving the program is saving the program, and yesterday the State Senate took the first step.

State lawmakers pushed forward Wednesday with a $196-million plan to keep nearly 700,000 children from being yanked off a government health insurance program for the working poor.

The state Senate passed a measure to create a new tax on insurance companies and bring in federal money to rescue the decade-old Healthy Families program, which had been cut deeply in recent months as lawmakers scrambled to balance the state budget.

Assembly officials expressed confidence that they would garner the needed two-thirds vote in the lower house, where the bill is expected to be taken up today. Administration officials said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would sign the measure.

Again, not quite right.  The “new tax” on insurance companies is an extension of an existing tax at a lower rate than before.  This is why the insurance companies support the bill; they’re getting taxed at a lower rate, keeping 600,000 kids on their insurance rolls, getting the families to pay more, and being credited with saving the program.  It’s a neat trick.  Not only that:

The new tax would replace an existing 5.5% levy set to expire in October, prompting some lawmakers to quip that the new levy is actually a tax reduction. It would expire at the end of next year, and the insurers would be reimbursed for most of their cost.

“Of course the insurance companies want this — it won’t cost them a penny,” Aanestad said.

Keeping the premiums tax in place does net $97 million in federal matching funds, which certainly helps matters.  And keeping the program alive helps children in tangible ways.  But this is a very strange conception of “shared responsibility,” when the families participating in the program will have to pay more for premiums and co-pays, with less coverage overall, and the insurance companies get a lowered tax, which they will get reimbursement for down the road.

And the craziest part of all of this is that Sam Aanestad of the Yacht Party, while admitting this is a lowered tax and that insurers will not pay anything in the final analysis, voted against the bill because it “raises taxes on California business.”

“Who pays is the bottom line here,” said state Sen. Sam Aanestad (R-Grass Valley), who voted against the bill.

Sam Aanestad in this paragraph should read Sam Aanestad from the other paragraph.

…the Assembly passed this today without a no vote.  The Governor will sign.  Insurers will get their tax cut.  Huzzah.

I’ve been reading my Altadena blog and LA Now, and I see that firefighters are making progress on the spate of blazes, and apparently saved Mount Wilson, though it’s still in some danger.  This will continue for at least a week, at which point the firefighting emergency fund will be almost completely exhausted.

These are not “unpredictable” costs.  We now have practically a year-round fire season, with damaging blazes cropping up in places where we never saw them before.  And people die from bad budget choices relating to public safety.

There was a provision in the budget deal to have those living in areas most affected by fire hazards pay a fee on their homeowner’s insurance to fund firefighting efforts that save their residences.  Republicans blocked them, as they have been doing for years.  As a result we all pay the price in the long term, somehow in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”  We’re essentially offering welfare for those who choose to live in danger zones.

Which leads us to the reason why these fires have continued to occur, and in greater numbers, year after year.  It’s attributable to global warming, and as much as reactionaries and climate denialists hide their heads in the sand about it, the truth remains the same.

Roughly speaking, it turns out that land use issues are probably responsible for about half of the increase in western wildfire activity over the past few decades and climate change is responsible for the other half.  The mechanism is pretty straightforward: higher temperatures lead to both reduced snowpack in the Sierra Nevadas and an earlier melt, which in turn produces a longer and drier fire season.  Result: more and bigger fires.  Plus there’s this, from CAP’s Tom Kenworthy:

In recent years, a widespread and so far unchecked epidemic of mountain pine beetles that has killed millions of acres of trees from Colorado north into Canada has laid the foundation for a potentially large increase in catastrophic fires. Climate change has played a role in that outbreak, too, as warmer winters spare the beetles from low temperatures that would normally kill them off, and drought stresses trees.

In the western United States, mountain pine beetles have killed some 6.5 million acres of forest, according to the Associated Press. As large as that path of destruction is, it’s dwarfed by the 35 million acres killed in British Columbia, which has experienced a rash of forest fires this summer that as of early this month had burned more than 155,000 acres. In the United States to date about 5.2 million acres – an area larger than Massachusetts  -have burned this year.

Destruction of trees by the mountain pine beetle, combined with climate change and fire, makes for a dangerous feedback loop. Dead forests sequester less carbon dioxide. Burning forests release lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. More carbon dioxide adds to climate change, which raises temperatures, stresses forests, and makes more and bigger fires more likely.

Some would say that the possibility that forest fires like this are caused by human error contradicts this case, but actually, no.  Dry forest areas are simply more susceptible to a lit cigarette or a spark from an electrical device, and that’s due to hotter temperatures and less rain.

We can choose to find other factors for these events, and we can choose to charge everyone for living in places where nobody should.  But that’s a choice, made in budgets and made in lifestyle.  It’s a choice that’s harming our planet, draining our budgets and killing our people.

The Assembly’s passage of a prison “reform” bill is not the end of the line for the legislation, as the Senate simply won’t accept it in this form.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the reaction in the Senate to the Assembly’s low calorie prison bill was muted. Senate Democrats certainly wouldn’t have come out and said the plan stinks. But there’s no official timetable on a reconciliation vote in the upper house, either.

The official response from Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg came in a written statement: “The Assembly took a good first step today but it’s not a complete package. In the coming weeks, I look forward to working with (Assembly) Speaker Karen Bass and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on further reforms that will strengthen our criminal justice system.”

The key phrase in that statement: “In the coming weeks.” This one’s not going to go away anytime soon.

The main reason is that the Assembly bill costs $233 million more to the overall budget than the Senate’s, and that money simply does not exist.  It’ll eventually come out of the hides of other programs if allowed to let stand.  And the Assembly Republicans and Democrats who help up the bill can then explain why it was necessary to keep terminally ill blind people in jail at the expense of children’s health care or some other social program.

Steinberg expanded on his dissent from the Assembly bill today, calling the legislature’s inability to pass the reforms based on cuts they already passed in July an example of the legislature’s “culture of failure”.  I’ve been saying that for weeks.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing a lot of reactionaries taking the example of Phillip Garrido, the kidnapper of Jaycee Lee Dugard, and the fact that he only served 10 1/2 years of a 50-year kidnapping sentence in the 1970s, to argue for more stringent parole and prison laws in California.  This is the typical Willie Horton-ing of any sane discourse on prison policy.  Garrido was convicted of a FEDERAL crime, not a state crime.    And that federal parole policy was abolished by 1987.  It bears no application to this debate whatsoever, particularly since, under this policy, violent criminals would not be subject to release and would face more stringent parole supervision, as resources would be allocated to those who require it.  The failure of parole officers to discover Garrido’s deviance demands EXACTLY the kind of parole reform in both the Assembly and Senate bill, so officers have smaller caseloads and can focus on the most dangerous cases instead of returning nonviolent offenders to prison for technical violations.

Meanwhile, the Governor, even while promoting a real reform plan, wants to get a stay from federal judges on implementing the required reduction of 44,000 to the prison population, which even the Senate bill doesn’t do.  He plans to file an appeal with the US Supreme Court as well, and if the three-judge panel doesn’t grant the stay, he’ll ask the Supremes to do so.

Sacramento politicians are still in between the “denial” and “bargaining” stage in reacting to their immoral and unconstitutional handling of the prison crisis.