Mac Taylor has been generally to the right of the former Legislative Analyst, Elizabeth Hill.  Nonetheless, today Taylor says increase revenue before axing some of the most basic components of the safety net.

“Some of the most severe cuts proposed by the governor could be avoided by adopting selected revenue increases,” Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said in a report analyzing the governor’s budget plan.

To retain safety net “core services for those most in need,” Taylor suggested the state consider cutting deeper into California’s university system, trial courts and public safety local assistance grants.

“We believe there there are opportunities for savings beyond those identified by the administration (in those areas),” his report said.

Rather than imposing a general tax increase, revenue could be generated by increasing fees, delaying scheduled tax reductions, changing tax-expenditure programs or by imposing targeted tax increases, Taylor’s report said.

Increasing alcohol taxes and permanently extending the higher vehicle license fee that was approved last year, as a temporary measure, are two examples of targeted tax hikes Taylor recommended. (SacBee)

Now, mind you, these aren’t the real revenue recommendations we need, but to be frank, this is a better deal than the Republicans are really prepared to go.  Many of these are majority vote measures, but the Legislature still needs the Governor’s approval for at least a few more months.

Cross-posted to Big Orange.

I don’t regularly talk about my husband’s work on Calitics, but I hope you will indulge me this one time. He’s a lawyer by profession, and usually his work isn’t really all that exciting to uninvolved parties.  However, he and his law partner Ken Seeger, are now working on a case that made the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Unlike most people caught up in the U.S. immigration system, John Doe Xiong, an 88-year-old Laotian who fought on the American side during the Vietnam War, doesn’t want to stay in the United States. He wants to return to his home country to die.

All he needs, he says, is his Laotian passport, which immigration officers took in April 2008 and refuse to return. Xiong is asking a federal judge in San Francisco to retrieve the document and order the government to pay damages for withholding it.

“Mr. Xiong saved the lives of American pilots at the risk of his own, and now the immigration service won’t even return his passport,” said his lawyer, Kenneth Seeger. “He is a virtual hostage.”(SF Chronicle)

The basic story here is pretty simple.  Mr Xiong, a member of the Hmong people, fought for the Americans in Laos during the Vietnam War. The American involvement in Laos was something of a secret for a long time, but history now clearly shows our actions.  Since the Americans left, he was harassed and threatened, and ultimately fled to America, leaving his wife and children in Laos. Typically such a case would be a simple asylum case, with easy approval.

However, justice is not always simple in our immigration system, even when doled out in San Francisco. The feds denied the asylum request, and demanded that he be returned to Laos.

This is where it gets interesting. Mr. Xiong, now in poor health, actually wants to return to Laos and leave the country. However, he cannot do so unless he gets his Laotian passport back from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) people. And they seem intent on keeping it and sending him home only on their timetable, and in chains.

The law on this issue seems to run against the government. The government is only allowed to take an asylum requestor’s passport to inspect, not to retain it for any extended period.

The immigration laws are a labyrinth that can ensnare even those with the most honest intentions. This is why we cannot succumb to those who seek a border only reform, we need a real overhaul of our immigration laws to provide the system with a modicum of respect for our fellow human beings.

PG&E is calling its monopoly protection measure the “Taxpayer’s Right to Vote” Act.  Which is kind of like calling Arnold a “liberal” or even a moderate.  It just couldn’t be further from the truth.

But, Prop 16 is inspiring some good ol’ fashioned grassroots activism, and with today’s tools, the cost of producing some great videos makes them accessible to all.  I’ll let the video do the explaining:

I don’t normally comment on our advertisers, but I wanted to provide a little information about eVoter.com.  When they contacted me a while back, I wasn’t really aware of their new database of information for voters.  It’s worth a quick look.

Basically, it’s like a snazzed up sample ballot.  When you input your address in there, it presents all of your choices for the ballot.  Pretty cool, but nothing new there.  What is pretty neat is that it allows organizations to buy space in there to put their endorsements.  If this eventually gained critical mass, you could just go through there and look at the endorsements of hundreds of different organizations.  

The site is non-partisan, so you’ll get Republican recommendations as well.  Which, perhaps it’s a good thing to know who all the multitude of Republican organizations are coalescing around.  The system also lets candidates and campaigns buy some space in there to provide information about themselves.

The key as to whether this succeeds is the critical mass. If eVoter is able to build up a substantial market, and essentially usurp the League of Women Voter’s SmartVoter by using better technology, then this could be an interesting tool for voters going forward.

From deep in his lair private residence, former Vice President Dick Cheney has surfaced to endorse Meg Whitman for California Governor.  And he did it in the OC Register, giving the typical endorsement pablum:

Meg is a leader who will not shy away from confronting the public employee unions. She has put pension reform at the center of her agenda. She is a firm believer in the power of tax cuts to strengthen small businesses and create jobs. She knows that welfare must be a temporary hand-up and not a way of life. She is committed to local control of education, and she has a strong and practical approach to securing the border and addressing the problems associated with illegal immigration.

But Darth Cheney is never quite so simple, he’s going to make this endorsement something noteworthy.  How so? By making it about Whitman’s support for the Iraq War, which Poizner opposed in 2004.

While I am always mindful of President Reagan’s 11th Commandment, there are issues of judgment that voters should consider before they cast their ballots in the Republican primary. … But I have concerns about whether he truly adheres to the conservative principles of our party. … In 2004, during the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, Mr. Poizner, who was then a candidate for the state Assembly, opposed the tax cuts that were the centerpiece of our economic recovery plan.

He also broke ranks with our party on national security and the “war on terror.” Mr. Poizner opposed the war in Iraq. To amplify his opposition to the national security policies of the Bush administration, he invited Richard Clarke to campaign for him in California.

I’m sure Cheney vetted this one with Whitman’s camp. That being said, this is one risky move for somebody who considers herself a lock for the GOP nomination.  Cheney is not popular in California.  The Iraq War is certainly not popular in California.

Credit where credit is due. Poizner did speak against the Iraq War in 2004. And he was right.  But, that won’t help in the GOP nomination battle royale.  This race is far from over folks.

Back in the day, St. Ronald Reagan, used to talk a lot about welfare reform.  To him, everybody on welfare was making $150,000/year cheating the system.  That he couldn’t actually point to a real case was no matter. He simply knew it was the case. So, the best solution was to hack the system to pieces.

Reagan didn’t deal the big blow to the welfare system that he had really wanted, that was to be left to the “New Democrats.” He did find plenty of time to eliminate mental health care and toss thousands of veterans on to the street, so don’t you worry about St. Ronny.

But those who decided that the system needed to be exploded talked about the need to get the poor into jobs. Those lazy “welfare queens” needed to stop sitting at home with their children and go to work. That child care often costs more than their wages was no matter.  But, in a perfect world, we would be able to provide affordable Head Start style preschool programs to all. And, in the end, getting people into the workforce is generally a good thing if done properly.  We need to work to ensure that we don’t end up putting children into a situation where they have nobody to care for them and no food.

If these are your goals, then CalWORKS, California’s Welfare to Work program would be something worth doing, right?  CalWORKS helps out needy families who are living below the poverty line while requiring that the recipients work.  But, Arnold has once again slated CalWORKS for elimination, which would make California the only state in the nation without a welfare to work program.

What does it say if we so lightly consider tossing aside help for California’s working poor?  Are we really concerned about getting people into the workforce, or simply cutting the social safety net?

On another note, is there an argument that somehow the jobs situation would be better if we cut CalWorks while not increasing upper income taxes?  Money to CalWORKS recipients is spent, churning money through our economy.

But this isn’t really about what’s best for the state any more. We’re in the business of moving wealth upwards these days. We can’t let something as trivial as a child going to school hungry get in the way of that.

Usually, it’s left to Democrats like Nancy Skinner to call out the Governor’s Stupid.  But, hey, look at this, there are some Republicans who look at practical costs in conjunction with their ideology:

Two Republican members of an Assembly subcommittee have joined a largely Democratic move to stop a $41.6 million plan to fingerprint recipients of subsidized in-home care.

GOP assemblymen Bill Emmerson of Hemet and Brian Nestande of Palm Desert voted in their budget subcommittee Wednesday to stop spending $8.2 million this year on the anti-fraud plan, which would cost an estimated $41.6 million over seven years. (SacBee)

This plan was so universally recognized as cost inefficient that even these Republicans couldn’t handle it.  Long story short, the plan required every recipient to be fingerprinted. Not the providers, the recipients.  Can’t hold your fingers still due to degenerative muscular disease? Tough luck, buddy.

But the issue that broke this one for the Republicans was simply that this would cost more money than it would save.  Thus, the Stupid.  Even ideology doesn’t trump Stupid all of the time.

We mentioned this yesterday in the open thread, but since the folks at NoProp16films.org have gone full out and made a whole series of HD videos, I think it is worth its own post.

You can check out the whole series of them, but this is one of my favorites at the site.  The open thread has a good summary video, and over the flip you’ll find a video in Spanish.

PG&E & PROP 16* from No on Prop16 Films on Vimeo.

First, let me say this: I am a big fan of primary challenges.  But to make it really get past the statement phase, you really have to catch lightning in a bottle.  Of course, Republicans are doing it all over the place these days, but that’s not the case for Democrats.

So, with that I give you news from the Harman – Winograd primary challenge. According to a new poll for the Harman campaign, she is up by 41 points, 58-17.  Now, much of this is about name ID, where Harman is known by the community, and Winograd basically isn’t. Harman’s favorable/unfavorable ratio is at 64/18, while Winograd’s is at 20/6.

Now, the caveats: this poll is a fairly small sample, so the margin of error is almost +/- 5%.  But with the lead being so large, that shouldn’t matter all that much.  What these numbers are telling me is that Harman is going to win the primary on the strength of her name ID.  With only a few weeks to go before the election, Winograd is left playing the statement role.

Back in 2006, she garnered about 38%, and she might just reach that number.  But, for now, it looks like Harman has herself in a position for a comfortable win come June 8.