Category Archives: Budget

Blog Roundup, Budget, Environment

July 26, 2007 Blog Roundup

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Budgets Are Moral
Documents; We’re Still Wondering What California Republicans ARE

Land and Energy

Voting Security

Potpourri

Budget

Using the Blogs to Influence the Budget

15 Comments

Lately it feels like any article about the budget mentions a blog post by one Republican legislator or another.  The SacBee did a whole article about Sen. McClintock’s blog habit.  Too bad they didn’t realize that it wasn’t the blogging that was paying dividends, it was the 85,000 person email list.  I doubt McClintock even gets 8,500 visitors a week at his site.  It’s impact is disproportionately felt by the reporters reading and writing about it.  The calls and emails that he is generating are coming by and large from his email list.

The Flash Report on the other hand is different.  They actually get reasonable traffic.  How much…who knows.  John Fleischman does not publicize those numbers.  However, it is less about the quantity of the readership base and more about the quality.  They know that they have the eyeballs of most of the press corps, Republican legislators (those that aren’t already blogging), Arnold and his staff, lobbyists and the hard core activists.  They have learned that they can be very effective by spending a short amount of time composing a blog post and getting it out to the influentials.

Our side has done a very uneven job of using the same tactics.  Lampooning Phil Angelides is fun and all, but how about some messaging on the budget?  Speaking about bashing Angelies, what about this post that does that without offering constructive criticism?  Now, I have some experience with ragging on his email management skills, but at least I offered up some suggestions.  How about saying, hey Phil, I think it is great and all that you are not just letting your email list sit, but how about using it to bash the Republicans instead?  Kinda like sacguy did in the comments here, only a little nicer 😉

I want more posts like this one, that let’s me create a message about an MIA governor that I use here at Calitics and other sites.  Then others who read this blog can pick up off of that and write their own posts.

What about recruiting Sen. Perata to write a post?  Assemblyman Nunez had a decent one at the CPR the other week.  Perhaps a few updates from the floor?  Maybe you can conn the CDP into sending out an email to their huge list targeting those who live in Republican districts.  There is a lot at stake and people are willing to get involved, they just need to be asked.  The interest groups are mobilizing, but I would like to see more directly from the Party and the insiders.

Budget

Calling a spade a spade: Republican fiscal terrorism

17 Comments

It looks like Sen. President Pro Tem Don Perata has come up with the more appropriate moniker for the California Republicans’ sense of “Fiscal Responsibility”:

California’s budget stalemate triggered partisan mudslinging Wednesday when the Senate’s Democratic leader accused minority Republicans of “fiscal terrorism” for demanding more cuts from welfare, public transportation and other programs.

“As far as I’m concerned, (Republicans can) continue to hold up the state budget because I’m not going to capitulate to this kind of terrorism,” Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata said after delaying a scheduled vote by one day. (SacBee 7/26/07)

This is surely what it is. The GOP Caucus has presented a plan to steal food from the mouths of children by slashing CalWORKS, and medical care from the sick by slashing Medi-CAL.  Is that what the GOP has left? Taking from those who have the least so that those who have the most can have a few more dollars. Ackerman’s plan is completely counterproductive at best, and disastrous if it ever comes to fruition. 

It now appears that all that is left is the trappings of decorum. Perhaps something will be worked out, but it appears that post-partisanship is dead. It appears that the work of repealing the 2/3 super majority must become job #1 for California progressives.

Budget, Calitics en español

2 votos para los pobres por favor

1 Comment

Tal vez he llegado tarde en el pleito que sigue en nuestra legislatura, y tal vez como muchos he dejado que los legisladores hagan lo que les da la gana, pero ahora esta afectando a los quien no se pueden defender por si mismos: madres solteras, ansíanos y niños. Tal vez los republicanos en la asamblea y el senado no tienen abuelos o gente en sus familias que requieren servicios publico, pero para que pidan reducir los impuestos a los ricos a cambio de que continúen cortando el fondo para servicios públicos para los quien lo necesitan mas es en una palabra: cruel.

Desde Enero los legisladores se han estado debatiendo sobre el presupuesto del 2007-2008. Ahora más que nunca los republicanos se están aprovechando de la situación ya que para que el presupuesto se apruebe, ellos necesitan dos votos republicanos para poder llenar las dos terceras partes del voto que se necesita. Desde que el Gobernador Schwarzenegger cambio su posición a post-partidismo y se ha puesto del lado de los demócratas mas frecuentemente, especialmente [link SF] con relación al salario mínimo, descuentos de drogas y el calentamiento global. Republicanos, como dice Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, un científico político de la Universidad de Sur California aquí que

“[Los Republicanos] piensan que la definición [del gobernador] de pos-partidismo es cooperación entre el gobernador republicano y la mayoría democrática en la legislatura con un propósito mínimo para el comité republicano.”

El gobernador se ha hecho inutil por su politica, dejando a los republicanos hacerse cargo de una lucha solo para probar que tiene una voz. Ellos han obligado a los democratas en la asamblea a ponerse de su lado con ellos resultando en “herir a la gente más venerable en nuestro estado.”

Ahora lo que me enoja mas es que Fabián Núñez, el vocero de la asamblea, dejo ir a los miembros de la asamblea después del voto para un receso de verano por un mes. El voto que aprobó el presupuesto del 2007-2008 incluye nomás lo que querían los republicanos y los demócratas parecen que dejaron todos sus escrúpulos en casa.

Ahora con la asamblea de vacación, cualquier cambio que hace el senado al presupuesto requiere otro voto por la asamblea de dos tercios, que por seguro vaya ocurrir y nomás quiere decir que no vamos a tener un presupuesto por lo menos otro mes.

Cuando llego el presupuesto para ser aprobado por el senado, el presidente interino del Senado, Don Perata encero al senado para que se pongan de acuerdo con el presupuesto que había sido aprobado por la asamblea. Los republicanos se han puesto de acuerdo entre ellos mismos que ahora para aprobar el presupuesto el en senado, todos los senadores republicanos deben aprobar el presupuesto, que es algo de una fantasía. Hay senadores republicanos como Senadores McClintock, Margett, y Hollingsworth que nunca han aprobado el presupuesto del año, y ¿ahora con este berrinche piensan que se van a poder poner de acuerdo? No lo creo.

Al salir del encierro Perata salio mas frustrado diciendo, “No entiendo que es lo que quieren”, la respuesta de el líder del los senadores republicanos, Dick Ackerman dijo que quieren lo que han querido desde enero y es un presupuesto balanceado. Yo estoy de acuerdo con teniendo un presupuesto balanceado, pero ¿como es que van a dejar una madre soltera que recibe mil dólares (del estado y en estampas para comer) en Los Ángeles sin ningún aumento o tal vez sin nada? Pero muy bien aprobaron el la asamblea para aprobar cortes de impuestos a negocios en Hollywood.

No es por nada que Perata al entrar para discutir el presupuesto aprobado por la asamblea dijo que “parece que fue escrito por chimpancés” y lo prenuncio “muerto en la llegada”.

Realmente se me hace muy infantil los tácticos que han usado los republicanos y como dice La Opinión “El presupuesto está secuestrado por una minoría ideológica que quiere imponer su medicina a toda costa, incluso perjudicando a los californianos.”

Me frustra que los que sufren son gente como mi mama, mi hermana y muchos mas en peor situaciones que no se pueden defender o no saben como. Espero que Perata siga fuerte y no deje que la necesidad de dos votos republicanos los distraiga.

Budget

The Decimated Ranks of Reporter Bloggers and the Budget

2 Comments

There have been some complaints here and elsewhere that the press has not been focusing much on the budget.  The argument is that the press is partially to blame for the length of this impasse.  Well, they are probably right, but it isn’t really the press’s fault.  There just isn’t very many of them these days to actually write on the topic.  The Sacramento press corps has been pretty well thrashed over the past few months.  John Howard over at the Capitol Weekly did a good job covering the actual departures.  What I want to focus on is the utter decimation in the quality stable of reporter bloggers we once had covering state politics.

In the course of a few months we have lost Dan Weintraub, the first reporter blogger in the country behind a pay-wall at the SacBee.  He was joined by Shane Goldmacher, behind the same wall.  When Shane moved to the Bee from the Cap Weekly he gave up his blogger blog that had gained a respectable following.  The Mercury News blog On Politcs has been on hiatus since late January.  Kate Fulmar used to be the main voice over there, but she was recently let go by the Merc.  Heck the url doesn’t even work any more.  Last but not least is Bob Salladay.  He promised us that Political Muscle would be back after a brief hiatus, but it has been almost two months.  I still have Political Muscle and On Politics in my RSS reader, waiting for the day when they come back to life.  It increasingly looks like that day will not come.

Why does this matter?  Well, the negotiations around the budget have been fast and furious.  The reporter bloggers tend to be the best source for breaking news.  It has been almost impossible to track what is going on until the next day’s paper comes out.  By then it is already outdated.  John Meyers has been a great resource and just maybe we will see a post out of the Chron blog, especially if it is salacious.  Frank is doing an amazing job over at the California Progress Report, especially with his interns.  However, I still miss the broader based coverage we used to have a short time ago.  I am not one of those bloggers who gleefully watches the press’s fiscal troubles.  We need them to do a lot of the real reporting and leave us to run commentary.  Either that or our independent folks need to be better funded and we need more of them.

Budget, California

Republicans Set Their Budget Priorities

43 Comments

And those priorities are…

Leaving poor people on their own to die:

After holding up the state budget nearly a month past deadline, Senate Republicans offered Tuesday to end the impasse if Democrats would move tens of thousands of poor families off welfare and make dozens of additional program cuts.

The linchpin of the plan, Ackerman said, is a $324-million cut in the state’s welfare program. The cut was initially proposed by the governor in January, but Schwarzenegger had not been aggressively pushing for its inclusion in the spending plan adopted by the Legislature […]

Advocates for the poor were alarmed to see the governor’s January proposal revived. They said it would result in as many as 40,000 families losing state assistance.

… and ensuring that the planet continued to be destroyed by man-made causes:

Several Republican Party Senators have threatened to block the entire state budget unless the California Legislature accepts a recent polluters’ plea to ignore global warming pollution when assessing a project’s environmental impacts under CEQA. This “ostrich exemption” would allow polluters to continue sticking their heads in the sand, pretending that projects like oil refineries, freeways, and suburban sprawl simply don’t create greenhouse gases. It’s dangerously loopy logic, but if they can convince the Senate to play along, we could see California’s bourgeoning fight against global warming come to a skidding halt.

Hey, at least we know where they stand…

Blog Roundup, Budget, Orange County, San Francisco

Blog Roundup 7/25/07 & Podcast Reminder

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(3 minutes until showtime. Check out our hostpage. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Over the flip, you’ll find my best impersonation of jsw with a blog roundup. Boy, does he have this setup going smoothly.

Listen LiveAlso, don’t forget that we have our little chat show, tentatively titled “The Calitics Show” at 10AM. We’ll get started at 10. We hope to get Asm. Leno on the line shortly thereafter.  The call-in number is (718) 664-9561. Also, if you have broadband where you are at 10 or so, you can use BlogTalkRadio’s “ClickToTalk” VoIP phone service with your computer’s microphone in lieu of the phone. You’ll find that at our hostpage. You can also set a reminder to listen, if you are forgetful like me. 

[UPDATE: by Julia 9:55am] I added the Working Californians posts Brian missed and moved one post that was improperly categorized.

Budget

Budget Gimmickry

“Only” out of balance by about $700 million?! (to be fair, $699 million) Yeah, right. Let’s take a look at the gimmicks

Add on $330 million for the prison guard contract offer (the LOWEST estimate available for their salary increase)

Add on $190 million for the overstatement of property tax revenues (per the LAO warning)

Add on $184 million for the overstatement of tribal gaming revenues (ditto)

Add on $603 million for the failure to account for the May-June shortfall (yes, we were $603 million short, but this budget still assumes it was accounted for)

Add on $300 million for the postponement of reimbursements to local governments for mandates (we owe the money, the current budget just pushes them into next year’s budget in order to avoid paying it this year)

Add on $357 million for the acceleration of tobacco securitization funds (the tobacco securitization funds are supposed to pay for the 2008-9 CTA settlement costs, but instead are being accelerated into this budget to pay for general fund spending)

Add on $250 million for the theft of the Williams School Facility Repair funds (we’ll need to repay the ‘loan’ in future years)

Add on $260 million for the EPSDT prior year deficiency deferral

That comes to a $3.173 billion deficit

As if that wasn’t bad enough. We have $2.865 billion  on very shaky ground:

$709 million from escheated property DEFYING A COURT’S ORDER

$200 million for the “limited liability” court case  (state lost the case, will likely lose the apppeal, and LOWEST estimate is $200 million)

$176 million in unallocated reductions (assuming Arnold will make $176 million in unallocated reductions when he’s ignored most unallocated reductions in past budgets)

$300 million for the Medi-Cal FPACT waiver (likely NOT to be renewed this year, so the state will have to make it up)

$980 for the EdFund sale (has not gotten the federal approval it needs, has never been appraised, and real value is likely 1/5 of that)

$500 million for the CalSTRS court order (court order says state has to pay $500 million of $558 million adverse judgment due to its failure to fund CalSTRS. Likely to lose the appeal and will have to make this payment during the budget year)

That is about $2.865 billion, making a MINIMUM of a $6.038 billion deficit

We have a current reserve of about $3.4 billion. We need a LOT more than $700 million in cuts. We should do about $2.9 billion more in cuts, in order to have more than the bare minimum

Budget, Prisons

Finding the Money

18 Comments

Last night on Warren Olney’s Which Way LA?, which everyone should be podcasting, Dan Walters from the Sacramento Bee made a very interesting point about the budget that has been somewhat unremarked-upon to this point.  I’m not generally a fan of Walters, but it’s hard to argue with this.

The budget that passed the Assembly took $1.2 billion designed to go to transit and put it back into the general fund, with the reason given that the infrastructure bonds are financing transit improvements so there would be some duplication there.  That’s not what voters approved in November at all.  Not even close.  The infrastructure bonds on transportation were meant to be additional funds that the state could use to start new projects.  It was in no way meant to stand in for the regular finances received from the state regarding transportation.

So we now have a situation where bonds have been floated to finance existing projects and maintenance.  Is this a preview of things to come, a get-out-of-the-deficit-free card by using Arthur Andersen-style creative accounting tactics?  Voters approved those bonds because they wanted to see new mass transit options and new carpool lanes.  They did not approve an addendum to the state budget to solve the fiscal mess.

(We of course see this also in the cut to Prop. 36 funding for drug treatment in prisons, also approved by voters, which I guess doesn’t matter.  It’s a good thing nobody covers this state in the media, or there would be some howling going on)

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget, education

Pressure Points on Budget Passage

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(And check out KQED’s forum (MP3) with Sens. Perata and Ackerman. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

No matter what, it does not appear likely that we are going to get a budget (leaving aside the tax breaks for a moment) that is any better than what the Assembly agreed to.  Everybody is now maneuvering to put pressure on the Republicans in the Senate to pass it.  So what are the pressure points?

1) Get Arnold engaged in a productive way.  The man has barely been in town let alone meeting with legislators to speed up the process.  And the last time he actually showed up he set things backwards.  Arnold needs to find a way that he can actually communicate with his fellow Republicans.  Sweet talk them, promise them goodies.  Whatever.  It is his responsibility to get them to play ball and the press needs to hold him accountable.  Matt Jones:

Where’s Gov. Schwarzenegger been during the last two days as lawmakers sweat it out in Sacramento over the state budget impasse? Arnold has been in southern California, not talking about the state budget, but pimping a dead in the water (excuse the pun) plan to build expensive new dams and water systems around the state. (Note: the Governor’s water plan has been rejected in the State Senate).

In fact, yesterday the Governor didn’t even talk about the budget yesterday. And what’s worse, the mainstream press is letting him get away with it. Only one question was asked yesterday by a reporter after the Governor concluded his remarks.

2) Start pressuring individual Republican Senators.  The first target by the Education Coalition is Senator Jeff Denham.  The are holding two press conferences today, one of which is at his district office.

Local education leaders, parents, school board members, and school employees will be joined by Superintendent Jack O’Connell at a news conference today to urge Denham and other Republican state senators to pass the budget. According to a press release from the education coalition, “schools are struggling to plan their budgets … The Senate should make passing a state budget a priority so that our schools and students have the resources they need.”

Denham is considered one of the more moderate members of the Senate Republican Caucus. He also harbors statewide office ambitions (he has opened a campaign account for LG). Being on the wrong side of education groups — as well as law enforcement — could potentially doom his chances of moving up the political ladder.

Is Denham your Senator?  Here is his contact info, should you feel inclined to give him a call and encourage him to stop his obstructionist behavior.  Sacramento 916-651-4012 email form on his Senate website.

Law enforcement groups are gearing up too.  They know that their funding will be on the chopping block, if Republicans get their way.

Anyone else know of any targeting going on? There needs to be two Republicans voting for the budget in order for it to pass.  Tomorrow the Senate takes up the budget again.  Soon the state is going to have a hard time paying its bills and employees will have to get loans instead of paychecks. 

The latest out of the Republicans is that they want to cut a bunch of smaller programs to try and reach their goals.  They still haven’t laid out exactly what they would be.