Over at FireDogLake, former Calitics blogger and current slayer of falacies David Dayen, takes on the California budget.  Specifically, he calls out Brown’s budget for a lack of bravery, in the face of a growing chorus of “responsible” voices in the news praising Brown’s actions.  Sure, he’s making cuts that Democrats wouldn’t ordinarily make, but that’s just buying the Republican frame.  Is he getting to the deeper points?

But Brown has ducked many more fundamental governance issues in the state. He hasn’t gone near a tax structure where people making $47,500 a year pay the same in income taxes as those making $999,999. He won’t approach the third rail of California politics, the artificially low property taxes resulting from Prop 13. He won’t expand the sales tax to cover services, which would allow the rate to be lowered while still gaining more revenue (and becoming more progressive, as higher-end services get used by wealthier people). He’s basically doing the bare minimum possible on revenue generation, and even then he won’t commit to raising them himself, preferring to put them up for a vote of the people.

As for the spending cuts, they will be utterly devastating; California already cut the less necessary stuff in prior years of the crisis. And by and large, Democrats in the legislature are going along with it. In the Schwarzenegger years, you’d have a lot of resistance to very similar cuts, both from the outside and the inside. These days, state Democrats don’t want to cross their own governor, and so they’re basically carrying out his wishes. They tell everyone they don’t feel good about it, but that’s of little solace. (FDL)

Redevelopment has been getting much of the attention, but the heart of the cuts is to the social safety net that the Democrats have been working to protect from Governor Schwarzenegger’s raids.  Yet now we are making many of these same cuts.  Meanwhile a full 20% of California families are struggling to even afford enough food:

One in five Californians struggled to afford enough food for themselves and their families last year, according to a new report by the Food Research and Action Center.

The rate in California was slightly higher than the national average of 18%.

Jim Weill, president of the Washington-based nonprofit, said the figures underscore the need for a strong nutrition safety net – including food stamps and school meals – for families that continue to struggle as the economy begins to recover.

“While the nation’s Great Recession may have technically ended in mid-2009, it has not yet ended for many of the nation’s households,” Weill said in a statement Thursday. “For them, 2010 was the third year of a terrible recession that is widely damaging the ability to meet basic needs.”(LAT)

At a time when Californians need more help than ever, we’re closing down our doors and spending a smaller percentage of the state’s personal income for over 40 years. Yeah, that’s right, Brown’s proposed budget would spend just $5.05 per $100 earned, the lowest such figure since Reagan’s 1972-73 budget.  Put simply, we don’t have an out of control tax system, we don’t have a spending problem, we have an obstinate minority that insists on a selfishness of spirit that California hasn’t known before.

I give Brown credit for doing what he thinks he must, perhaps in the only way he thinks possible.  But we’re losing part of what made us great.  There was once a feeling that anything could happen in California, that whatever we worked together toward would be accomplished.  We built an outstanding K-12 education system and the greatest public university system in the world.  We built the information based economy.  We built a network of infrastructure that made tomorrow look better than yesterday.

Today, we are just trying to survive for ourselves. Some of us can’t feed ourselves, while others are grabbing crass and obscene wealth.  Is this really the best we can do?

Timm Herdt of the Ventura County Star focuses on a statement from Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval in today’s must-read column:

One thing that hasn’t changed in Nevada is that its Republican politicians continue to be fiscal conservatives. But if GOP lawmakers from California were to return to Reno this year to pick up any lessons, they might be surprised at one thing they’d learn.

They’d find out that the state’s constitutional amendment, passed in 1994, that requires any tax increases be approved by a two-thirds vote of legislators includes a provision that gives ultimate authority to voters. To place a tax increase proposal on the ballot, it says, shall require only a simple majority vote of lawmakers.

Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, who promised during his campaign to oppose any tax increases, appears to also believe that a public vote on taxes ought to carry more weight than his own opinion.

Asked whether he would sign a bill to put a tax increase on the ballot, Sandoval this week told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “We’ll cross that bridge when it comes, but I’ve always been supportive of people’s right to vote.”(Ventura County Star)

Now, let’s say this first, Brian Sandoval is nobody’s moderate.  He’s a pretty right-wing governor, and hardly somebody that you could really call anything other than anti-tax/anti-goverment.

But, in the system we have out west, governments frequently defer (for better or worse) to the people.  Perhaps Tony Strickland and his TeaParty Caucus should consider the fact that despite what Grover Norquist is telling them, a vote for Brown’s budget package will increase no taxes.  That’s up to the people, and unless Tony and the Gang don’t trust the people, he should get moving on that pronto.

Since taking office, Governor Jerry Brown has been working bravely to knock down California’s dangerous deficit. He’s looking high and low for new funds – from reducing the number of state paid cell phones by half, halting new agency car purchases and by issuing a statewide hiring freeze that could save $363 million.

Gov. Brown isn’t just looking to cut out waste in government. He is also looking to continue collecting vital revenue by extending the Schwarzenegger era tax increases.

In fact, Governor Brown has been just about spot on. But even Jerry Brown can make mistakes – and he will make a big one if he follows through on his proposal to cut the state funds used to support California’s excellent open meeting laws.

In order to clean up California’s fiscal mess, our government is going to have to make some more tough decisions in the months and years ahead. Very important services are going to be cut. And taxes are almost certain to be raised.

Winning public support for these tough choices relies on making sure Californians understand how these choices were made. And thanks to our open meeting laws, we know that the public’s business is conducted in pubic.

But this week Governor Brown has put one of the foundations of a better government on the chopping block. He is seeking to cut several unfunded state mandates including ones that deal with providing notices to the public regarding open meetings of local bodies. Since the passage of the Brown Act in 1953, Californians have been guaranteed the right to attend and partake in public meetings. Cutting this funding will put the law in “legal limbo.”

While it is tempting to look at across the board cuts in times of budget crises, keeping our local governments open, transparent and responsible to the people remains paramount to a successful democracy. That’s why these cuts that are threatening our open meeting laws should be permanently off the table.

An open government is something that we all should demand, if not expect. We need only to look at the scandal in the City of Bell to understand how important the Brown Act – and public awareness – is to an effective and ethical government. The lack of transparency in Bell allowed city leaders to take about $5.5 million from the city. We must learn from the Bell example and make local governments even more open – not less.

When voters passed Proposition 59 in 2004, our Constitution changed for the better. Prop 59 mandated that meetings and records of local governments and officials be accessible to the general public. For that to happen, local governments are required to – among other things – print notices and agendas for upcoming meetings. The state is then required to reimburse them, to the tune of $16.6 million for 2008-2009.

Technically, the funding that went towards reimbursing local governments for photocopying and posting notices and agendas for public meetings was suspended by the legislature in last year’s budget. But Governor Brown is seeking to keep it suspended for the next fiscal year.

But at what cost?

According to the California League of Cities, no city has yet used the loophole of suspended funding to stop following the law. But that could change anytime.

Because of laws like the Brown Act and Proposition 59, California has truly been able to say that we have an open state government that encourages civic participation. This is a cornerstone of who we are as Californians. We understand that cuts must be made, but for the benefit of our state – and our democracy – let’s keep the meetings open and the sun shining in.

Phil Ting is Assessor Recorder of San Francisco. He is working on a state level to organize support for a split-roll tax system. On a local level, he is a candidate for Mayor of San Francisco looking to find ways to promote greater public participation and User-Generated Government.

PPIC released its latest statewide poll, and as you might expect for a governor who walked through the feces that his predecessor left all over the floor, his numbers are down slightly.  However, it’s not that they disapprove, so much as they just aren’t sure.

In the poll, 49.5 percent of adults said they weren’t sure what to make of Brown’s job performance, compared to 33.7 percent who approved of it. Last month, 39 percent of California adults said they were unsure about Brown’s job performance and 41 percent approved. (CalWatch)

His big test will be this budget, and whether he can shepherd it out the door.  His numbers are ultimately going to rest on what happens in the likely June special.  Meanwhile, the Legislature is down in the low twenties.

The poll also included several questions about health care.  Apparently roughly one-half of all Californians want to lose weight.  Meanwhile, large majorities are satisfied with their health, and similar numbers call themselves generally happy.

 

One of the real wonders of the superminority system that the Republicans are thrilled with is the ability to pretend like you have no control, but then actually exert an effective veto.  For years, the Republicans have traded their votes (but don’t call them trades) for whatever sort of crazy legislation that they are looking for.

But, following up on Sen. Berryhill’s statement that the budget wasn’t his job, Sen. Bob Huff has equaled that level of ridiculousness:

But Republicans said they have for years put out ideas for changing the state that have been summarily rejected by the majority Democratic Legislature, and they have no reason to expect something different. The challenge from Brown is a red herring, they said, and an attempt to knock Republicans off their message.

“The governor is the one who is supposed to prepare a balanced budget,” said state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County), who is the top Republican on the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee. “The governor put out his own budget with an $11-to-$12 billion hole in it. That’s not our responsibility, that’s his responsibility.”

He added later, “We’re the minority party here, we don’t have a lot of say.”(SF Chronicle)

Of course the thing here is that the Governor has presented a balanced budget.  He gave all of the details of exactly what he would like to do with the budget.  But so far, the GOP caucus has flat-out rejected his plan. And they are all too happy to let Brown negotiate with himself.

In other words, they are attempting to play the old move the football game again. They’ll just wait on something coming out, so they can bash it.  They know that Californians will reject their proposals, which would by sheer mathematics have to include massive cuts to K12 and higher education, along with the possibility of eliminating the social safety net.

The Republicans are playing the long game, but as it is they are hurting California.  They are slowing us down from working to build our economy for the 21st Century.  It’s just crazy.