Category Archives: Budget

Budget

Shame on GOP for threatened cuts to school kids

by Randy Bayne
x-posted at The Bayne of Blog

In a desperate move to force Democrats to accept other draconian cuts, GOP leadership in the state legislature has threatened to slash $400 million from schools as part of the budget deadlock that will soon enter it’s fourth week. A move that will go nowhere and only serves to further delay a budget agreement.

Education groups are already mobilizing to block any proposed cuts. The California School Employees Association and California Teachers Association have already begun asking members to call their legislators, particularly Republicans, to express their extreme dismay at cuts that will hurt school children and force severe cuts in spending.

Many school districts have already adopted budgets for the coming school year based on assurances that education would not be cut. Cuts in education now would force districts to dip into precious reserve funds. Education leaders say the proposed cuts would “wipe out a good chunk” of their discretionary spending.

Republicans are asking for draconian cuts in other areas of at least $2 billion, and the proposed education cuts may be a ploy to get Democrats to move away from their opposition to these cuts to social services by forcing them to make a choice between cutting social services or cutting education.

The two leaders of Republicans in the legislature refuse to stand by their plan to cut education. In order to avoid answering questions and defending the move, “Assembly Republican leader Michael Villines of Clovis and Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine left through a back door after two hours of budget negotiations with Democrats Tuesday evening,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Republicans aren’t even on the same page as their own governor. The current plan being offered by Democrats is similar to the one crafted by Governor Schwarzenegger. Because of the similarities, it was thought early on that the budget process would be completed on time. That bubble was burst when Villines and Ackerman demanded unspecified cuts to social programs. Assembly Speaker Nuñez has been critical of members of the governor’s own party for not supporting his plan. Six Republican votes are required to reach the 2/3 threshold for passing a budget.

This whole episode, the Republican determination to cut funding for social programs and education, reveals just how soulless Republicans, as a party, are. They have no qualms about cutting services for the less fortunate and truly needy families. No qualms about cutting off educational opportunity for school children. The Democrats, on the other hand, have been extremely reserved about proposing tax increases on the wealthiest Californians. So much for Republican rhetoric about family values and bi-partisanship.

The amazing thing in all this is that six Republicans can’t be found who will break with their party leadership and do the right thing by supporting children, schools, families, working Californians, and the poor. Shame on you. 

Blog Roundup, Budget, education

July 18, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s roundup is on the flip. I’m busy today, and there’s not all that many entries, so you’re getting them in no particular order and without headings.

As always, use the comments to let me know what I missed.

Budget

The Politics of the Budget Fight

5 Comments

Brian has a post on the latest budget news below.  I have coverage of this move over at Working Californians, but want to delve more into the politics of what is going on here.

I admit it, the factors at play in the budget battle are fascinating to me.  They tell the story of the state of the California legislature so well and it’s relationship with the governor.  Plus, the dysfunctional rules that the legislature operates under.

There are three sides in this fight. First you have the governor, who is more wrapped up in his public image and travels than actually governing.  However, it’s not like he is that relevant.  His working relationship with the Republicans has so soured that he cannot, through the sheer force of personality, peel enough of them off to pass a budget.

Last year it was different.  The governor managed to convince the Republicans (the second side) to play ball, in part because he needed a well oiled legislature and the appearance of bi-partisanship to smooth his path to election.  So, while many principled Republicans objected to the budget, the Republican leadership cleared the way for the budget’s passage, bringing along the right number of votes.  This lead directly to the installation of new Republican leaders, ones who vowed that they would not cow to Arnold’s demands.  They were elected to their positions with the express purpose to ensure that the Republicans in the legislature were not irrelevant.  They practically promised that the budget would be much more difficult to pass this year. 

It has been, but that is due in part to slightly weakened finances.  There just is not as much money as there was last year.  Thus the fight.  The actual places where the government can make cuts is severely limited, because of predetermined funding paths for many programs.  These formulas guarantee funding, but it also increases the pressure on the programs not subject to these rules in a time of budgetary pressure.

Now, Arnold is fairly absent, in part because his presence really would not do much good.  He has little leverage over the Republicans.  Arnold does not want to relive the 2005 Special election.  He avoided cutting funds for education and public safety, because he knew that that old battle would get waged again.  He already lost it once and probably would end up with the same result.  Plus, he is trying to work with those groups in a consensus manner, not a big public dispute.  Instead of cutting their funding, he decided to go after the poor, elderly and children.  That is a new fight, if an unpopular one.

The Democrats (in the third and final side) have the upper-hand here, but the limitations of the state constitution mean that they cannot dictate the entire budget.  They need two Republican Senators and six Assemblymembers to vote for the budget.  Unlike just about every other state in the nation, our budget must be passed with a 2/3rds majority.  This is one of the few times when they do need to strike a deal with the Republicans. 

However, they do have the advantage of having the public support for funding schools, the poor, those on welfare, children and public service.  The scope of the problem is simply not big enough to be able to justify the cuts.  The two sides are only about $2 billion apart.  It is very hard for the Republicans to credibly argue to the public that our state’s finances are so bad that they need to cut these beloved programs.

This dynamic set up the current Democratic strategy.  The leadership is continuing to negotiate in private, but they are taking very public actions to try and increase the pressure on the Republicans to cave.  They started a fairly low level push to try and get the Republicans to actually submit programs to cut.  The blogs were used to push that message and get the reporters to start asking questions.  At the same time Nunez scheduled a vote on the budget to show the public that it was not the Democrats who were holding up the process.  Even if it never occurred, it got the message out there.  Meanwhile, the Republicans finally laid out their cuts, but in secret.  That was then mocked, creating the impression that they were scared to expose them in public.  This started a narrative about them, before we knew what they actually were. 

Then came today’s news about education cuts.  The Democratic leaders went to what is arguably the most powerful coalition of issue based groups to inform them about the Republican’s plans.  They could have exposed other proposed cuts to a different set of groups, but I suspect the cuts were not as large, nor those groups as effective at mobilization than the education community.  They can now continue this tact with every single interest group community effected by the proposed cuts.  The groups put outside pressure on the negotiations and drive news coverage of the stalemate.  The effectiveness of this strategy rests on the knowledge that the public supports the Democrats on the issues.  Absent that and there is no point in raising the profile of the fight and driving down the legislature’s approval ratings due to the acrimony.  The lessons of 2005 are still out there.

Budget

The Super-Secret Hush-Hush GOP Budget Plan

4 Comments

Apparently the Republicans have a GREAT idea to cut the budget deficits. See, there’s a lot of money in them there schools, and really, we don’t need them, right? Right? I mean, slashing the schools would work great with W’s plan to use No Child Left (Behind) to privatize public schooling. So, we place unrealistic demands and then take away all their money.  Seems like a two-fer.  So, ssh, here’s the plan:

Republican legislative leaders, vowing to block passage of a state budget until Democrats agree to more spending cuts, have proposed in secret talks to slash $400 million from schools, according to education groups that were briefed on the negotiations Tuesday.

School officials say they were shocked to learn of the proposal at a briefing on the state budget impasse — now in its third week — by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland).

The officials said they were told that, under the GOP plan, the money would be cut out of cost-of-living adjustments for salaries and other expenses and funding for the growth of student populations. The cuts would apply to schools with kindergarten through high school classes and to community colleges. (LAT 7/18/07)

I’m hearing that Arnold doesn’t want to get anywhere near cutting into Prop 98 education funds, given the problems that got him in 2005 and the fact that he lost a lawsuit to the CTA. So, I’m not sure how this is going to work given the fact that Arnold seems a lot closer to the Dems than his fellow Republicans at this point.  Well, let me rephrase that, I think Arnold would go along with pretty much any compromise that could emerge from the Legislature.

But, Arnold does love him some privatizing, but I really doubt that schools would really be his target. But, the GOP, man, they never give up with this crap, do they?

Blog Roundup, Budget, Environment

July 17, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. It includes the experiences of a couple bloggers with arguments against impeachment (or evasions regarding the same), a few pieces on our environment (including our farms and fisheries), land use, another attempt at treating our gay and lesbian citizens fairly, and a smorgasbord of other items.

As always, let me know what I missed in comments.

Impeachment Experiences

Environment and Land Use

Basic Fairness

All The Rest

Blog Roundup, Budget, Environment, Health Care

July 16, 2007 Blog Roundup

Today’s Blog Roundup is on the flip. Some budget posts, and then (seriously) not more than one post on any other topic. Let me know what I missed.

Budgets Are Moral
Documents

Seriously, I can’t really
group the rest of  these in any meaningful way, so here they
are in no particular order

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

Where’s Arnold?

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You would think that a governor would try to step in on July 16 when a budget is due July 1.  And you would think he would be doing everything he can to manage the prison crisis given the rapidly approaching deadline when judges may cap the number of inmates.  But you’re just not post-partisan (or lazy as hell, you choose).

last week closed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attention thousands of miles east as he ventured to Florida for a turn before the cameras and a $25,000-per-table Republican party fundraiser.

To Capitol insiders, the trip was the latest troubling evidence that despite the many big issues before him, the governor’s interest in the nuts and bolts of governing has ebbed. Splashy announcements remain his trademark, but after the cameras pack up, Schwarzenegger has often not followed through. As a result, key parts of his agenda are foundering.

I think my biggest problem with those paragraphs is the word “ebbed.”  When was he EVER interested in governing?  Sure, he likes magazine covers, and getting to wear anything with the California state seal on it, but actually GOVERNING.  Not his style.

Over…

The governor waited until July 9 to bring the four legislative leaders into his office for a “Big 5” budget meeting — the forum he and other governors have used to keep negotiations moving. The leaders from both parties emerged to announce that little got done. No more meetings have taken place.

“We’re all starting to say, ‘Mr. Governor, phone home,’ ” said state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). “We’ve got a budget impasse. We need you to engage.”

Republicans too are warning Schwarzenegger that his legacy is at stake.

“He clearly has a case of wanderlust,” said Bill Whalen, a Republican political consultant. “While it is good and swell to go around the world and talk about global warming, being governor of California is very much a pothole job. It is about dealing with matters both large and small.”

The Republicans are obviously being willfully moronic about the budget, claiming that they don’t have to show what $2 billion dollars in programs must be cut but just that it has to happen.  The Governor, however, might be even worse, showing no leadership at all in sleepwalking through Sacramento, stopping to pause at wildflowers while the impasse continues.  You’d think he’d be embarrassed at this, just like you’d think he’s be embarrassed at trying to cut mental health services for the homeless (actually, he probably had nothing to do with that, I’ll bet a staffer typed it up).  But then you wouldn’t be as post-partisan and awesome as the Governator.

Dan Walters wrote a story today saying that governance is the overriding issue in California.  That certainly becomes a lot tougher when there isn’t a governor.

UPDATE: Via Randy Bayne:

As for getting help from Governor Schwarzenegger to help get the needed six Republican votes, Nuñez says, “I don’t know that the Governor, to be quite honest with you, has the wherewithal to be able to garner Republican votes at this point.”

LOL.

Budget

Where’s the waste?…

13 Comments

Can someone please answer these questions for me:

1. Why does it cost California $42,000 per inmate when it only costs Florida $18,000?

2. Why does it cost California $163,000 per prison bed (building them, that is) when it only costs Michigan $54,000?

3. Why does California have the third highest tax per gallon of gasoline, and ranks 43rd in per capita spending on highways?

4. Why has per pupil spending nearly doubled ($6,000 to $11,500) over the last decade and student achievement has remained stagnant?

5. Why has it cost well over $5 billion and 15 years to retrofit the Bay Bridge when it cost us $1 billion (inflation adjusted) and 5 years to build it from scratch?

Seriously, what are the answers to those questions?

Budget, Health Care

Wednesday Open Thread

9 Comments

(Yes, Miller was mad. But if you want to see really, REALLY mad, check out this (kinda shocking, but a rhetorical move I’ve never seen before, watch closely) – promoted by blogswarm)

I have four posts up today at Working Californians and you can go check them out.  This one is going to be pretty linky, mostly things I wish I had time to write about today.

  • While I disagree with Herdt on Arnold true attitude towards the environment, he shows quite the pattern when it comes to Arnold thwarting the public process.
  • Can I just say that it is absolutely ridiculous that there is an entire system in place for loans for legislative staff.  It’s not that it exists, because it is good that they can still pay their bills, but that there is actually a routine need for such a system.  And yes there still is no budget.
  • The Republicans are stepping up their opposition to AB 8, complete with a professionally produced YouTube.  They are even claiming that Arnold would veto AB 8 in its current form.
  • And if you haven’t watched the Miller video linked in the quickies you really should.  He was mad and I like it.  More please.

      • Here is the Cliks video for “Oh Yeah”