We’ve had some good discussions on public transit lately, focused on moving people within cities via buses and trains. But just as important is intercity rail – getting people from one part of the state to another. And just as high ridership is bumping against budget constraints on city lines, so too is intercity rail running into capacity limits:

Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues – all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month.

But the railroad, and its suppliers, have shrunk so much, largely because of financial constraints, that they would have difficulty growing quickly to meet the demand…

“We’re starting to bump up against our own capacity constraints,” said R. Clifford Black, a spokesman for Amtrak….

Today Amtrak has 632 usable rail cars, and dozens more are worn out or damaged but could be reconditioned and put into service at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars each.

And it needs to buy new rail cars soon. Its Amfleet cars, the ones recognizable to riders as the old Metroliners, are more than 30 years old. And the Acela trains, which have been operating about eight years, have about a million miles on them.

We are running into similar problems here in California. Our intercity rail services under the Amtrak California brand, are experiencing soaring ridership. The Pacific Surfliner trains, from San Luis Obispo to San Diego via LA, are the second busiest trains in the Amtrak system, often with standing room only. The Capitol Corridor, from San José to Sacramento via Oakland, is the third busiest route in the Amtrak system, and it too is bursting at the seams with riders.

That we have these routes at all is remarkable, and is due to the passage of Proposition 116 in 1990, which sank $2 billion into passenger rail. Amtrak California is mostly funded by the state, and administered by Caltrans’ Division of Rail (with Amtrak providing most of the operations and some funding). But this investment has run its course and new funding is needed to expand intercity rail, so that Californians can travel from city to city without relying on their cars or on flights, which are either too expensive or nonexistent (can’t exactly catch a plane from San José to Sacramento).

Proposition 1B, the multibillion transportation bond approved in the 2006 election, was supposed to deliver funding to purchase more cars and expand Amtrak California services, including the creation of a “Coast Daylight” train from SF to LA via the 101 corridor.

Those funds haven’t materialized because Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Department of Finance stunningly claims that there is no need for new cars. According to the Rail Passenger Association of California and Nevada (RailPAC):

The Department of Finance, whose director Michael Genest maintains that public fund support for mass transit, particularly the intercity rail program, is not a legitimate expenditure of public funds, has conducted an “audit” that said “we don’t see you need it.” So, “we can’t spend any because of that.” That puts the expected order of new cars for the Surfliners, Capitols, and San Joaquins on hold.

What happened was that Genest sent auditors to ride the Capitol Corridor in the middle of the day on a Wednesday in the middle of January – traditionally a time of low ridership, whereas the route is packed to the rafters on weekends and during commute hours. This flawed “sample” enabled the Schwarzenegger administration to extend its war on public transportation to the successful Amtrak California system, in an attempt to starve it of services right at the moment when Californians are embracing intercity rail.

Intercity rail is crucial to this state’s economy. As gas prices rise fewer Californians are becoming in-state tourists. Places like Santa Barbara, Yosemite, and yes, Monterey rely heavily on visitors from the big metro areas to survive. Without reliable and available intercity rail they will see significant economic damage.

We’re also in the middle of an airline crisis as flights are cut back and fares inexorably rise. That is going to make it even more difficult – and more expensive – for Californians to travel around their state.

I would be remiss if I did not mention high speed rail as another solution to the need and demand for intercity rail. But even though it is a necessary project, it won’t open until the middle of the next decade. Amtrak California can help meet California’s needs right now – if only Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t bent on shackling Californians to oil.

Sure, Arnold doesn’t want to drill offshore, but if he succeeds in strangling passenger rail, that opposition won’t mean much for mobility and economic prosperity in our state.

I will be discussing this and other state political issues on KRXA 540 AM at 8 this morning

Today I will be in San Francisco for the National Day of Protest against health insurance corporations and for truly universal health care – which only a single-payer system can provide. I wanted to take a moment and explain why I will be out there demonstrating against these criminals.

I currently do not have health insurance. My part-time job does not offer it and when I last looked into individual coverage I could not afford what was being offered to me. But more importantly, it’s not health insurance that I need – but health care. They are not the same thing. Health insurance companies have a long and ugly record of denying care and claims even to those they insure. We have discussed here the horrifying stories of Nataline Sarkisyan and Nick Colombo, young people whose insurers denied them life-saving treatment until protests forced them to back down. In Nataline’s case, as we will never forget, it came too late, and she died.

Courage Campaign (where I do some work) has partnered with the California Nurses Association and LA City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo to put out an ad lambasting insurance company practices. It’s based on the true story of Patsy Bates whose health insurance was canceled by HealthNet in the midst of her chemo treatments for breast cancer.

Speaking for myself, I see this ad and the protest at Moscone Center as fundamentally linked. Health insurance is a toxin, not a cure – the profit motive means that there will always be a desire to cut benefits, even in spite of government regulations (the recission practices Delgadillo is investigating are currently illegal under CA state law but they happen anyway).

Last year I was one of the leading voices on this blog against the mandated insurance plan proposed by Arnold and nearly passed by the legislature. It was not going to succeed in making health care more affordable and it was not going to succeed in making it more available. Mandated insurance plans haven’t worked anywhere they’ve been tried in the US, including in Massachusetts – whereas single-payer systems have a long record of success around the world.

We protest, we fund ads, we get outraged, and we fight because we believe health care to be a fundamental human right. Every one of us deserves to have it when they need it, without regard to cost. When someone gets sick their first thought should not be “how will I pay for this?”

As we debate specific health care reforms, that focus on human rights needs to remain at the center of our work. Health insurance companies inherently disagree with it – to them health care is something only those who can afford it deserve to have. It is that mentality that we fight against and protest against today. I’m not naive; single-payer health care will not be an easy political victory. But as polls continue to show growing support for it, and growing revulsion at insurance company practices, it can’t hurt to give Californians a reminder of why their health care is so screwed up – insurance companies are at the core of the problem. Today, we fight back.

When you drive along Highway 101 near Santa Barbara, or Highway 1 in Huntington Beach, it’s hard to miss the many oil rigs on the ocean’s horizon. They are relics of a bygone age – not just the 1960s, when they were constructed, but an age in which California believed that cheap oil would always be plentiful and available. We built an entire infrastructure around that and neglected trains, walkable neighborhoods, and lagged behind the rest of the world in developing solar and wind power.

Now the consequences of that misguided belief in the permanence of cheap oil have become clear. Gas prices are nearing $5, causing economic distress and sending Californians flocking to mass transit. For his part Barack Obama is proposing massive new investments in sustainable energy and rail infrastructure.

But what is instead dominating today’s news cycle is the Bush-McCain call for offshore oil drilling. The LA Times has an article today trying to convince us that offshore oil drilling opponents are “rethinking” their stance but the only California drilling supporter they quote is Republican Jerry Lewis.

It’s obvious that Republicans see opportunity in high gas prices to roll back sound environmental policies, such as the offshore ban. But for what gain? Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would take 10 years to deliver oil to American pumps and would only meet  about 4-6 months of US domestic demand. California’s offshore oil pools would probably not produce much more than that.

Like McCain’s gas tax holiday, offshore drilling is a gimmick designed to avoid the necessary fixes. Americans need to understand that gas prices will never come back down, and that cheap oil is a thing of the past. It’s not something we have a right to – it’s something we had for a few decades, but now it is over.

Republicans don’t have a solution to high oil prices. Drilling in ANWR and off our coast would not ameliorate prices now, and wouldn’t do so in 10 years – the rate of decline in North Sea and Mexican oil exports will far outweigh the new drills and rising global demand will continue to drive up prices.

Democrats would do well to follow Obama’s lead and firmly reject McCain’s drilling plan. It’s time we accepted the fact that cheap oil is a thing of the past, instead of looking for more sources like a junkie desperately seeking another fix. We need to build a sustainable transportation infrastructure that will provide green jobs and economic development for the 21st century – instead of trying to string out the obsolete 20th century any longer.

That’s what California Republicans are planning this summer, according the LA Times:

GOP lawmakers hope to use their leverage over the state budget, which cannot pass without some of their votes, to roll back landmark policies implemented by Democrats and the governor. Among them are curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, regulations banning the dirtiest diesel engines and rules dictating when employers must provide lunch breaks for workers.

They tried the same stuff last summer and it went nowhere. But with a larger deficit Republicans clearly believe now is the time to hold a gun to students’ and patients’ heads and demand right-wing policy implementation or else:

“We think the budget is an appropriate place to talk about these issues,” said Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster). “We are setting them on the table for discussion.”

Runner acknowledges that the proposals won’t help balance the books in the coming fiscal year, but he argues that they would stimulate the economy and thus generate cash for the state over time.

“They are reasonable issues to bring up” now, he said.

Democrats and the Sierra Club denounced the hostage plans in the article, but it is going to take more than complaining to a newspaper reporter to overcome this. Democrats need to be more aggressively framing the Republicans as a party that wants to destroy schools, hospitals, and transportation systems while also gutting the global warming laws that Californians overwhelmingly endorse.

Framing the Republicans as a radical fringe that has to resort to hostage taking to get their way would do wonders for the Democratic position in these negotiations and would also set up Democrats very well for the November elections. Unfortunately we haven’t seen much at all from Sacramento Democrats in the way of framing or other PR wars against the Republicans, even though they’ve given Democrats a priceless opportunity.

If Democrats think the budget is going to be resolved in the halls of the Capitol building, instead of on the airwaves, in print, and in daily conversation that follows from both, they’re quite mistaken.

Today’s LA Times has an interesting series of op-eds by historians and authors examining how past governors dealt with budget crises. It’s an interesting look not only at how those governors all helped build the prosperous state that we’re living off of today, but also how the real problem with the budget isn’t a lack of pragmatism or deal-making, but ideology. And since the articles were commissioned by California Backward they are particularly important in shaping how we will respond to this crisis.

The profile of Pete Wilson by Greg Lucas and Ronald Reagan by Lou Cannon both argue that pragmatism and a willingness to deal is the key to budget success. Lucas’ portrait of the contentious 1991 budget negotiations is designed to make us wistful even for Pete Wilson’s leadership (if you forget 1994, that is). Wilson understood that tax increases were going to be necessary to balance the budget AND to get Democratic support, so he outflanked them by proposing his own increases and then spending the summer cutting the deals necessary to get Dems to agree and to turn enough Republicans, one by one, to his view.

Cannon’s portrait of Reagan emphasizes similar qualities – that despite their “novice amateur” abilities, Reagan and his advisors knew that a tax increase was necessary to balance the 1967 budget and avoid crippling cuts. Reagan did so, and therefore helped continue California’s remarkable 20th century economic expansion by supporting the government services that growth depended on.

What both these portraits miss – alongside Jim Newton’s profile of Earl Warren, an unconvincing effort to see Arnold as a latter-day Warren, is the role of ideology in the budget. Warren, Reagan and Wilson were able to negotiate budget solutions because they did not define their Republicanism by a virulent anti-tax conservatism – even in Reagan’s case, and Reagan had spent the 1960s leading the right-wing takeover of the California Republican Party.

They also governed at times when Democrats had spines. This was particularly true in 1991, where Democratic intransigence and demands for a better deal were all that forced Pete Wilson to propose and stick to his tax plans. Most of those taxes survived until the late 1990s, when led by Tom McClintock, the state legislature – including Democrats – voted to spend that tax money on foolish and short-sighted tax cuts rather than putting it in a rainy day fund or investing in infrastructure. During Arnold’s term Democrats have caved in to his demands so often that Arnold no longer sees Democratic demands as worth taking seriously.

The ascension of Tom McClintockism within the Republican Party goes to the heart of the budget matter, showing that it is about ideology, not deal-making. How can today’s Republican cut deals on taxes when the Howard Jarvis Association, CRA, and other right-wing groups are ready to destroy a Republican legislator’s career for doing so? The only Republican not in thrall to those folks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is instead in thrall to Milton Friedman’s shock doctrine theories.

So it was very welcome to read Ethan Rarick’s profile of Pat Brown. Rarick is the author of the excellent California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown. In his profile Rarick refuses to emphasize Brown’s leadership qualities and instead focuses on the underlying ideological and structural contexts. He was the only author to mention the 2/3 requirement. And he understood the importance of ideology:

More important than procedural changes, however, are ideological ones.

In Brown’s day, the country remained in the grip of the so-called New Deal consensus, a mood far more receptive to the idea that government played a constructive role in our society and had to be amply funded. Brown used to say of himself, “I’m a big-government man,” a phrase that would nowadays be uttered by no politician, left, right or center.

It’s true that Republicans tended to be more skeptical of government than Democrats, but they were neither unanimous nor intransigent on the point….

So I’m quite sure I know what Pat Brown would do if he were governor today, or at least what he would want to do and try to do. He would trumpet government’s positive role, insist that those who benefit the most from our society should pay the most, and set about enacting policies to create a public sector that was funded both fully and fairly. In short, he would raise taxes, especially on the rich.

But the real question is not what Pat Brown would do. Given the differences in ideological climate between his day and ours, the real question is: Would we let him?

It’s an excellent set of points he makes. I wonder though if California Backward will even listen to him. A group composed of centrist high Broderists is much more likely to prefer a call for more deal-making that will nevertheless produce conservative solutions to a rousing defense of the policies that made California great, and an attack on the conservative policies that have produced this budget crisis.

I know, I know, it’s too easy. But what better headline can one come up with to assess the ridiculous  and ineffective solutions proposed by Leon Panetta’s high-powered, high cost group of high Broderists to solve the budget crisis?

George Skelton’s column provides some of their early recommendations:

* Requiring new or expanded programs — whether created by the Legislature or ballot initiative — to contain a specific funding source. That could be either new taxes or money gleaned from another program that is eliminated.

* Regularly examining spending programs to determine whether they should be revised, reduced or rubbed out.

* Also regularly reviewing tax loopholes to see if they’re still needed: “Treat tax breaks like spending.”

* Creating a rainy-day fund fed by unexpected tax gushes. When revenue dwindles, dip into the fund. Or use it for one-time public works projects or even tax rebates.

* Modernizing the tax system “to reflect the contemporary economy.” Extend the sales tax to services while reducing the overall tax rate.

* Focusing on multiyear spending plans, rather than merely passing one-year budgets.

* Granting more power and responsibility to local governments.

* Changing the two-thirds majority vote requirement for budget passage. It wasn’t suggested what the vote should be, but any change must be tied to “other reforms designed to improve performance, accountability and public trust.”

Nowhere is the structural revenue shortfall discussed. Instead Panetta and friends take Republican framing to the budget, believing that the problem is too much spending. Nowhere are the state’s pressing problems of underfunded education, health care, and public transportation discussed. It’s as if those issues don’t exist – as if this is 1985 and gas is at $1.20, a year at UC at $2,000, and health insurance plentiful and affordable.

The California Forward proposals are as backward-looking as anything we’ve yet seen, an effort to continue obsolete 20th century assumptions, an effort to avoid confronting 21st century realities.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that the group also embraces the unnecessary redistricting reform – an inherently pro-Republican proposal that should suggest where this group’s allegiances actually lie.

Skelton takes their bait in his column, and argues – against all evidence – that the problem is simply that Republicans and Democrats won’t talk to each other:

The reformers are prepared to take their proposals to the ballot in 2010 if they’re ignored by the Legislature. But they’re hoping the lawmakers will adopt at least incremental changes. A good time to start will be during this summer’s budget negotiations. The reforms could “give Republicans a little comfort on spending and how tax dollars are used,” Panetta theorizes.

But first the politicians have to start talking to each other.

Here’s a suggestion: Turn off the BlackBerrys and cellphones.

Better yet, lock them in a desk. Look people in the eye. Smile. Sit down and deal.

This is ridiculous to the point of not understanding California politics. Someone as experienced as Skelton ought to know the real problem is with ideology and the rules. The 2/3 rule allows far-right Republicans to hold the state hostage to their rabid anti-tax views, which are not representative of the state’s public opinion. It’s not gerrymandering that enables this, or a refusal to talk – but the very real fact that the moment a Republican deviates from the firm anti-tax line the Club for Growth, the Howard Jarvis Association, the CRA and even the CRP will come down on that legislator like a ton of bricks. His or her primary opponent will be well-funded and his or her hopes of re-election and higher office are over.

How does Skelton not understand this?

Skelton, Panetta, and the other high Broderists wish it were 1974 all over again. It’s not. It’s a shame what remains of our state’s media prefers nostalgic flights of fancy to realistic assessments of present-day issues.

I will be discussing this and the state budget this morning at 8 on KRXA 540 here in Monterey

California is undergoing a profound change. The land where the car was assumed to be dominant always had a higher amount of transit ridership than folks realized – LA’s bus system is one of the nation’s busiest – but with gas prices blowing right past $4 and headed for $5, Californians are flocking to transit – buses, light rail, subways, Amtrak, you name it.

And how does Arnold Schwarzenegger, avowed friend of the little guy, always looking out to protect Californians from taxes that might lighten their wallets, react?

By proposing a $1.4 billion cut to public transit. This is nothing short of madness. Rising ridership is limited by available buses and train cars, while soaring fuel prices put stress on transit agency budgets. MUNI’s Nathaniel Ford puts it well:

“Even with California’s massive deficit, scaling back the state’s support for public transportation makes no sense environmentally or economically,” said Nathaniel Ford, who runs the San Francisco Municipal Railway.

“Every dollar spent on transit helps clean the air by getting people out of their cars. And with gas prices continuing to escalate, we should be doing everything we can to encourage, not discourage, transit use.”

Arnold likes to tell Californians he looks out for their jobs and their wallets, but how on earth is does starving public transit of funds and shackling Californians to their cars and to rising gas prices do anything at all to help grow the economy and keep money in voters’ pockets? The Vehicle License Fee that Arnold cut costs the state $6 billion a year in order to save drivers an average of $150 – which they’ll spend on higher gas prices in the space of a month. He still hasn’t restored the $5.8 billion he has diverted from transportation funds over the five years he has been in office.

Congressional Republicans have voted $14 billion for Amtrak – so why is Arnold instead attacking mass transit alternatives in California? Surely it doesn’t have anything to do with massive contributions he has received from big oil companies.

Arnold’s silence on gas prices – THE topic of conversation across the state right now – provides a golden opportunity for Democrats. Californians are screaming for more transit – more buses, more trains, more opportunities to save money and have an easier, faster commute. Democrats ought to ensure they have it – voters understand that the cost of a new tax will pale in comparison to the cost of rising gas prices. Strong Democratic support for high speed rail would also show voters that Dems mean business, whereas Republicans literally have no plan whatsoever to deal with gas prices.

The Field Poll has been surveying Californians’ attitudes on Prop 13, and the broader issues of taxes and spending. What they’ve found is that Californians don’t want spending cuts, prefer spending cuts to new taxes – but also are willing to support new taxes if they’re the only way to prevent health care cuts.

Frank Russo offers an excellent in-depth look at the poll, which suggests that the public is willing to cut prisons (even though we have to INCREASE spending by at least $7 billion), and supports higher alcohol, cigarette, income, and sales taxes top protect health care.

Reading these poll numbers against the Field Poll’s Prop 13 numbers, which indicated ongoing support for Prop 13 and a belief that the state’s problems stem from spending and not tax problems it seems clear that there is a massive disconnect among California voters. They cling desperately to the belief that government waste and overspending is the problem of deficits, otherwise they might have to honestly and openly explain that their support for tax cuts is a desire to get government-sponsored tax shelters at the expense of everyone else in society and our state’s economic competitiveness.

Frank Russo argued the Field Poll numbers might provide a “road map” forward for the legislature. I agree, although that map suggests confrontation will be the first stop on the trip. Something has to give – Californians cannot maintain their low-tax environment without crippling spending cuts they say they don’t want. Republicans will take that to mean a stubborn refusal to increase taxes is popular with voters; they’ll not be inclined at all to seek new revenues.

What is really needed is a strong and persistent argument from Democrats – in Sacramento and in the grassroots – that our state has a structural revenue shortfall – that our problems really do stem from a lack of revenue, that a state ranking 46th in per pupil school spending doesn’t have any revenue to cut. We need to not shrink away when Californians insist that our problems are on the spending side – those Californians are wrong.

It’s especially important to begin with fellow Democrats. The Field numbers suggest that many Democrats are ardent defenders of Prop 13 and believe spending cuts are preferable to tax increases. These Democrats should be the target of a broad-based and long-term campaign to show them the error of this thinking – that their Democratic values are not compatible with these thoughts on budgeting.

It won’t be easy, but it is necessary if we are to fix this state.

The 30th anniversary of Prop 13 has brought out a raft of commentary in the state media. This commentary tends to split on whether Prop 13 benefited or hurt the state – as if there is still any doubt that it was a disaster – but it rarely examines some of the underlying assumptions of Prop 13, and even more rarely does it explore the deep inequality it has enshrined into our state.

Much of this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding about what Prop 13 was and what it did. Voters convinced themselves it was a populist revolt against rising property taxes. They believe this so fervently that they act as if they willed it into existence.

In fact Prop 13 was an extremist attack on the very practice of state government by a group of far-right activists, with property taxes used as a convenient cover. Those who voted for – and who say they would vote for it again – still seem to believe its primary purpose was to protect homeowners, when its true goal was to destroy public services by starving government of revenue – otherwise why include the 2/3 rule? Why give commercial property the same protection as homeowners?

Further, there seems to be widespread misunderstanding about the level of taxation – especially property taxation – in California. California ranks 38th in property taxes. Somehow homeowners in the 37 states ahead of us haven’t been losing their homes to taxes. One consequence of Prop 13 was a shifting of taxation to sales and income taxes – sales taxes are regressive and income taxes can be volatile. Prop 13 is therefore directly responsible for California’s regressive and unstable budgeting. No Prop 13, no structural revenue shortfall.

Dan Weintraub argued that Prop 13 didn’t devastate government finances. But does he even read his own paper? Peter Schrag pointed out in the SacBee last week that Prop 13 did have that devastating impact:

California’s per pupil school spending, which was among the top 10 states in the 1960s, is now among the bottom 10. Proposition 13 alone is not responsible, but along with two major court decisions that preceded it, it helped decouple school funding from the local tax base and thus undercut voter incentives to fund education generously, as it had been in the generation after World War II. Our roads, once a national model, are an embarrassment. …

California once had a communitarian ethic. That’s been turned into a market ethic. It once did serious planning for the future. For now, that’s a nearly forgotten hope.

Prop 13 helped create a “homeowner aristocracy” – where those who bought their homes before 1976 are given preferential treatment and tax shelters while everyone else has to pay market rates. Some argue that those on fixed incomes deserve protection from rising tax bills, but it is difficult to have sympathy for this when the method of protecting them – Prop 13 – has produced a generation of inequality that leaves most folks under 35 unable to ever own a home in California.

Why should some homeowners get government subsidies and others do not? Why is it that under Prop 13 we protect some homeowners at the expense of future generations? If we are to right the state’s finances, provide economic security for all Californians, deal with the energy price and global warming crisis, and have a competitive 21st century economy, we need to reexamine our priorities, and be willing to move past obsolete 1970s faux populism.