I’m certainly not the first observer to note that for the conservative “pro-life” crowd, concern for life seems to magically end at the moment of birth. In their world, once the mother has been forced to carry the pregnancy to term, mother and child (and their family support networks) do not deserve any more consideration. Instead, according to the conservative view, they’re on their own. If death results, so be it. Survival of the fittest. No more concern about ensuring that life continues.

We can see this in play here in California, where conservative Republicans have made children, mothers, and families the target of their attack on public services. Many of the same Republicans who demanded these cuts were the same ones who, during the Legislature’s floor session on the July budget deal, tried to make an issue of state funding of abortion services.

It was the recent story about the decline in US birth rates that got me thinking about this. It makes perfect sense for more and more Americans to delay having a child when their political system is telling them quite clearly that if they do, they and their child will be given no support or aid from the state whatsoever.

Let us count the ways in which conservative “pro-life” politicians in California, in many cases with the assistance of pro-choice Democrats, have made a mockery of their supposed commitment to life:

• $500 million in cuts to Healthy Families, threatening the health care services of 900,000 children in the state

• Over $100 million in CalWORKS cuts, resulting in the likelihood that aid to minors will be cut in half in 9 months

• At least $10 billion in cuts to public schools, leaving children unable to get the education they need to thrive

• 80% of domestic violence shelter funding was cut in the governor’s illegal line-item veto – leading counties like Monterey to lose all their domestic violence shelters.

And of course many of these conservative Republicans are the same folks who are opposed to President Obama’s health care reform, which would help provide health care to all Americans – including mothers and children, even though Democrats appear to have already caved and agreed that a public insurance option would not cover abortion servives.

It’s contemptible enough to oppose these kind of programs that help save lives and promote health and safety. It’s deeply hypocritical to do so when you pass yourself off as a “pro-life” supporter – especially when one consequence of the cuts you’ve championed is that more pregnant women will lose access to pre-natal care.

About this time last year George Skelton decided to go all in for offshore oil drilling. His column on the topic was riddled with flaws and errors as I pointed out at the time.

Unfortunately Skelton doesn’t seem to have learned, and is once again pushing for offshore drilling – this time as part of his own proposed deal, paired with an oil severance tax:

From Sacramento — Republican politicians want to drill offshore. Democrats want to tax oil onshore. Both sides are right.

And both sides are wrong because they basically oppose each other’s position, especially in the state Assembly….

So compromise. Impose only a 5% severance tax. Loosen up on offshore drilling.

Work it out. But that’s probably expecting too much in all the political and petro polarization.

Most of this is classic High Broderism – claim there are two extremist sides, that whatever lies between them is inherently good because it is in the middle, and insist that it be accepted particularly by progressives as the best we’ll ever get.

Skelton’s love of offshore oil drilling stems from his basic lack of understanding about how both drilling and global oil markets work, as this passage reveals:

Democrats have been anti-offshore drilling zealots for 40 years, ever since a platform off the Santa Barbara coast spilled goo all over 20 miles of beaches. Never mind that new technologies have made offshore drilling much safer today.

Wishful thinkers also fantasize that if America stops producing oil, we’ll quit burning it and climb into golf carts. That will happen when electric cars become practical and affordable. Meanwhile, the nation will continue to shape its foreign policy to assure a steady stream of tankers from shifty overseas sellers.

If we’re going to keep using oil — and we are — we should produce it ourselves. Keep the money in our own economy and away from terrorists.

Except that’s not how it works. The amount of untapped oil off California’s coasts is negligible at best. It would barely make a dent in the state’s oil consumption. Further, that oil will be sold on a global market. There’s no guarantee at all that it will be put into Californians’ gas tanks; even if some of it wound up there, it would do nothing to reduce the state’s dependence on foreign oil. The only lasting way that can be accomplished is by reducing how much oil we use, not by finding new sources for it.

Al Gore put it well last year here in Monterey: drilling is “like a junkie looking for veins in his toes so he can get one last fix.” Drilling distracts us from the real problems our state faces, and for absolutely nothing in return.

Skelton, of course, argues it’s not exactly “absolutely nothing in return” – he bases his argument for offshore drilling by citing the crazy budget cuts that have been made in the last few budget cycles.

Yet an oil severance tax alone would solve many of these problems and prevent many of those cuts without needing to drill offshore. Skelton’s claim is that Republicans will never go for this unless we give up the coastlines, so why shouldn’t progressives make the deal?

Skelton’s assumption is that the two sides – pro-drilling and pro-oil tax – are equally balanced. They’re not. The only reason such a deal would have to be cut is because of the 2/3rds rule.

California came within a handful of votes of opening the coast to drilling for the first time in 40 years – all that is required is a simple majority to do that. But to pass a tax it takes 2/3rds. What that does is give the leverage to those who merely need a simple majority, in this case the Republicans.

There’s no way a favorable deal can be done under those circumstances. And so Democrats and progressives would do well to continue to reject offshore drilling. Just because the state needs revenue doesn’t mean we should behave like junkies to go find it.

At least that’s how the LA Times is reporting it:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger exceeded his constitutional powers by slashing spending for several programs as part of an effort to cut $500 million out of California’s deficit-plagued budget, according to an opinion today by the Legislature’s legal counsel.

Schwarzenegger drew fire from Democrats last week after he used his “line-item veto” authority to cut spending for health, welfare and other programs to help fill the state’s $26-billion deficit hole.

There’s nothing up on the LAO’s website yet, (UPDATE: that’s because it is the legislative counsel that gave the opinion – more below) but this would be a major blow to the governor’s effort to violate the law and the constitution in order to push through his shock doctrine style attack on the services Californians need to survive and thrive.

Among the many impacts of the budget cuts are that domestic violence shelters around the the state are struggling to stay open, and some can’t make it:

In Ventura County, every long-term shelter has been shut down after Governor Schwarzenegger slashed the state budget.

Now, there is great concern that budget cuts may force abused women and children out of their safe environments and possibly right back into the arms of their abuser.

Interface Children Family Services in Ventura County had to shut the doors of all five of their transitional homes or shelters for domestic violence victims.

That’s what Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has violated the constitution to accomplish.

UPDATE by Robert: The Legislative Counsel’s opinion can be found here.

Reaction to the Field Poll’s study of California’s changing political demography is starting to come in quickly. One of the first and likely to be the most prominent is that of Dan Walters, who sees in the results a recipe for fragmentation:

California, it’s been observed, is a canary in the socioeconomic mine, telling the rest of the nation what to expect in the future, for better or worse.

If so, then the rest of the nation had best be prepared for fragmentation, which is the only word that fully captures the division of a once-cohesive society into its many component parts….

This fragmentation, coupled with ever-lower levels of voter participation, means politicians must cater to an electorate that reflects an ever-narrower slice of the socioeconomic whole while trying to meet the needs of an isolated, nonvoting underclass.

It manifests itself in such things as a chronically unbalanced state budget and political gridlock.

Walters is not wrong when he points out that California is characterized by a prosperous, older, and white group of regular voters whereas most people who actually live here are not prosperous, are younger, are not white, and are not regular voters.

That is perhaps the most important takeaway from the poll, and it shows Democrats and progressives that our #1 organizing task in this state is to turn those “nonvoters” into regular voters.

But Walters takes a different lesson from the poll results – that it reveals a “fragmented” electorate, as opposed to one that was supposedly unified in a mythical earlier period.

I question that entire assumption. California’s society has never, ever been cohesive. Not in the 20th century, not in the 19th century, not even during the dozens of millennia of Native American settlement. Certainly our electorate hasn’t been cohesive. Until the 1950s state politics were defined by an urban-rural split with a crosscutting cleavage (apologies for the poli sci jargon) of intensive racial division. Even after the legal barriers of racial exclusion came down at mid-century segregation and discrimination persisted.

Within the white electorate that dominated the state there were also divisions, particularly as a significant bloc of the white working class deserted Pat Brown, seduced by Ronald Reagan’s politics of right-wing backlash. The shift of the state’s corporate and political leadership to an embrace of that politics took much longer to complete, leaving plenty of fragmentation in its wake.

Some fragmentation is likely to continue. Californians are continuing to self-segregate according to political preference, leaving only the newer and affordable exurbs as the few places in the state up-for-grabs. Younger Californians of all races are much more likely to be comfortable with racial diversity, meaning that the California Republican Party, with an old white anti-diversity base, does not have a bright future ahead of itself. The post-1994 phenomenon of diversity producing Democratic dominance is likely to continue for some time.

Walters likely acknowledges all of this. But his core point in today’s column is that somehow, this fragmentation is responsible for our crisis of governance.

I don’t buy it. What I see as the main problem facing California is obsolescence. Our government and our politics are still stuck in 1978. We’ve had fragmentation and a well-governed state, and fragmentation and a badly-governed state. That suggests to me we need to look at a system of governance that has remained almost unchanged since 1978 despite all the demographic changes reported in the Field Poll.

Most Californians live our diversity every day. That’s not to say we live it well, fairly, or equitably. But we live it, and one should not assume that a majority-minority state automatically produces ungovernable fractiousness.

The problem is instead that our political institutions are designed to effectively exclude the nonwhite, the young, those who are not affluent. The 2/3rds rule creates a conservative veto, which in practice hands veto power to the small cadre of older white voters who comprise the shrinking Republican electorate. It also happens to, not coincidentally, disempower Democrats, the party of the demographic change over the last 30 years.

The lack of same-day registration, or universal registration, makes it extremely difficult to allow younger, more diverse, and less affluent voters to actually cast a ballot. Our broken constitution, especially the befouled initiative process, hands power to those with money and prevents everyone else from playing a meaningful role.

So when Dan Walters sees high unemployment, a state with lots of residents on public assistance, low academic achievement scores and high incarceration rates, I see not a product of fragmentation, but a deliberate outcome of an obsolete government that has totally failed to adapt to the fact that 2009 is not 1978.

In short, California is no longer a democracy. It is fast becoming an aristocracy, where those who have affluence (particularly white homeowners in coastal cities who bought before 1996, who are typically in their 40’s or older) have access to power and the ability to implement their political views and goals.

As for the rest of us, we are shut out of government almost entirely. We bear the brunt of the budget deals because there are no institutional pathways that allow us to address our needs or implement our political views. This ongoing exclusion is deliberate, and it is no accident that those who most desire its maintenance are Republicans, who best represent what I have previously called the homeowner aristocracy.

California’s demographic changes doesn’t produce more fragmentation. What it produces is more polarization between the have-nots and the have-mores, between those who have access to political power and those who do not.

And ultimately those demographic changes don’t imply more and worse misrule. What it ultimately portends is dramatic political change, to our institutions and our political behaviors. Power concedes nothing without a demand, as Frederick Douglass aptly noted 150 years ago.

California is about to hear a lot of demands in the coming years, as the disempowered demand fundamental change in how California operates.

The folks over at Calbuzz have offered several suggestions for how Democrats, who have clearly lost the battle over the budget, can craft a better strategy starting now in advance of the next budget battle, which will arrive anytime between Labor Day and Martin Luther King, Jr Day. Overall their suggestions are excellent, though there are others that ought to be included, as I’ll describe below. First, an overview of the Calbuzz suggestions:

Instead of aggresively fighting against the tyranny of the minority, Democrats act like the two-thirds is some unspeakable force of nature, an all-powerful totem before which all must bow down and worship in fear.

Underlying this passive posture are two crippling, if unspoken, assumptions: 1) that policy is somehow separate from politics and 2) that the only reality that matters is that unfolding in the hothouse halls, meeting rooms, chambers, restaurants and saloons of the cul de sac that is Sacramento.

This is a crucial point, and I am pleased to see Calbuzz understanding it. Democratic leaders have used the 2/3rds rule as a crutch to justify their acquiescence to horrific cuts, ignoring the fact that even with that insane stricture there is still plenty of opportunity for them to use smart politics to turn that disadvantage around. The Calbuzz proposals are, in brief (theirs are in quotes, my comments follow):

1. “Bury the petty feuds between the Assembly and Senate and among members.” Probably easier said than done, especially in an era where term limits mean members are jockeying against each other for 2010 primary races. But a unified message is certainly a good idea.

2. “Craft a message.” Calbuzz suggests that consultants be brought in to accomplish this goal. I’m not entirely sure that’s necessary. Dems have the pieces of a winning message in front of them; what they have lacked is the will to assemble them. Californians do not want these cuts, so Dems need to highlight the horror stories of the cuts and use that to bludgeon Republicans every day between now and November 2010.

3. “Identify and exploit the weaknesses of individual Republican members.” Oh absolutely. That needed to be done yesterday. Abel Maldonado’s claims of being a moderate mean he is exposed and vulnerable to a consistent Democratic attack. Maldonado voted against the Tranquillon Ridge project and has expressed unease with some of the health care cuts. Time to back him up against the wall and ask if he is willing to support new revenues to avoid those cuts. Republicans looking to run for statewide office, like Jeff Denham, or who won their seat by claiming to be somehow moderate, like Tony Strickland, are equally vulnerable. Sure, we know that deep down these people are hardcore wingnuts. But they are also politicians, and that means they are vulnerable to the right kind of pressure. Find it, apply it, and repeat often.

4. “Agree on a progressive tax strategy and stick with it.” Calbuzz’s point here is that Dems have not consistently stuck to promoting one or two (or more) new revenues. Instead they’ve thrown whatever they can against the wall to see what sticks. Calbuzz suggests instead focusing on the oil severance tax, and I fully agree. The February deal’s corporate loopholes ought to be included as well. Democrats need to make it clear to Republicans, the governor, and the state that without an oil severance tax, there will be no Democratic votes for any budget in the future.

5. “Build stronger alliances with the netroots. The most consistent and smartest thinking and writing about progressive politics isn’t happening in Sacramento, but being churned out day after day on sites and by organizations like Calitics, Orange County Progressive, and the California Budget Project.” I quoted a big chunk of that not just because we like hearing praise, but because Calbuzz is absolutely right about this. The netroots has run rings around the Democratic caucus in 2009 on the budget. We have smart analysts in the netroots who understand the budget, its impact on average folks, and how to craft a winning political message around it. We also want to help Democrats beat up Republicans – we would much rather do that than spend our time criticizing Democratic failures.

Of course, some of these connections have already been taking place – Calitics editors have frequent conversations with legislators and their staff. We’re all for that being expanded. And as for this claim:

Many Democratic members, just like Calbuzz, may find some of their stuff too lefty

I interpret that to mean those folks realize we are right, but are unwilling to accept its implications. Centrism is dead, people. Dead as a doornail. Centrist politics like those practiced in the late 20th century are only possible during widespread economic prosperity, creating space for both parties can agree on the economic details. The prolonged recession and long-term, wrenching economic realignment we are beginning means centrist politics is no longer possible or desirable. As I explained back in May, California centrism was based on using asset bubbles to neutralize the Prop 13 revolt and provide prosperity and fund government services. The end of asset bubbles and the capture of the Republican Party by its right wing has made the dealmaking centrism of previous decades impossible, and the sooner Sacramento realizes that fact, the better off we will all be.

There are at least three additional things  Democrats ought to be doing:

• Stop worrying about the state’s credit rating. One argument we’ve heard from legislators as to why this terrible budget deal was necessary was that it was necessary to stop the IOUs and protect the state’s credit rating. Well, it isn’t working. The rating agencies aren’t buying it, as the deals are merely ensuring future deficits. Democrats need to find new revenues and resist borrowing and raiding gimmicks – otherwise the state’s credit rating will collapse, sooner or later.

• Focus on the human impact of the budget cuts in order to build public resistance to spending cuts as a concept. We’re witnessing the construction of a political spending cap, where the force of precedent prevents Democrats from restoring these cuts in the future. The stories of people suffering from the cuts are extremely powerful. Californians do not want battered women to be denied shelter. They want kids to have health care. They want schools to be properly funded. That makes Republicans vulnerable, as the “two Santa Claus” theory has been proved wrong.

• Demand that economic recovery be part of the solution. The two words you have never heard in Sacramento during the budget cycle are “economic recovery.” Everyone is focused on cuts and nobody, I mean nobody, is talking about what California needs to do to provide economic recovery. The cuts already made have neutralized the impact of the stimulus, are driving businesses out of the state, and will make it extremely difficult to grow jobs in the future.

Combine those with the Calbuzz proposals and I think you have a winning strategy for Democrats to finally reverse their political losses and save this state from ruin.

That headline needs to be tattooed on the foreheads of every politician, journalist, and pundit in this state. The PPIC poll leaves no doubt about the public’s dislike for the governor and his insane, economically ruinous policies that cause direct harm to children, the sick, the disabled, and many others:

The PPIC Survey, which began before an agreement was announced on the state budget on July 20 and concluded just afterward, finds Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approval rating at a record-low 28 percent. Approval of a California governor has not been this low since August 2003 (26% approve, 67% disapprove), when then-Governor Gray Davis was facing a recall and budget standoff with the legislature. The governor’s approval rating for handling environmental issues has also declined (35% approve, 43% disapprove) since last July (46% approve, 36% disapprove).

That’s George W. Bush territory. Schwarzenegger’s overall trajectory in office closely resembles the reviled former president: elected under dubious circumstances, he won Democratic support for stupid economic and fiscal policies that have produced a severe recession characterized by high unemployment. Of course, Bush had the power to run deficits to prevent spending cuts – Arnold doesn’t, and in his desire to destroy the services that made California prosperous and a pleasant place to live, he is alienating the public:

“A lot of the cuts being made were not popular, and he really took the lead and was out front on what he said was needed – staying firm on not raising taxes – so the entire deal has his fingerprints,” said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at California State University-East Bay. “I hear from a lot of people who would have understood if some taxes were raised. Raising taxes on the wealthy sure would have been more palatable than cuts on students, elderly and children.”

The legislature’s approval ratings are low as well – 17% approve of their job, which is actually somewhat surprising given the frequent legislature-bashing that goes on in our media.

As Sacramento prepares for yet another special session, called this time to try and implement Arnold’s regressive tax policies, it is worth keeping in mind just how unpopular he is. Legislators should feel themselves under no pressure whatsoever to do anything this guy asks. Arnold will be gone from office in 18 months, and while the Legislature still needs to deal with him on the budget, there is no reason at all for them to deal with him on tax reform.

Democrats would do well to treat Arnold like Bush, and run out the clock on his failed governorship. With record unemployment, no prospects at all for economic recovery, and his desire to smash public services, Californians are going to continue to sour on their governor, and look forward to the day in January 2011 when we are no longer plagued with his corrosive presence in government.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s crazy, reckless budget vetoes have been getting a lot of attention around the state in the last 24 hours or so, and have led Democrats to vow to fight these cuts. So how exactly can that happen, given that Democrats embraced billions in other cuts just last week?

There are three emerging tracks for fighting these cuts. The first is the Courage Campaign’s call for a veto override session. (Note: I am of course the Public Policy Director at the Courage Campaign.) We’re asking our members to contact Speaker Karen Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to call the legislature back into session and override the vetoes.

Some might contend that this is either not likely to happen, or if an override were attempted, it would fail. I’m not so sure that’s the case. The US Congress overrode precious few of Bush’s vetoes, but they came extremely close to overriding Bush’s 2007 veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) – the votes were there in the Senate to override, including 17 Republicans, and the veto override fell just a few votes short of the 2/3 mark in the House.

Overriding a gubernatorial veto is less difficult in California, where Democrats are very close to having 2/3rds majorities in both houses. It stands to reason that Republicans would be under intense pressure to override vetoes to protect children’s health care, domestic violence programs, HIV/AIDS programs, and state parks.

Sure, we all know that the Republican Party in California is insanely right-wing. But even they have their limits. Several of their number are running for statewide office in 2010, giving Democrats an opportunity to leverage them in support of widely popular programs. Dems would also be able to use a veto override to target vulnerable Republican seats in their bid to win a 2/3 majority in the 2010 election.

The best political strategies are those that have multiple avenues of success. In addition to the Courage Campaign veto override action, legislators are stepping up their attack on the line-item vetoes as being illegal. John Pérez offered this statement today:

“The Constitution gives the governor considerable power over the budget, but it doesn’t give him the power to make it up as he goes along. While I consider these cuts criminal morally, they are in fact illegal in the eyes of the law,” said Pérez, who has called for an

immediate restoration of the funds that were cut. “It is wrong for ordinary Californians to suffer so the Governor can spare oil, alcohol and tobacco companies from paying their fair share.”

The California State Constitution gives the Governor “line-item” veto authority, permitting him to “reduce or eliminate one or more items of

appropriation while approving other portions of a bill” [Cal. Const. Art. IV, Section 10(e)]. However, this line-item veto authority only

applies to “appropriations.” When the Legislature takes an item of appropriation – like the budget signed by the Governor and enacted into law this past February – and passes a new bill that reduces the amount of that appropriation, that new bill is not an appropriation because it does not give anyone more authority to spend state money – it takes away spending authority.

While legislators have talked of aggrieved parties taking this to court, Controller John Chiang is reviewing whether the vetoes are legal and constitutional:

While the governor signed the budget revision yesterday, Democratic state Controller John Chiang is charged with carrying out his budget. Earlier this week, Chiang spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said the controller’s legal staff was reviewing whether the governor’s line-item vetoes were constitutional.

If Chiang does carry out Schwarzenegger’s vetoes, expect advocacy groups to file suit against Chiang. If Chiang does not carry them out, expect another legal battle between Schwarzenegger and the controller.

The governor’s office is taunting Democrats, convinced that this is all just sturm und drang without any likelihood of materializing into an actual reversal of the cuts:

Department of Finance Director Mike Genest predicted Tuesday that Democrats would not challenge the vetoes because “they have something to lose, too.” His comment suggested that Democrats know full well that it is difficult to find another $489 million in savings — and they might be better off politically allowing the governor to bear the brunt of criticism for the cuts he did implement yesterday.

I read this as Genest wanting to actually avoid a veto session. The cuts Arnold made are extremely unpopular – even Abel Maldonado has called the cuts “too severe”. The governor’s office probably realizes they would be vulnerable in an actual veto session.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is out on a limb. Let’s saw it off by calling a veto session and reversing these heinous cuts.

Over the flip is the email the Courage Campaign sent to our members today.

Dear Robert —

Using his line-item veto power, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger just made $489 million in NEW cuts to California’s budget. Together, we can stop him and save lives — but we don’t have much time.

These new budget cuts will hurt people. These cuts may even kill people.

Even worse, these cuts are in addition to the devastating cuts included in the budget agreement passed by the legislature last week. Below are just a few of the horrific details. Arnold’s new budget cuts will:

Cut HIV/AIDS services by at least $52 million

Eliminate $178 million for services that provide children with health care

Reduce support to domestic violence victim services by $16 million

This doesn’t have to happen. The state legislature has the power to override these vetoes and save these vital services that Gov. Schwarzenegger is trying to destroy.

First, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg need to call legislators back to Sacramento for a special session to override the Governor’s horrific vetoes. But, quite honestly, the chances of this happening are small unless Californians demand it.

To stop these cuts before they take effect, we have to act now. That’s why we need you to contact Speaker Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Steinberg right now and ask them to call legislators back to Sacramento for a veto override session. Just click here to make your voice heard ASAP:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

After hearing the news, State Senator Mark Leno told the media that “my colleagues and I will fight these devastating cuts with everything we have.”

Bass, Steinberg and Leno are claiming that the vetoes are illegal and plan to go to court to stop the cuts from taking place.

We applaud this action, but we don’t have to wait for the courts to rule. The Legislature can stop these cuts by overriding the vetoes right now. It’s time for Californians to stand up and insist that our legislators take immediate action and pledge to reverse Gov. Schwarzenegger’s new budget cuts.

Time is short. You can try to stop these devastating new cuts by calling on Speaker Bass and Senate President Pro Tem Steinberg right now to override the Gov. Schwarzenegger’s line-item vetoes. Just click here to make your voice heard today:

http://www.couragecampaign.org…

Thank you for taking action. Together, we can save our state before it’s too late.

Robert Cruickshank

Public Policy Director, Courage Campaign

Anyone who is willing to look closely at the most recent budget deal will quickly realize that as an effort to balance the state’s budget and address the deficit, the deal is a complete joke. Jean Ross of the California Budget Project has called the supposed savings illusory and as Kevin Yamamura at the SacBee points out much of the budget relies on assumptions that are barely credible:

The state is counting on a $1.7 billion payment from redevelopment agencies that faces a tough legal fight….

But Mitchell warned that asset sales [of the State Compensation Insurance Fund] in this climate will be depressed, and it may be difficult to find enough buyers at the price the state expects. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office said in May that it doubted whether an SCIF sale could help the budget in 2009-10, and classified the plan as a significant risk….

Lawmakers left unanswered roughly $600 million in specific cuts to prisons that may invite controversy when the Legislature reconvenes next month….

And so on. This budget deal is a particularly flimsy house of cards that will do nothing to address our structural revenue shortfall. Perhaps most significantly, the state budget for 2010-11 is already projected to be $8 billion in the red, a lede being buried by most reporters, Yamamura included:

Department of Finance Director Mike Genest said the state faces a $7 billion to $8 billion structural deficit in the next fiscal year, with even worse shortfalls after that because temporary sales, vehicle taxes and income taxes end starting in 2011.

So it has to be concluded that this budget deal is a cruel joke being played on the people of California. The cuts made in both the budget approved by the Legislature and in the governor’s line-item vetoes are horrific and will kill people – and yet we’re going to be back at this within 6 months, just as we’re getting ready for the governor’s January budget proposal for 2010-11 that will show yet another deficit.

The ramifications of this are enormous. California now functions under what I’ve called a political spending cap – lacking the force of law as would have been the case had Prop 1A passed, but just as real in its effect on legislative decision-making. The 2/3rds rule enables Republican insistence on massive cuts. The media almost always goes along with this, and Democrats always accept that cuts must happen, hoping to negotiate them down from a catastrophic level to a merely disastrous level.

By agreeing to these cuts, Democrats have signaled their acquiescence to the political spending cap. And by using a series of budget gimmicks to try and solve the state’s cash crisis, they have ensured that there will be cries for future cuts that will be harder to resist now that the precedent has been set – Democrats will vote for Republican cuts early and often.

More over the flip.

So why would Democrats support such a budget deal, that failed to fully address the existing deficit, that failed to find new revenue, and that assures an ongoing deficit that will repeatedly be used to push for further insane cuts to core programs?

The answer is that these budget deals aren’t about the deficit at all. They’re about the state’s cash flow crisis. From the perspective of Democrats, the most important thing to do is to ensure that California can pay its bills. That we’re not issuing IOUs and that we’re not in danger of missing payments owed to bondholders, which would cause long-term damage to our credit rating and make it nearly impossible to borrow in the future.

At least, that’s the argument we keep hearing from the Democratic caucus in order to justify kicking the can down the road, to justify crippling cuts. Dems continue to assume that there will be some magic asset bubble to fuel economic growth to pull us out of the crisis, as happened in the 1980s, the 1990s, and the mid-2000s. By that time, they hope, Dems will either have won 2/3 majorities or will have repealed part or all of the 2/3 rule, enabling them to make better budget decisions free from Republican demands.

This hardly seems a likely outcome. As OC Progressive has pointed out we have lost 10% of the consumer economy and with it the jobs and tax revenues that debt-fueled spending created in each of the last 3 decades. By embracing short-term cashflow solutions at an enormous long-term cost, including budget cuts that will retard economic recovery for many years to come, the Legislature and Democrats in particular have ensured budget crisis after budget crisis is in our future.

It is time for Democrats to break out of this cycle. Sure, it’s difficult to do so given the broken government we possess, the constitutional factors that give a center-left population a deeply right-wing government.

But it is necessary for Democrats to start advancing new and more forward-thinking solutions. California’s credit rating is slipping into oblivion anyway, and it’s hard to see how we’ll avoid junk status with ongoing budget deficits. We need to consider whether some form of strategic default is workable and valuable. Perhaps it is time we started cramming them down instead of cramming down children, the disabled, people with HIV/AIDS. Or at least find new ways to work out repayment of debt, a restructuring that ensures the bondholders will get paid without destroying California’s economy and society in the process.

Dems could also embrace innovative solutions found around the country. Ellen Brown’s proposal for California to follow North Dakota’s example and charter its own bank to generate credit, to pay its bills, and to escape financial collapse.

One thing is clear: the next budget fight, to come perhaps as early as October, cannot be fought on the same terms as this fight, or the February 2009 fight, or the summer 2008 fight, or the summer 2007 fight. It’s time for Democrats to stop focusing on the cashflow problem and start focusing on economic recovery, on the needs of California’s people.

One thing that ought to be eliminated at a constitutional convention is the line-item veto. It was ruled unconstitutional for the federal government in the 1990s as giving the executive branch too much power. Unfortunately many state line-item vetoes are written into state constitutions, as is ours, and have therefore been upheld by courts.

Today we witness the damage that the line-item veto causes in the hands of a right-wing governor bent on using it to achieve his long-desired destruction of public services. Arnold’s vetoes include:

• An additional $6.2 million cut from state parks, which will likely cause as many as 50 more parks to be closed (potentially 1/3 of parks – 100 total – will now have to close)

• Elimination of state funding for community health clinic programs

• $80 million cut to child welfare services

• Total of about $400 million in health care cuts, including further Healthy Families cuts

• Elimination of funding for the Williamson Act programs to preserve farmland from development

• Deeper cuts to HIV/AIDS programs, as Brian noted.

• Cut 80% of funding for domestic violence shelters

• Elimination of funding for California Conservation Corps

• Cut half of Cal Grant funding, but could be restored “contingent upon enactment of legislation that authorizes the decentralization of the Cal Grant Program and other financial aid programs as warranted.”

The state legislature could try and override these vetoes. But as we’ve seen time and again, this legislature appears to have forgotten that the override power actually exists. It would be a very good chance for Democrats to force Republicans to take a stand on these programs. Either they vote to restore the funding, or they vote to kick kids off of health care and close beaches and parks, giving Dems a set of issues to run on in 2010.

It seems doubtful that such an override will even be attempted. And so California slides deeper into ruin.

UPDATE: As the United Ways of California point out the children’s health care cuts are going to ensure the wider spread of H1N1 flu this fall. Children are one of the primary vectors of swine flu, and without access to health care we will see a more intense and more deadly flu epidemic when school starts this fall.

See the full list of cuts here.

UPDATE 2: Darrell Steinberg vows to fight the vetoes:

“We will fight to restore every dollar of additional cuts to health and human services.  The Senate held the line and passed a budget revision package with a sufficient reserve that met the Governor’s test.

We question whether the majority of these vetoes are legal.  

The Governor has the right to blue pencil an appropriation.  The funding levels identified in the budget revision in many cases are not new appropriations.”  

This is not the last word.”

What this means isn’t at all clear. It was the Assembly that shot down the HUTA raid and the offshore drilling, so is Steinberg saying those need to be revisited? Is he planning to sue? Is he planning a veto session? None of that is clear just yet.