PG&E spent about $45 million to undermine California’s laws in order to make themselves more money at public expense by putting Prop 16 on the ballot. Despite outspending the opposition by at least a 400-1 margin, Prop 16 went down to defeat at the June 8 primary election.

Now another group of fossil fuel purveyors – in this case, large oil companies led by Valero, Tesoro, and Occidental – have funded an effort to repeal California’s global warming solutions law, AB 32, so that they can make more money by continuing to pollute California. Their proposition is now on the November ballot as Prop 23.

But PG&E isn’t having any part of it. Stung by their Prop 16 defeat, and realizing along with most of the Bay Area’s other companies that Prop 23 would worsen the recession by undermining green jobs, they’ve announced they will oppose Prop 23. From a press release sent out by the No on Prop 23 campaign, the Stop the Dirty Energy Proposition coalition:

“PG&E, one of our state’s largest employers, knows that Proposition 23 will kill jobs, drive up energy costs for families and businesses, and deal a blow to California’s leadership in developing clean energy,” said Steven Maviglio of Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs, the group opposing the ballot measure. “PG&E has consistently supported efforts to boost job-creating clean technology in California, and we welcome them to the growing ranks of businesses large and small opposing the Texas oil companies’ dirty energy proposition.”

PG&E also is a member of the Bay Area Council and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, both of which oppose Proposition 23.

And here’s PG&E’s release:

AB 32 requires California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Since actively supporting the passage of AB 32, PG&E has worked with the California Air Resources Board, California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission and other stakeholders to make AB 32 a success and a model for other jurisdictions to follow. In particular, PG&E is working closely with policymakers on creative ways to ensure that the law’s vital environmental objectives are achieved at the lowest possible cost to customers and the California economy.

Contrary to this responsible approach, Proposition 23 would suspend the law indefinitely, despite the critical need to combat climate change at the state, national and global level.

“We at PG&E are committed to helping California make progress on both its environmental and economic goals, moving us toward a low-carbon economy while minimizing the impact on customers as we make this necessary transition,” said Peter Darbee, Chairman and CEO of PG&E Corporation. “Studies show that unchecked climate change could cost California’s economy alone tens of billions of dollars a year in losses to agriculture, tourism and other sectors. Thoughtful and balanced implementation of AB 32 is one of the most important opportunities we have to avoid this costly outcome while spurring new clean-tech investment, innovation and job creation in California.”

PG&E has been doing some decent work on green energy, which ought to be encouraged. And it’s also welcome that they’re now opposing efforts to undermine our green jobs and clean energy legislation. Along with other business groups, like the Bay Area Council and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, PG&E is standing up for California’s future and standing against Prop 23.

Yesterday’s LA Times discovered something many of us have known for some time now: small business is getting hit hard by the recession and unable to play a leading role in economic recovery.

The article makes some good points, but ignores others entirely – such as the ways in which current economic policy is oriented around propping up big dinosaur corporations at the expense of new innovation – and gives way too much credit to teabagger interpretations of the recession.

In every recession over the last three decades, it has been America’s small businesses – those Lilliputian companies with fewer than 100 employees – that stepped forward, began hiring and pulled the country out of the mire.

Not this time….A host of factors – some well-recognized and others seemingly unnoticed in the national debate over economic policy – are converging to restrain small-business owners from hiring. Among them:

* Near-stagnant demand for goods and services as a result of consumers’ reluctance to return to their free-spending ways.

* A disturbing falloff in the creation of new small businesses.

* The devastation of the real estate market.

* Uncertainty about the economic outlook at home and abroad.

….The fact that many small firms are seeing little increase in demand for their services and products is decisive for Scott George, owner of Mid-America Dental & Hearing Center, which employs 55 people in the southwestern Missouri town of Mount Vernon.

“I’m not having any trouble getting money,” said George, who recently got a $250,000 loan to renovate one of his buildings. But he’s not hiring more workers because of little or no growth in sales.

This is true also in California. Here in Monterey, many storefronts on Alvarado and Lighthouse – the major commercial districts in the city – remain vacant, two years after the recession began in full force. Friends report the job market is extremely tough, with even the tourist industry reluctant to add new employees this year.

What we’re seeing here is a classic deflationary/Depressionary situation. In contrast to the article, it’s not that people won’t become “free spending” again, it’s that they have no room to do so given the need to purge debt. I’ve been explaining this concept in repeated posts here at Calitics – it is a balance sheet recession where the private sector will behave exactly as the article predicts – no spending and no hiring until the debt is purged. Only government can step in to solve the crisis through stimulative spending.

Except that’s not happening. The key question, as Kevin Drum asks, is “why not” and “what’s going to get consumers spending again?”

Matt Yglesias attempts an answer:

I don’t think this is brain surgery. If currently unemployed people had more cash in their pocket because – for example – the government hired them to do a job, then they’d probably spend more. If the federal government offered financial support for mass transit operations, then bus fares would be lower and consumers could spend more. If we did general state and local fiscal relief then taxes would be lower and consumers could spend more. If the Fed acted to raise short- and medium-term inflation expectations, then consumers would be inclined to spend more and businesses would be more inclined to undertake risky expansion projects. Ten percent unemployment is a fixable problem. I think it’s an open question as to whether these tools would become ineffective at 6 percent or 7 percent or 8 percent, but we could definitely make major progress.

This is about right, though I’d add that there are some other elements that would be helpful, like speeding up health care reform to kick in ASAP for most people rather than in 2014. Government should also not be laying anyone off, and should be increasing the amount of money it spends more broadly, to circulate more money throughout the economy.

Here in California, we instead have Arnold Schwarzenegger doing his best to destroy small business through widespread austerity, with his latest insane act merely topping things off.

The reality is simple: austerity and small business don’t mix. Plenty of people would like to expand their small businesses, but don’t have the customers they need because government is withdrawing stimulus at a time when stimulus needs to be increased. Plenty of people would like to start a small business of their own, but worry about how to afford the cost of living if they walked away from their present jobs.

Unfortunately, the LA Times article didn’t explore those issues. Instead the author, Don Lee, gave voice to an Arizona teabagger’s ridiculous claim that taxes are too high and that’s why small business is struggling:

Joy Staveley of Flagstaff, Ariz., said it was clear to her why people are more scared to take a risk on a new business: There are more regulations, taxes and government-mandated costs – and fears of more to come – with President George W. Bush’s tax cuts expiring soon, new healthcare rules and pending legislation on energy.

“I’ve seen poor economies in the past, and I can deal with it,” said Staveley, who with her husband has been running Canyoneers, a Grand Canyon river-rafting business, for 30 years. “But what I can’t get through is a runaway government.”

Such sentiments are not uncommon among many small-business operators, the bulk of them conservatives who believe Washington does not understand or respond to their needs.

Although taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years, people like this woman in Flagstaff still are trained to believe any bad economy is the fault of a government that is too big. She’s convinced that this downturn is like those of the early 1980s and early 1990s where government was gutted and customers returned anyway – not because government was scaled back, but because debt was mobilized to provide the veneer of growth.

That’s not happening now in a balance sheet recession. Small business owners across the country need government stimulus to keep them going. Without it, they will have to close their doors as countless other small businesses already have done since the recession began.

The only businesses that are thriving are the large corporations, who have parlayed their wealth, their campaign contributions, and a pliable White House into unprecedented levels of political power. Whether it’s big banks, big telecoms, or other large businesses, they have succeeded in crafting a national economic policy that favors themselves but denies small businesses the policies, stimulus, and paying customers they need to survive and prosper.

Small businesses need to get mobilized behind progressive economic policies that reduce their costs, such as single-payer health care, and that will bring in more customers, such as direct government job creation.

Until they do, they’ll see the dinosaur corporations prosper, while their customers stay at home slowly repairing their own balance sheets and weakening small businesses. It’s a situation that can only be reversed through government intervention. Instead, we appear doomed to try another round of Hooverism before enough people finally learn the lesson that austerity doesn’t pay.

Crossposted from the California High Speed Rail Blog

There were two important high speed rail reports released this week in California. One of them, by CALPIRG, showed how HSR is a clear success around the world, having no trouble meeting its ridership goals and improving transportation. The other, by the Berkeley Institute for Transportation Studies, questioned some of the assumptions of the HSR ridership study.

Guess which one got covered breathlessly by the media – and guess which one was ignored.

If you guessed “the study that questioned HSR ridership assumptions” as the one that got breathless coverage, with the pro-HSR study being ignored, you win! You may collect your prize, a $6 gallon of gas, at some point in the near future.

The media’s reaction to these two reports reveals how deep the anti-HSR bias runs in the California media. Repeating a trend we’ve seen nationwide, the media here prefers not to provide accurate reporting on an event or, in this case a report – they instead tell readers how that event or report fits into a set of preconceived notions. Specifically, many in the media are using the ITS report to bolster their own belief that government always screws up, that people never ride trains, and that HSR is at best a suspicious and dubious idea that is likely to become a boondoggle.

In contrast, the near silence about the CALPIRG report shows that the media really has no concept of how HSR works. Sure, you get the occasional “HSR is a huge success” article, but it’s usually relegated to the Travel section. The San Francisco Chronicle is a notable exception to this, having sent their main transportation reporter, Michael Cabanatuan, to Japan so he could write a very informative article on HSR.

Most others in the CA media therefore see HSR as something that is foreign, uncertain, and not all that likely to succeed. Even though the ITS report merely said that they disagree with some of the methods used in the HSR ridership study, and even though they did not say that HSR definitely won’t attract enough riders, the media is making it sound as if they did. Because the media doesn’t really understand HSR, they’re selling the public a distorted view of what the study said, and therefore, what is actually going on with the project.

I already showed the many ways in which this report was flawed and why the “criticisms” of the ridership study don’t hold a lot of merit. But that didn’t stop the media from spinning it as being damaging.

Let’s take a look at some of the media coverage of the study, and explain how they’re getting this so wrong – and why a bit of common sense, as well as some familiarity with HSR around the country and around the world, would make all the difference.

We’ll start at the top – in Sacramento, where the Bee’s Dan Walters, a longtime opponent of high speed rail, clearly gets it wrong in his column on the study:

If the projection is unrealistic, the bullet train could become an expensive sinkhole.

From its inception, the project has appeared to be a political boondoggle – a solution in search of a problem. The UC report is the latest bit of evidence to that effect. Unless the gaping holes in its viability can be bridged, the bullet train should be derailed.

As you can see here, Walters has no concept of things like high gas prices, traffic, or the green dividend and job creation HSR will provide. Walters is one of the classic examples of someone who is stuck in the 20th century, who cannot and will not believe his own eyes, which should tell him that the car and the plane will not always be the only way people get around California. Ironically enough, Walters is very forward-thinking on reforming state government, showing a willingness to be quite creative and open to new ideas about how to fix Sacramento. But when it comes to transportation, his blind spot is large.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, where their print article does a good job on the story (more on that below), their Bay Area Transit blogger, Nathanael Johnson, shows a stunning lack of knowledge of HSR that, in my mind, should cause the Chronicle to question whether Johnson is qualified to write on transit-related topics:

But if you wade into the report, which can be found here, it’s clear that much of the professors’ critique has to do with assumptions made by Cambridge Systematics (CS) which seem to defy real-world experience.

Only if your “real-world experience” doesn’t include HSR. An example:

Here’s a good example of the problems they are talking about – and this gets a little complicated, but it’s interesting: CS assumes that people will show up at train stations and wait for the next train to arrive. If that’s what people do, then the time between trains, or headway, will really impact its usefulness. But when I make a long distance trip I plan ahead, check the schedules, and arrive a little before the train or plane departs.

Johnson makes the same error Samer Madanat makes, which is to assume people’s behavior with a bullet train will be the same as a plane. It won’t. In the comments to yesterday’s post, Matthew wrote that people actually do just show up at an HSR station and wait for the next train, at least in his experience in Germany:

Having the schedule reasonably redundant made up for this pretty well, and I was rarely delayed by an hour or so, and usually not delayed at all. Pleasant cafes made the wait not such a problem. I usually would coordinate with the schedule, but occasionally would just show up at the station, especially if I was just going to a nearby destination.

I’ve heard of this happening on the Acela as well – people going to Union Station in Washington DC and just grabbing the next train out. It is an entirely plausible model – because it happens around the world. Madanat has a history of ignoring real-world HSR examples in favor of his own theoretical views, even when his theories clash with real-world realities.

Johnson makes a much bigger error – one that I believe should cause us to question whether he is suited to write on transit issues at all – when he questions the HSR ridership numbers in comparison to the Acela:

Planners assumed that trains would travel less frequently on Altamont option, which would increase wait times, and decrease ridership. A lot.

“The sensitivity to train frequencies penalized the Altamont routing by 20 million riders per year. The entire ridership of the Northeast Corridor Amtrak service is approximately 10 million riders. The report suggests that the sensitivity may have been over-inflated by 4 to 5 times.”

The northeast corridor, which runs from Washington D.C. through New York to Boston, is the busiest passenger rail line in the United States. Is it really reasonable to expect that having trains run twice as often would produce 20 million new riders?

Yes, it is reasonable to expect that, and if you do not believe that is reasonable, then you have no business writing about transit for a major newspaper, even as a blogger.

Johnson and Madanat trade on the notion that “the Acela only does 10 million, so obviously anything higher than that is just not credible.” That is quite simply a bullshit argument. The Acela is actually a limited form of HSR that does not achieve the speeds or the capacity of California HSR. HSR systems around the world routinely carry more than 10 million riders. California’s will too, assuming we build trains that can cover the SF-LA route in under 3 hours and connect city centers to city centers with frequent service.

Any argument that says “the Acela is the best the US can do and any projection higher than that is not worth taking seriously” is a dishonest argument that flies in the face of logic and the evidence.

Johnson also writes about a quote Mike Rosenberg got from Alan Lowenthal in his own article in the Mercury News, which is overall a good article with an unfortunate headline. We’ll deal with Lowenthal tomorrow; he deserves a post all to himself.

Another article comes from a serial offender – Tracy Wood of the Voice of OC. In an article illustrated with a picture of empty train seats (get it? because supposedly this report means nobody will ride the trains?), she buys hook, line and sinker the criticisms made of the HSR project:

But under the state law that voters approved in 2008 that authorized construction of the system, it must pay for itself once it is finished.

To do that, according to the ridership study released earlier this year, the high-speed system would actually have to rely on a large number of local commuters and compete with existing commuter rail systems for fares.

Its business plan estimates almost one-third of the expected 41 million annual riders will stay within the Los Angeles basin or in the San Francisco Bay area.

Wood writes this with an attitude that indicates “of course this expectation is absurd.” But is it?

Within the SF Bay Area, it would seem logical to expect a lot people turning to HSR to complete a journey from SF to San José – it would be significantly faster than even the fastest Caltrain service. Similarly, anyone looking to go from central Orange County to central LA (or to areas connected to central LA by Metro Rail) would likely take HSR, same with people going from Riverside/San Bernardino to central LA. It’s a plausible concept, and if Wood wants to bash it, she should provide evidence, instead of just assuming we all share her view that nobody rides trains. (Has she been on a Metrolink or Pacific Surfliner train in OC before?)

Not surprisingly, having some experience with HSR leads to a more balanced and accurate report. Michael Cabanatuan of the SF Chronicle offered this fair assessment in today’s paper, making it clear that this dispute is not about whether the books were cooked:

Madanat said, however, that the report’s conclusions and criticisms should not be seen as evidence Cambridge Systematics rigged its report to show higher ridership figures, as some high-speed rail opponents have suggested.

“This is the best firm in the business,” he said. “They have a reputation to protect. I would not say, and I would have a hard time believing, that they skewed the numbers. And there is no evidence of that.”

And as I mentioned, Mike Rosenberg did a good job too.

One common feature in all these articles: Senator Alan Lowenthal. His quotes are, quite simply, shockingly inappropriate. As I said, he deserves his own post, and he’ll get it tomorrow over at the California HSR Blog.

Abel Maldonado and his toady Brandon Gesicki are coming out swinging in the race for Lieutenant Governor against Gavin Newsom. Maldonado doesn’t want Newsom to claim the mantle of being a “green” candidate, so he is trying to muddy the waters with a misleading attack on Newsom – specifically, on holdings in a trust in his wife Jennifer’s name. From the SF Chronicle:

It didn’t take long for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s opponent in the lieutenant governors race to tag the country’s “greenest mayor” with setting “some sort of record for political hypocrisy” after our colleagues revealed his wife had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in oil companies, including the owner of the deepwater rig that exploded in the gulf oil disaster.

“Though Gavin claims to oppose offshore drilling when the cameras are rolling, his bank account has been swelling due to multiple investments in what he calls ‘dirty’ energy companies who make billions of dollars from off-shore drilling,” said Brandon Gesicki, a spokesman for incumbent Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. “By criticizing the same companies that he profits from Newsom has set some sort of record for political hypocrisy.”

As the article notes, the issue is that Jennifer Siebel Newsom has some shares in Transocean, the company that built the BP offshore rig that exploded in April, as well as in Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company looking to do some offshore drilling of its own off the South American coast.

But Newsom has no role in administering that trust. It’s a completely lame and misleading line of attack.

It’s also hypocritical. Gesicki and Maldonado are trying to deflect attention from Maldonado’s own abysmal environmental record – including his 2006 vote against AB 32 and votes against helping support the solar power industry.

Gavin Newsom has a strong record as a “green” mayor, and would be a strong environmental advocate as Lt. Governor. Maldonado won’t be anything close to it. Which is why he’s trying to attack Newsom in this way, ahead of a statewide election where California voters won’t want anything to do with Maldonado’s true right-wing views.

Last Saturday, Pete Stark, who represents CA-13 in the House of Representatives, held a town hall in Fremont. Some immigrant bashers showed up and demanded to know what Stark was doing about immigration and the border. As Politico reports, Stark was having none of it, and gave what may be the definitive smackdown to these crazies:

“The Minutemen want to have something to say,” Stark says, as one of the border security advocates begins to ask a question. “Who are you going to kill today?”

After brushing off the congressman’s remark, the activist said, “I want to know why the federal government is not doing anything more to seal the borders of this country.”

“Well, we can’t get enough Minutemen armed,” Stark answered. “We’d like to. Get all the Minutemen armed so they can stop shooting people here.”

“We’ll try to get you some more arms and get you down there,” the congressman added….

The man then interrupted Stark, telling the congressman, “This a very serious matter, and you’re sitting there making fun of it.”

“I don’t have to make fun of you, sir,” Stark responded. “You make a fine job [of it] all by yourself.”

You can see the video for yourself at the Politico link. This is one of the best responses I’ve seen by anyone to these immigrant-bashers: mock them relentlessly.

There is seriousness in Stark’s response. He’s not calling them “killers” idly. In 2009, Minutemen members in Arizona killed a Latino man and his 9-year old daughter. Here’s how Wendy Norris reported it at the Colorado Independent last summer:

Shawna Forde and members of Minuteman American Defense – an anti-illegal immigration vigilante group charged in the double homicide of an Arizona man and his 9-year-old daughter and the attempted murder of the man’s wife – shared a stage, if not their vigilante streak, with former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo.

Authorities in Arizona’s Pima County allege Forde, 41, and MAD members Jason Eugene Bush, 34, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, intended to rob and murder the Flores family in order to fund the group’s anti-immigration vigilante activities. Raul Flores, 29, had a history of drug dealing and the trio believed that there would be a large amount of cash at the victims’ trailer home near the border town of Arivaca, according to CBS News. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik fingered Forde as the ringleader.

Given this background, one might even say Stark let these crazy bigoted lunatics off easy. But he is to be commended for refusing to be cowed by their hatred, and his smackdown of their claims is epic.

Meanwhile, here in Monterey, a group of teabaggers are protesting today in support of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. They’re waving a bunch of Arizona flags and sporting a sign that reads “Boycott California, Not Arizona.” Are they even aware that Monterey is in California?

I considered stopping to ask them what they thought of the fact that Monterey was founded by the Spanish and was the state capital under Mexico, and that the 1849 California Constitution written here in Monterey made California officially bilingual, with specific protections for Spanish speakers. But it was too nice a day to waste on these yahoos.

UPDATE: The teabagger protestors were apparently in Monterey because Jerry Brown was speaking to the California District Attorneys Conference being held here. More about that event later.

On the topic of immigration, Carla Marinucci linked to this post and wonders whether I’m right, or if the right-wing critics of Stark are right. Let her know what you think!

This week we’re finally seeing a consensus emerge about the negative, destructive impact of austerity. Economic observers from Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman to the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank are now in agreement that further state and local budget cuts would throw the country into a double-dip recession, and make it that much more difficult to pull ourselves out of the recession.

Other countries that have embraced austerity are now starting to realize the catastrophic nature of the error. Ireland has realized that austerity has made their economic crisis worse, not better. And Britain is waking up to the fact that the new coalition government’s austerity plans will produce mass unemployment.

Yet California’s Republican leaders still believe that austerity is necessary. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republicans in the legislature, and Meg Whitman are all calling for more cuts to public services and for mass layoffs of our own.

This flies in the face of the emerging consensus that these cuts are making the economic crisis – and therefore the budget deficit – worse, not better, and delaying true economic recovery.

Two of the nation’s largest newspapers have today joined the chorus. In the New York Times, David Leonhardt slams austerity as being nothing more than an attempt to prove that Hoover was right all along:

The world’s rich countries are now conducting a dangerous experiment. They are repeating an economic policy out of the 1930s – starting to cut spending and raise taxes before a recovery is assured – and hoping today’s situation is different enough to assure a different outcome.

In effect, policy makers are betting that the private sector can make up for the withdrawal of stimulus over the next couple of years. If they’re right, they will have made a head start on closing their enormous budget deficits. If they’re wrong, they may set off a vicious new cycle, in which public spending cuts weaken the world economy and beget new private spending cuts.

As we know, in a balance sheet recession, the private sector cannot make up for the withdrawal of stimulus, at least not until the debt is purged, a process that will take many years and will in fact be prolonged without government stimulus. So this voodoo faith that the private sector will step in when government is cutting is not just a fantasy – it is a delusion.

Here in California, the LA Times has weighed in as well, with an excellent article from Michael Hiltzik on the dangers and costs of budget cuts. The whole thing is brilliant, and delves into the whole scope of our weak economic pictures, including low wages and income inequality, and the need for government to step in to provide solutions:

The state budget reductions, wage cuts, furloughs and layoffs that will be made necessary by Congress’ dereliction will drive up unemployment, erode consumer demand and intensify doubts about the strength of the recovery….

The deficit-cutting craze of the modern day threatens another such double dip. Its promoters say they’re out to protect long-term economic prospects, but without a short-term recovery there may not be a long term to protect. If they get their way, we may not feel the consequences of their error before it’s too late to fix.

It seems that Sacramento Democrats have finally started to accept this reality. Both the Assembly and the Senate are proposing budgets that seek to minimize further cuts and find new ways to fund government, either through borrowing (as in the Assembly budget) or through new taxes (as in the Senate budget). Obviously both borrowing and taxes will have to be part of the solution, but how this is framed makes a difference. The Assembly calls their budget the “jobs budget,” which is a good start.

But I would even go more basic than that. Sacramento Democrats need to come out and say “The era of budget cuts is over. We will no longer destroy our economy to satisfy the rich.”

The public does not want spending cuts, and has shown a willingness to support new taxes to prevent cuts to schools, health care, and human services programs. The public certainly doesn’t want closed libraries or police layoffs either.

When you combine that public sentiment with the growing consensus of economic observers that austerity is merely going to worsen our economic crisis, Democrats should be in an unassailable position to beat back Republican demands for an all-cuts budget – and would have the arguments and framing needed to finally destroy Republican opposition to new taxes.

Californians may have a complicated relationship with taxes, but their attitudes on jobs, the economy, and public services are clear: they don’t want to sacrifice all three in the name of a right-wing anti-tax crusade.

The cry going forward is clear: no more austerity. Three years is enough. The 2010 budget battle is about California’s future, and whether we will have economic growth, or whether we will destroy our chances at prosperity and destroy our public services in order to appease the right-wingers.

Just yesterday we learned that the November ballot propositions had been given their numbers, starting with Prop 18 – the $11 billion water bond proposal. Today we’re hearing reports that the proposal might not appear on the November ballot after all, according to the Fresno Bee:

Negotiations are under way to possibly delay the $11 billion state water bond from November’s ballot to 2012, according to numerous Capitol sources.

Nothing is final – and there still could be sticking points – but lawmakers could vote soon on legislation to push back the date.

Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, declined to comment on specific discussions, but said: “All the timing options need to be discussed. The main thing for me is to win the bond election and … you make a real assessment of how and when we have the best opportunity to win the election.”

The concern among some bond supporters is that, with the state already mired in a $19.1 billion budget deficit, voters aren’t in the mood to assume more debt. Assembly Member Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, confirmed that “unofficial discussions are occurring” and said he would support a delay.

However, some lawmakers who have spent years seeking to get the measure before voters might be reluctant to approve a delay.

“Those of us that worked on it wouldn’t want to wait,” said Assembly Member Mike Villines, R-Clovis. “It is time to go forward.”

This wouldn’t be the first time a big infrastructure bond was pushed back. The $10 billion high speed rail bond was originally to have been voted on at the November 2004 election, but was pushed back to 2006, and then to November 2008, when it was finally approved as Proposition 1A.

Still, it’s not quite clear that a 2-year delay would save the water bond. Unlike high speed rail, an obviously good project that united environmentalists, business, and labor, the Prop 18 water bond splits all three groups. Parts of the bond are valuable, such as funding for Delta restoration, but most of the rest of it is a wasteful, unnecessary, and environmentally damaging raid on existing water uses in order to fuel unsustainable sprawl – whether it’s agricultural sprawl on the San Joaquin Valley’s Westside or urban sprawl in Southern California.

Defeating this bond seems like the right move; the only reason I suggested I was “leaning no” was the Delta funding, but that doesn’t seem like enough reason to back this flawed package of a proposal.

From the perspective of Prop 18 supporters, moving it to 2012 would seem like a smart move, hoping for some economic recovery to bring the state’s budget back into the black. And from the perspective of a high speed rail advocate like me, I’d welcome the delay, as it would take some pressure off the Prop 1A HSR bond, as there are a few right-wingers who say we need to postpone selling that bond because of the budget crisis (a Hooverite view if ever there was one).

UPDATE: Arnold Schwarzenegger is now calling for a delay as well – so this story definitely has legs. If Arnold doesn’t want it on the November 2010 ballot, I’m not sure it’ll stay. We’ll see if there are enough Republicans and Democrats willing to go to bat for the water bond to keep it on the ballot, but with Schwarzenegger and Steinberg both backing delay, I’m not sure this has a chance for November 2010 any more.

UPDATE 2: The statement from Arnold’s office:

“After reviewing the agenda for this year, I believe our focus should be on the budget — solving the deficit, reforming out of control pension costs and fixing our broken budget system. It’s critical that the water bond pass, as it will improve California’s economic growth, environmental sustainability and water supply for future generations. For that reason, I will work with the legislature to postpone the bond to 2012 and avoid jeopardizing its passage.”

The Water Supply Act is a crucial component of the comprehensive water package that passed in 2009. The bond will fund, with local cost-sharing, drought relief, water supply reliability, Delta sustainability, statewide water system operational improvements, conservation and watershed protection, groundwater protection and water recycling and water conservation programs.

Delaying the bond will not impact other parts of the 2009 water package, such as enhancing the Delta ecosystem, better monitoring groundwater basins, reducing statewide consumption and improving diversion patterns.

The statement also referenced the delays the high speed rail bond experienced. So I’m guessing Prop 18 won’t be on the November ballot for much longer. If they pull it soon, at least the state doesn’t have to send out two ballot guides or sample ballots, as happened in 2008 when legislators made some revisions to the high speed rail bond, including changing it from Prop 1 to Prop 1A.

In recent weeks I’ve been focusing in on the fact that budget cuts and austerity only worsens an economic crisis and a budget mess, never solving it. (And yes, it is a fact – just ask the Irish).

The logic is simple: in a recession, government has to step in to provide the basis of economic recovery by spending money the private sector can’t or won’t spend. It’s amazing to me that we even have to have that remedial discussion, after we learned this in the 1930s, but here we are.

It is especially true of a balance sheet recession, when the private sector is overly indebted and is seeking to purge that debt – requiring the government to step in and provide stimulus and funds to help people get rid of the debt without dragging down economic activity. This phenomenon is exactly what we’re seeing happen right now – in May the savings rate grew but consumer spending did not, as consumers seek to purge debt. Without more government spending, this phenomenon will continue and retard economic recovery.

Paul Krugman has already argued that the slide of global policymakers into neo-Hooverism will produce an outright Depression. Here in California, three straight years of austerity and budget cuts have produced persistent budget deficits and record unemployment while destroying the foundations of economic recovery.

Those of us who have consistently argued against budget cuts now have an ally in the US Federal Reserve – specifically in the San Francisco branch. Two SF Fed economists wrote that more state and local budget cuts would reduce GDP:

The current fiscal crises that most states are facing are generally the result of a severe macroeconomic downturn combined with a limited ability of the states to respond to such shocks. States are facing increased demand for public services at the same time revenue is falling. Federal stimulus support for state budgets is winding down over the next two years. Rainy-day funds are all but exhausted. Thus, state fiscal crises aren’t likely to go away soon and will probably get worse before they get better. The solutions states employ to close projected budget gaps will have painful effects on state residents and businesses but pose a more modest risk to the national recovery. Historically, the health of the national economy determines the health of state finances, not the other way around. Sustained improvement in the national economy is essential for states to grow their way out of their current problems and improve their fiscal conditions.

And as econ blog Calculated Risk reports, Moody’s put a number to the impact of state and local budget cuts – that it would shave 0.25% off of GDP in both 2010 and 2011.

We can’t afford more budget cuts. Economic recovery must be the top priority of policymakers in Sacramento, who oversee roughly a seventh of the overall US economy. Yet Republicans continue to demand further and deeper recession as the price of their vote for a budget.

It’s time for Democrats to resist the calls for further cuts. Government needs to start spending more money, not less, and that argument has a lot of intellectual weight behind it.

It’s also time for California’s political reporters to pay attention to what may well be the story of the young century in California – how austerity destroyed the state’s economic recovery and prolonged the worst recession in 60 years. The public deserves to know that the budget cutting mania exhibited the last few years has been a colossal failure.

Propositions 18 through 27 have been officially numbered for the November 2010 ballot by Secretary of State Debra Bowen. Get used to these numbers.

Below is my first take, and how I’m currently leaning. Calitics and the Courage Campaign (where I work as Public Policy Director) will be out with their endorsements by the beginning of October, likely sooner.

Prop 18: The $11 billion water bond. Leaning no.

Prop 19: Cannabis legalization. Oh hell yes. This is one of the 2 or 3 most important initiatives on the November ballot. It’s a must-pass.

Prop 20: Expands Prop 11 redistricting commission to include Congressional races, which could cost Democrats seats in the House. This is a definite no.

Prop 21: The state parks initiative, raising the vehicle license fee by $18, keeping all parks open at restored hours, reducing the maintenance backlog, and allowing all Californians with a registered vehicle to get into any park free of charge. Another obvious yes.

Prop 22: Bans state government raids on local government funds for good. Given what I wrote earlier today you shouldn’t be surprised I lean yes on this one as well. Austerity is not good, and if we can contain it at the state level, then it’s easier to force the issue for new revenues at the state level as well.

Prop 23: Repeal of AB 32, the state’s landmark global warming law, an initiative funded by $2 million in campaign contributions from oil companies. Think of it this way: Prop 23 reverses AB 32. This is one of the 3 most important initiatives on the ballot, and it absolutely must be defeated.

Prop 24: Closes corporate tax loopholes that adds at least $1.7 billion annually to the budget deficit. Another obvious must-pass, though it’ll be interesting to see the big corporations argue against this one. Of course, as we saw in Oregon in January, voters are not likely to look favorably upon corporate arguments in favor of unaffordable tax breaks.

Prop 25: Restores majority rule for the state budget process. This is the 3rd of the extremely important initiatives. We cannot afford to let this one fail. We’ll need an all-out effort between now and November to pass it.

Prop 26: The antithesis of Prop 25, Prop 26 would require a 2/3 majority for fees. Just as Prop 25 must pass, Prop 26 must fail.

Prop 27: The antithesis of Prop 20, but in a good way – this eliminates the Prop 11 redistricting commission entirely. I’m probably going Yes on this one, since I don’t really think a bunch of affluent white men count as a representative sample of the people of California. The whole Prop 11 commission was a bad idea to begin with, a “solution” to a non-existent problem.

So there you have it. There’s unfortunately no easy way to remember these recommendations, and the voter guide charts will have a lot of green check marks and red x’s, but it would seem that you’ll want to vote Yes on 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, and 27, and vote No on 18, 20, 23, and 26.

Some progressives might have the temptation to vote “no” on everything, as some sort of childish protest at the initiative system. Doing so at this election would be an inherently right-wing move, undermining such obvious progressive policy propositions as Props 19, 21, 24 and especially 25 and giving aid and comfort to the right-wing via Prop 23 in particular.

Whether you love the initiative process or hate it, you don’t have the option of sitting these battles out. We won some big victories on the June 8 ballot, beating Props 16 and 17 – but we also lost the battles on Props 14 and 15. Given what is on the November ballot, we cannot afford to lose these fights. All hands on deck!

As the general election campaign gets under way, with Meg Whitman hitting Jerry Brown with a barrage of attack ads, it’s also time to see how many debates the two candidates will agree to have between now and November 2. Today Jerry Brown announced he accepted 10 debate invitations, one of which is the “blogosphere debate” co-sponsored by Calitics, alongside Calbuzz, the Commonwealth Club, and the right-wing Flash Report, to be held at San Jose State University on September 13 – that is, if Whitman agrees.

Here’s what Brown had to say about these debates:

Gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown today announced that he has accepted invitations to 10 debates or town halls around California, all sponsored by independent organizations interested in an open and honest campaign for Governor.

“We are only a few days into the general election campaign, and already our airwaves have been overrun with millions in misleading and deceptive attack ads,” Brown said. “The people of California deserve better. They deserve to see their choices for Governor stand side-by-side and honestly discuss the challenges facing our state.”…

The two campaigns have received many formal requests for debates at locations around the state. Brown has agreed to ten, several others remain under active consideration. Brown accepted invitations for joint appearances from the following outlets, assuming reasonable terms that provide for open and fair discussion can be negotiated with the Republican nominee.

So far, the only debate Whitman has accepted is Dominican University/NBC, for some time in October. It’s unclear whether Whitman will agree to any other debates.

But she ought to, and she should certainly consider the Calitics debate. As readers of this site know, we’ve been tough on both Whitman and Jerry Brown. There’s no reason for Whitman to shy away from this debate, and you can be assured that the questions we’d ask of her and of Brown would be interesting, original, and useful to the people of California.

Wouldn’t that be refreshing? Let’s hope Whitman does the right thing and accepts the debate invitation from Calitics (and others) for September 13.