Category Archives: Budget

Blog Roundup, Budget, Environment

August 1, 2007 Blog Roundup

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Budgets are Moral
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Blog Roundup, Budget, Orange County

July 31, 2007 Blog Roundup

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Budget, Calitics en español

Los Republicanos siguen deteniendo el presupuesto

Lo que mas me frustra en esta batalla sobre el presupuesto es que los legisladores toman el bienestar del estado como si fuera un pleito entre niños por un  juguete. Yo sigo firme en que no quiero que los demócratas dejen a los republicanos que rebajen los fondos más que en el presupuesto aprobado por la asamblea. Lo que no me había dado cuenta es que nada mas un mes dentro del año nuevo, hay tantos por el estado que sufren porque no hay presupuesto.

Los primeros en sufrir por la falta de un presupuesto aprobado por las dos cámaras de la legislatura fueron los empleados del estado:

…los empleados, alrededor de 1,300, que trabajan para los legisladores, el gobernador del estado y los propios asambleístas y senadores cumplieron ayer un mes sin cobrar su salario.

La mayoría de ellos han estado viviendo de préstamos que les proporcionan los bancos en los que les depositan la nómina.

Los hospitales quienes dependen del estado porque tienen muchos pacientes en Medi-Cal sufren de:

“Un 40% de nuestros ingresos provienen de Medi-Cal y sin esos ingresos tendremos problemas para sobrevivir”, advirtió García, quien además dijo que en el estado hay 794 clínicas comunitarias de salud con licencia que atienden a tres millones de personas al año.

Y desafortunadamente los niños y las familias en quienes dependen de guarderías para sus hijos sufren:

“Mientras que los republicanos permanezcan firmes en no aprobar el presupuesto, el terreno alrededor de las familias con cuidado infantil, de los trabajadores de estos centros y los pequeños empleadores va a comenzar a desmoronarse”, enfatizó Donita Stromgren, directora de  ” Política de la Red de Recursos y Referencias de Cuidado Infantil de California.

Y al final de todo esto,  Ackerman, el dirigente de los senadores republicanos indico que si no siguen rebajando gastos y reducen el déficit, puede ser que no tengamos presupuesto hasta diciembre.

Yo, como dije antes, pienso que estos juegos que quieren jugar los republicanos son infantiles y me alegro ver que Steven Maviglio, vocero del presidente de la Asamblea, Fabián Núñez, dijo:

“El senador Ackerman necesita hacer el trabajo que el presidente de la Asamblea, los asambleístas demócratas, los asambleístas republicanos, los senadores demócratas y nuestro gobernador republicano han hecho, que es apoyar un presupuesto compasivo, balanceado y responsable”

Exactamente. Es tiempo de que actúen como adultos, porque si siguen así, son los legisladores que terminaran sin nada por medio del la iniciativa el año que entra sobre ampliar los periodos legislativos:

“Entre más tiempo tarden en aprobar el presupuesto, existe un mayor riesgo de que los votantes no aprueben la reforma electoral.”

Los republicanos tienen que darse cuenta de que aunque la meta de rebajar el déficit importante, dejar a los enfermos, niños y hasta nuestros empleados en la calle porque están más preocupados por su futuro político, es intolerable.

Blog Roundup, Budget, San Francisco

July 30, 2007 Blog Roundup

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Blog Roundup, Budget

July 27, 2007 Blog Roundup

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Budget

Want a Budget? Dump Jeff Denham!

If we're ever going to have a state budget, it's time to get serious about it — by getting rid of the people who are standing in the way. Jeff Denham, this means you. You ran for office promising to protect school funding. We'll, you had a chance to live up to that promise by voting for the state budget — and you blew it. If you won't do your job, we'll find someone who will. This is for real. WWW.DUMPDENHAM.COM

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

Republican Obstructionism and Arnold: Should Have Been Prepared

34 Comments

Here is a question.  Why did Arnold think that the Republicans were bluffing about taking a much stronger stand on the budget?  They promised as much last year during their bloody leadership battles.  I have seen newspapers refer to that as posturing, indicating that they never believed the Republicans would actually follow through.  Did Arnold really thing they would roll over, when history is littered with examples of their obstructionist tactics during previous budget negotiations?

I absolutely love this Economist article on the budget.  The magazine has a well deserved reputation for presenting the news in a straightforward manner.  They hold no punches on this one and go right after the Republicans.

Republicans are causing the delay, as in the past. Ignoring pleas from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, Assembly members won some spending cuts and tax breaks. Then, while they hit the beaches, state senators demanded further cuts. Last week, in order to try to end the debate, the Democratic Senate president locked them in. Senators lounged around like teenagers at an all-night party, amusing themselves by sending messages to conservative blogs. “To update you—we’ve done nothing,” wrote one. They want a mixture of real and symbolic sacrifices—less money for environmental litigation and trade-union studies, for example.

The Economist points out that the Republicans are digging their heels in because they can under the 2/3rds majority rule and then blames gerrymandering.

The second reason is ideological. California’s districts are so shamelessly gerrymandered that hardly any races are competitive. The elections that matter are the primaries, which are dominated by zealots. The result is a political system in which moderation is punished, both by voters and by other politicians. Dick Ackerman, head of the Senate Republican caucus, adopted a co-operative, pragmatic approach to last year’s budget negotiations. The result was a putsch that nearly dislodged him. Chastened, he promised to take a tougher line on this year’s budget.

The man was fighting for his political life, just a year ago.  His promises were what saw him through.  Did they really think he wasn’t going to follow through?  The Republicans put up and shut up last year, listening to Arnold’s campaign leadership, which exhorted them to behave so he could be re-elected.  They chaffed, but played along.  That wasn’t going to happen this year.  As the Economist notes, they have been cheered on by the ideologues on the blogs.  They took a bold stand and said no to the majority.  Frankly, that is the stuff we advocated on a national scale when the Democrats were in the minority.  It is one of the most effective roles that partisan blogs can play.  While I don’t agree in the least with what they are doing, I understand it.

It would be nice to report that a small band of hard-nosed Republicans was bringing fiscal restraint to California. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. Republicans have been better at pushing for tax cuts than at balancing the budget. This year the state spent a higher proportion of Californians’ incomes than it has for more than a decade. And, having approved tens of billions of dollars-worth of bonds to pay for everything from stem-cell research to road mending, it is racking up ever more debt.

The Republicans are right about one thing: California’s finances are a mess. Thanks to cuts in property rates, the state depends on personal income taxes for 46% of its revenues, more than in all but seven states. And because its taxes are so progressive, it relies especially heavily on the fortunes of the rich. “If the bottom drops out of the stockmarket, the bottom drops out of the budget,” says Jean Ross of the California Budget Project. Partisan posturing, debt and financial gambling: no way to run the world’s eighth-largest economy.

The long term solutions are well known here.  Eliminate the 2/3rds majority and fix Prop. 13.  In the short term, Arnold needs to figure out a way to communicate effectively with the Republicans.  They are not bluffing about being willing to stretch this out until December.  At this rate, the Assembly may be back in session by the time the Senate passes the budget.

Budget

Extortion by another name: GOP Leveraging the 2/3 Supermajority Requirement

15 Comments

I really, really don’t like to agree with Dan Walters. He’s quite obtuse, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there for the purpose of this particular insight: the GOP has managed to leverage the 2/3 supermajority for the budget requirement to extort other compromises. Compromises for which they don’t otherwise have the vote. We talked about this briefly on the Calitics Show with Mark Leno on Wednesday, so maybe Dan was listening to me when he wrote this in today’s SacBee:

Initially, trailer bills were just boring bits of legislative ephemera. But politics being what they are, someone eventually noticed that the trailers, drafted and enacted quickly and secretly, made them perfect vehicles for “lowballing” other stuff.

Trailer bills have proliferated, filled with provisions that either have nothing to do with the budget or change it in mysterious ways, and are routinely enacted without any analysis of their effects, much less any opportunity for outside input. They are, moreover, “urgency” bills that take effect immediately upon being signed by the governor.

This year, the Senate Republican caucus is trying to get bills limiting Atty General Jerry Brown’s power and to drastically cut back on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). They would have no leverage outside of the budget process to demand these changes, so they use the only process where they have some sort of governable size: the budget.

It is unacceptable that a minority should be attempting to kick and scream their way to overrule the majority’s decisions.  It’s just one more reason to get rid of the 2/3 requirement.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget, Environment

Breaking The Media Filter On The Governor

4 Comments

Many have remarked upon the new PPIC poll, which shows a trend downward for the Governor’s job approval.  Brian claimed that the budget impasse is to blame, and the fact that in the last couple days Schwarzenegger has urged in the media for Republicans to pass the plan suggests that’s his calculus as well.  But I’m not so sure.  Considering that the Governor’s environmental approval ratings are tracking his overall approval, I think it was the dustup over the California Air Resources Board that dragged him down in recent months.  Of the two stories, only the resignations of Robert Sawyer and Catherine Witherspoon got national attention, and it was a direct hit to the issue which Schwarzenegger is trying to use to define himself.

So let’s ask ourselves, a propos of Julia’s question about blogs and influence, how this seeped into the consciousness of the public, and what role we could play in continuing such, er, seepage.

The Air Resources Board is important and influential, but not exactly a household name.  I believe that it was Democratic lawmakers’ extreme focus on the situation, to the extent of holding hearings and threatening subpoenas, that got the press’ attention, or at least what little of it is left.  Schwarzenegger sought to quickly defuse the issue by hiring an environmental stalwart, Mary Nichols, to take over, and indeed her first major act, cracking down on diesel pollution, is a good sign.  However, that ruling does not address the implementation of the Global Warming Solutions Act, which of course is the major issue that Democrats in the Legislature were defending when they picked this fight which I believe had an impact on the Governor’s approval ratings.  We haven’t heard a lot about those subpoenas for Susan Kennedy or Dan Dunmoyer lately.  Obviously the budget battle is all-consuming right now, and the Assembly is in recess.

So there may come a time shortly to press that issue.  The Governor’s record on the environment is frankly spotty, and CARBgate actually points to his misuse of the office to push for implementation different from legislative intent.  Somehow, this got through the PR filter, and people understoof that Schwarzenegger was trying to slow-walk the global warming issue.  So how do we replicate this?  Obviously the ferocity of our electeds forced attention on the issue.  If and when the governor line-items the heck out of the budget, as appears likely, will they be just as loud?  Will that be another opportunity to fill in this image of the Governor as all talk about “post-partisanship” but in the end, a reliable supporter of corporate cronyism?  There clearly is potential here but state blogs aren’t big enough to drive it; the electeds have to get tough and call the governor out for attacking our environmental future, or programs for the poor.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

The Governor and the Budget: What Role Does he Play?

4 Comments

Well, according to many observers not much. Including one who hangs in the smoking tent and stuff: Speaker Nunez. The Speaker calls it wherewithal, I’d just say that I don’t think he has any power whatsoever with the Republicans in the Legislature. They consider him a liberal on the budget and other issues, and have no motivation to help him out. And today, pretty much every major paper in the state has some article about how the Governor has very little power over the process at this point.

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From the SacBee you have this:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Republican problem has flared up again.

California has no budget nearly four weeks into the fiscal year, and the Republican governor has failed to persuade two of his own minority party’s state senators to vote for a spending plan he likes.

While Republicans say they are standing on principle, the situation shows how little Capitol influence Schwarzenegger has over his own party after moderating his views and cutting GOP leaders out of legislative deals last year on the environment and minimum wage.

More over the flip…

The LA Times has him warning about state services, and the Republicans blowing him off:

As the latest effort to resolve the state’s monthlong budget standoff collapsed Thursday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to heighten pressure for a quick resolution, warning lawmakers that a continued impasse would jeopardize critical state services such as fighting wildfires.
***
[Senate Minority Leader] Ackerman described as fear-mongering the predictions made by Democrats as well as the governor that essential state services would crumble if the budget fight continued. He said schools should be unaffected by the impasse because Republicans have pledged not to alter education aid.

And there’s a similar story from the AP across the state:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate Republicans disagreed Thursday about the urgency of the nearly four-week budget stalemate, with lawmakers playing down the governor’s claim that it was hurting state services.

The Republican governor called a news conference to warn that “the daily operation of government that millions of Californians rely on are being threatened.”
***
Republican senators who are holding out for cuts to the state’s $145 billion spending plan said history shows the state can operate smoothly without a new spending plan even weeks beyond the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

So, what to make of Arnold 3.0? Well, to me he looks pretty weak and out of touch with any real power base. The thing is, that he’s kinda right about his warnings. Now, I’m sure that we aren’t going to let fires burn down houses or something like that, but this is not a good thing. The state will get behind on its bills, and fewer vendors will bid for our contracts. Fewer bidders=higher prices. That’s pretty simple economics there. SO, in a very real way this is costing our state money.

I’m not sure that Arnold really has the capacity to do anything about the Republican Senators. But with Sen. Abel Maldanado (R-Monterrey) vulnerable and likely to vote for pretty much anything to try to retain his seat, all we really need is one more vote. If we can peel off one defector, we can get Maldanado to come along for the ride. So, which Republican wants to be the champion for the poor? Which Republican wants to say, enough already?  Well, now would be the time, so Arnold, how about a little trade, you’ll do like 4 of your Million-$ fundraisers for the 2 Senators who agree to vote for the budget.  Because if there’s one thing Republicans like more than slashing services to the poor, it is campaign contributions.