Here’s an excellent Q&A, really a must read, with UC Berkeley Law Professor Jonathan Simon, an expert on parole policy.  Using the killing of four Oakland police officers by Lovelle Mixon, who was on parole at the time, Simon sets aside the myths about parole and looks at the hard facts – that this is an unbelievably broken system, particularly in California, one that really cannot fulfill the mission set out for it 100 years ago.  Parole was something of an employment agency upon its inception, supervising ex-convicts at their workplace and letting them go on with their lives.  In today’s environment of social Darwinism, ex-cons are sent back onto the streets with no money and no skills to get a job, and so they devolve into homelessness or drug abuse, making it nearly impossible for parole officers to even find parolees, let alone keep them out of trouble.  

It really can’t work – which you’ll see if you look at the category of parolees who are simply of unknown whereabouts. These parolees are described as PAL, for “parolee at large,” in official California statistics.

Statewide, 14.6 percent of all parolees were PAL in 2005; in large cities like Oakland and Los Angeles it’s probably closer to 25 percent. This sounds alarming, although authorities have little basis for knowing the status of these people. Is the parolee-at-large wandering around homeless and has he forgotten to come in for an appointment, or to take his medications if he or she is on psychiatric treatment? Or, as with Lovelle Mixon, has the person gone back to doing some very serious crimes and is he evading detection? We’re fooling ourselves if we think that this century-old method of surveilling people in the community, through periodic contacts, can work with a population as isolated and marginalized as the one upon which we now focus our penal attention.

Simon theorizes that California’s parole system works even worse than most states because we eliminated early release through parole, but maintained the strict supervision requirements that invariably send parolees back to prison:

But unlike many other states that also eliminated early release through parole, California continued to require parole supervision in the community for all released prisoners. And that, I think, is a big part of what’s broken. People are sent to California prisons for a determinate amount of time, based upon the seriousness of their crime. After they’ve served this sentence, it’s neither justified nor effective to add up to three years of parole supervision for each and every ex-offender – without making any distinction between those whose criminal record or psychological profile suggest they’ll commit a crime that will harm the community, and those who pose no such threat.

So the parole system has little real capacity to monitor and protect us from those who pose a danger of committing serious new crimes. And it exposes ex-offenders – many of whom pose little threat of committing such crimes – to the likelihood of being sent back to prison. (This is a really big problem, when you think of our prison overcrowding and our budget crisis).

Parolees are required to consent to searches of their person and property. If officers stop a car in Oakland, and somebody in that car is on parole, police have a lot of leeway to disregard normal constitutional limits on search-and-seizure authority. They can use any evidence collected in this situation against the parolee – and also, of course, can attempt to use the coercion of plea bargaining to get evidence against other people in the car.

In recent years, as many as 70 percent of those on parole in California have been sent back to prison – only a small percentage of whom have committed a new crime (14 percent in 2007); more than half were sent back for what are called “technical” parole violations. These parolees are “returned to custody” by the Board of Prison Terms, very often for conduct that would not earn them (or other California citizens) prison time in a court. Turning in a positive drug test is an example; even missing an appointment with parole staff can result in re-imprisonment.

By the way, no other state has the recidivism rate of California, and certainly no other state sends as many people back to prison for technical violations of their parole appointments.  And due to the three-strikes law as well as increased sentences over 30 years, we have more Californians in prison on life sentences – about thirty thousand – as there were TOTAL PRISONERS in 1977.  The parole board is theoretically supposed to monitor the “lifers” and let out those who served their mandatory minimums and can be reasonably seen as representing no risk to the community, but in reality we let out something like 5 per year.  Meanwhile more life sentences are given to thousands of prisoners every year, and the problem simply grows.

Even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s supposedly bold plan to release all undocumented immigrants from prison and deport them – something he hasn’t bothered to run by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm of the federal government – has so many strings on what type of prisoners should be allowed to go free (one felony conviction, nonviolent and nonsexual crime, etc.) that only 1,400 out of 18,000 would qualify.  

Tough on crime policies have very simply destroyed California, leaving every lawmaker looking over his or her shoulder trying to be crueler toward criminals than their opponents.  In the end, we all suffer, as scarce resources get taken up by a prison-industrial complex that is the fastest-growing sector of the state budget.  These policies have been discredited, and other states have proven that you can maintain the peace and provide for public safety while not stuffing prisons with a seemingly endless amount of criminals.  We can bring the idea of corrections, and rehabilitation, back to the corrections process, if we only shake off the fear that practically every politician exudes when promoting these terrible policies.

Late last week I received a statement from an anonymous state employee working at the Employment Development Department, which included some pretty stunning allegations about how Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature are dealing with state workers.  For example, the Governor would reduce all state employee salaries by 5%, including ones not paid out of the General Fund but through other dedicated resources, including federal dollars.  Our budget deficit is a General Fund crisis, not a crisis of those other resources, and so there is absolutely no necessity to reduce those salaries.  In addition, the Governor has proposed furloughing such workers, an illegal action since state law excludes Special Fund workers from these types of job reductions.  The State Compensation Insurance Fund just successfully sued the Governor over this matter.

Perhaps worst of all, the Governor and the Legislature have in recent years used special fund money to balance the budget.  This is EXACTLY what Props. 1D and 1E would have done, moving dedicated funds into the General Fund.  And yet the Governor and a compliant legislature goes ahead and does it anyway when the funds at risk are more murky and have lower-profile champions.  This parallels the Governor, despite failing with Prop. 1A, budgeting a $4.5 billion dollar reserve for the upcoming fiscal year, despite the “rainy day” we’re currently facing, essentially moving forward in violation of the will of the voters with a spending cap.  

Democratic lawmakers are floating a plan to use that projected reserve, but resist augmenting that with new revenues, leading to $19 billion in additional cuts and borrowing from local governments, really a terrible plan considering the alternative options on fees.  The unions are getting impatient with the lack of leadership, and advocacy groups seem more interested not in working with them but just going the heck around them.  This note at the bottom of the LAT piece from Lenny Goldberg is the buried lede:

The next step for unions could be going directly to voters. One labor-backed group, the California Tax Reform Assn., has prepared a possible ballot measure to repeal the three corporate tax cuts Democrats agreed to in the last year to get GOP support for the budget.

“It’s ready to go,” said Lenny Goldberg, the group’s executive director.

Reading the statement from the state employee, which I’ve posted on the flip, gives you some of the reasons why workers feel they have no allies in Sacramento anymore.

I’m a California State Employee and I’m currently working approved overtime in the middle of a state financial crisis.  I work for the Employment Development Department (EDD).   EDD is conducting massive hiring.  In the two months alone, my office alone has hired 30 trainees and is continuing to hire.   This action is allowable because approximately 90% of EDD’s budget is paid directly with federal dollars.   The majority of the remaining balance is paid by seven other special funds.  Only one quarter of a percent derives from the General Fund.

Gov. Schwarzenegger would have Californians believe that all state employees are lumped into one sole classification. In reality, state employees work for departments that fall into one of two categories:   General Fund or Special Funds.

Special Funds Departments budgets are allocated by either self sustaining revenue funded entirely on fees or premiums and/or have been designated for a sole purpose by California Voters or funds from the federal government.  There are 51 state departments whose budgets are derived from the Special Fund.   The current State financial crisis is a General Fund crisis, NOT a Special Fund crisis.    Politicians and the media fail to emphasize the distinction.  They would have you believe that there is one state indistinguishable budget.

For example, The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, The Department of Community Services and Development, and The State Council on Development Disabilities and are funded entirely out of federal dollars and receive no General Fund dollars. The Department of Motor Vehicles and California Highway Patrol are funded entirely out of special funds.

I and my co-workers are at a loss to understand why the governor is proposing to reduce all state employee salaries by 5%.   His action is illogical.  Special Fund employee salaries are not paid out of the General Fund. This is wasteful management of resources and of personnel.   There is no justification for this action.  Why reduce an employee’s salary when there is no necessity to?   Why continue to hire if the state is in cash flow crisis?  Anyone can review the State Personnel Board’s web site (http://jobs.spb.ca.gov/wvpos/search_p.cfm?showAll ), and can see for themselves that the State is still hiring.  There are currently over 2000 job vacancies with the State of California.

On top of the proposed 5%, the governor implemented a two day furlough for all state employees.  The reality is that I am mandated to report to work on my furlough days to meet public need and not get paid for it. The official policy is that the furlough days are accrued and can be taken at a later date.  However, due to the high work load, requests for time off in exchange for furlough days are denied.   There is a deadline for which all furlough dates must be taken: June 2010.   Use it or lose it.   The California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment have filed a lawsuit on behalf of its Special Fund Employees as being unlawful.  Interested parties can read the brief at    http://www.sacbee.com/static/w…

The lawsuit cites how each department is funded and its impact on the General Fund.

My co-workers and I work overtime to recoup lost hours just to pay for my necessities of life, such as my food and my mortgage. Contrary to popular opinion, the average employee does not make six figures.  In issuing furloughs and the proposed 5% cut, the state increases its budget deficit in that it loses income tax revenue from state workers.

In recent years, the governor and the legislative branch have dipped into the Special Funds Budget to cover the General Fund deficit.  Gov. Schwarzenegger balanced last year’s budget by borrowing $574 million from various special funds.  Where does this money go? How is it repaid? No one truly knows.   Californians rejected his budget measures in the May 19 special election to shift money from special funds for mental health services and early childhood care and education.  Why is this practice still being continued?

On February 5, 2009, The Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Labor Department objected to EDD employees being furloughed since the salaries were primary paid with Federal dollars.   (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/05/business/fi-unemploy5)  The Labor Department notified the governor that the furloughs could impact EDD’s performance in meeting criteria for the timely handling of unemployment claims and appeals.   The Labor Department notified the EDD that failing to comply could violate Social Security laws.   The governor was unmoved.

Similar to 911, this is a game of power and politics.    It is a tactic to instill fear in the general public to justify actions that would not normally be endorsed or approved.   The governor should follow the President Obama’s lead and use a scalpel rather than an ax to make precise cuts.  The governor can not have budget reform without the trust of the people and without providing the state with crucial and vital details of the nature of the budget.

Signed

Employee Proudly Serving the State of California

During the 2006 election, Arnold Schwarzenegger was all over the place on immigration.  First he said he wanted to close the border and that he supported the Minutemen's vigilante justice along the border.  Then he decided that perhaps he shouldn’t piss off the entirety of the Latino electorate and softened his views to an incomprehensible mish-mash.  

But Arnold is cool with the flip-flop. He’s even said so on national teevee, something you have to give him credit for. It’s not every politician who would do that. (By the way, I was an electrical engineer in undergrad…hope you enjoy the flip-flop circuit as much as I do.) While you might not want to count on his consistency on the issues, at least this time he’s flip-flopping in the right way.

“Yes, it is something that ought to be dealt with, but the fact of the matter is, I think it’s an easy scapegoat for people to point the finger and say, ‘Our budget is out of whack because of illegal immigrants.’ ”

“It’s not. … Our budget is out of whack because we have self-inflicted wounds that the Legislature and this state has never really sat down and had the will to go and make the necessary changes that have to be made. … You know something, as far as I’m concerned, I’m happy that they can get the services,” he said Friday. “Because I would like to have the services if I’m somewhere in another country … if I have an accident with a motorcycle and I go to an emergency room, I don’t want someone to say, is he here legally?”

Schwarzenegger also highlighted the economic contributions of illegal immigrants.(SacBee 6/6/09)

It is hard to imagine a functioning California without immigrants. I truly could not imagine how many of our industries would function at all.  

You can catch a lot more from the SacBee’s interview from the governor, including video at the SacBee. Of course in the rest of the interview he goes after a whole slew of progressive causes, state workers, the safety net, and you know, a functioning California.

At the 4 Minute mark of the second of three videos, he gets the question of what the special election means. His answer: anecdotes (excuse the paraphrasing, but it’s generally pretty accurate to his words):

The number of people who came up to me and that’s what they say. And obviously I would have loved if the special election measures would have passed. But before the election and after the election, people came up to me when I go shopping at the supermarket. I go to the beach and I ride my bike, and I go on walks with my wife down in Santa Monica. I mean I’m all over the place, to the coffee shops, Starbucks. I know when people come up to me and try to be nice. Compliment me on all the hard work, but the only thing is that they say they are taxed enough. I don’t know why you  are coming back to me. Or someone else said, I like the reform package of having a rainy day fund, but I don’t like that I’m voting to increase my taxes for two years. Forget it, I just can’t go there. … The amount of people who came up to me about the tax thing. I think that’s why they lost. There  was an anti-tax revolt.= like in the 1970s with Prop 13. Normally these things are a lot closer. People just didn’t like the taxes.

My wife said she wouldn’t normally vote, but she vote because she is my wife. You guys have to do it, I don’t understand it. Proposition 1A has hundreds of pages of background, it is too much.  

This is it folks. The scientific evidence that the special election lost because of taxes was from the people that came up to Arnold.  Or as I like to call them, the voices that Arnold heard in his head.

We are basing our policy around a few voices that Arnold heard? This is absolutely insane.

But, at least it isn’t the fault of immigrants.

Jean Ross of the California Budget Project is something of a hero around these parts. The work of the CBP in speaking up for the lower tiers of our economic strata has been nothing short of life-saving.

Today, she makes the argument in the San Diego U-T to their question of whether the federal government should bail out California. As Robert mentioned earlier, “bailout” isn’t really a great term, descriptively or framing-wise. Nonetheless, the question was out there, and Jean did a great job answering why California really is too big to fail.

Many states are reeling from fiscal problems, but California has itself to blame for its dysfunction, much of which has been brought about through voter-approved initiatives dating back to the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978.

Yet the rest of the country cannot afford to stand by idly as the Golden State drowns in red ink. In the same way that the federal government has deemed Chrysler, General Motors and the nation’s largest banks and financial corporations too big to fail, California – the world’s eighth largest economy – is too big and too important to the nation for failure to be an option. Since World War II, the state has been an economic driver of the country. A fiscal meltdown in California would have reverberations throughout the country and the world.

*  *  *

What form might that assistance take? A direct infusion of cash, of course, would be desirable. However, if federal officials don’t trust California to spend wisely – and there are plenty of reasons to be doubtful – Washington could further increase its investment in health programs such as Medi-Cal and the Healthy Families Program, where the federal government already pays the majority of costs.

To leave California to flounder would hinder not only the future of the state’s economy, but the national and potentially even the global economies as well. California is and will be the economic engine of the nation’s future – a hotbed of innovation and a 38 million-strong market whose purchasing power will be needed to turn recession into expansion.  

The thing about the Governor’s May revise is that it is as much for the feds as it is for our legislature.  He’s trying to reposition the gun that the Republicans have been holding at the head of the Democrats and the state in general and aim it directly at President Obama.  

Take CalWORKS, for instance.  Quite frankly, I really doubt that even Arnold Schwarzenegger is so short sighted as to refuse a program that pulls down roughly triple what it costs in federal dollars and provides the backbone of the social safety net. Now, I’m sure many of the Yacht Party stalwarts are all about that.  But, Arnold, no, I think this all comes back to the issue of getting the federal government to waive state spending requirements.  So, perhaps Arnold is playing some strange game of chicken with the feds in an effort to steal some federal dollars.

Essentially Arnold is just using the old hostage ploy. In many ways, California has the future of the American economy in its future.  The fact is that the rest of the nation needs a strong California. If California fails, the rest of the nation better get ready for some pretty austere days to come. Perhaps I’m giving Arnold too much credit here, but this is some serious fire that he’s playing with now whether he’s bluffing or not.

Now, Schwarzenegger knows all this, Speaker Pelosi knows this, and frankly, so does President Obama. It’s just unclear as to who is going to blink first.

In the crisis mode that the state has been operating under for the last few years, we haven’t really done a great job of trying to create solutions for big, long term problems.  And many of these big problems have only gotten bigger while we dithered.

Take homelessness. With the Sacramento tent city springing up and getting international attention, and then being “closed “, it is an unavoidable issue.  Stories of the middle, and even upper middle, class rapidly falling into homelessness are easy to find.

Yet, despite all the stories of the homelessness problems, the Governor has done relatively little to combat the growing plague upon our state.  And his proposed budget cuts, which are as CA Democratic Party Chair John Burton called “beyond cruel”, will only make things worse.  Waay back in 2005, Arnold promised to create a program to address the issue, or at least the substantial portion caused by mental illness in his so-called Homelessness Initiative.

Another aspect of that Initiative was an intent to create an interagency council on homelessness.  Despite that pledge, Arnold hasn’t convened such a council since 2005. So, Asm. Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) decided to push the issue.  His AB 1177 creates an Interagency Council on Homelessness.  By promoting communication through the multiple agencies that serve the homeless population in the state, hopefully the council will find ways to efficiently use resources and reduce duplication of efforts, and create greater accountability in state government.  

It is particularly important now that every possible resource is perfectly targeted to address this massive issue.  This is a good idea to work on just that problem.  However, all the communication in the world won’t help if we destroy the social safety net.

The legislative budget committee working on closing the deficit responded to Governor Schwarzenegger’s demands for “efficiency” in state government by cutting his own staff.  This is quite an opening salvo, and basically a giant middle finger in the Governor’s face.  And both sides of the aisle were all too happy to do it.

A legislative budget committee voted unanimously Wednesday to eliminate state agencies altogether, taking dead aim at an administrative layer of gubernatorial bureaucracy that oversees most of the state’s departments.

The 10-member panel — six Democrats and four Republicans — also voted to eliminate the Office of the Secretary of Education, which lawmakers said is unnecessary because the state already has an elected Superintendent of Public Instruction and a State Board of Education.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended last month that lawmakers consolidate more than a dozen boards and commissions to save $50 million. Schwarzenegger also began laying off 5,000 rank-and-file state workers.The Legislature’s move Wednesday appeared to be a sharp retort directed at higher-paid administrative appointees who oversee the departments that provide direct state services.

I really like what they did with respect to the Integrated Waste Management Board, which costs the state no money at all.

Schwarzenegger told lawmakers Tuesday that they should eliminate the Integrated Waste Management Board as a first matter of course before making any other cuts. The board would save the state no general fund dollars, but it has become an easy target because it contains ex-legislators who earn six-figure salaries while serving on the board.

The budget conference committee on Tuesday instead recommended that the state eliminate the Department of Conservation and the Department of Toxics Control while moving their functions to the Integrated Waste Management Board. The committee also recommended that the Integrated Waste Management Board members become part-time and take reduced pay.

The Governor’s spokesman Aaron McLear smiled through gritted teeth in response to all this, saying that he’s “thrilled” the legislature is joining the effort to make government more efficient, but saying he would not support eliminating any of his OWN authority, of course.  He would only support eliminating the Secretary of Education, for example, if the Department of Education (now under the State Superintendent of Public Instruction) were moved into the executive branch.

None of this means that the Legislature will suddenly get religion and reject all of Arnold’s bad cuts.  The Obama Administration okayed $6 billion in education cuts without threatening stimulus funding, and you can bet the Governor will take him up on the offer.  And Democratic leaders, at least, appear in agreement on a number of cuts.

But this is the first example of the Legislature really pushing back at the Governor, and letting him know he doesn’t rule California by fiat, nor does he get to unilaterally decide to run it into the ground.  In addition, the more public disclosure of the billions in corporate tax cuts in recent budget deals while the programs for the poor get slashed brings a disconnect to the process on which perhaps some progressive lawmakers can capitalize.

The tax loopholes made it through the Legislature with no public hearings and little analysis of the effect, said Jean Ross, executive director for the California Budget Project, a research group that studies the effects of policies on the poor.

“The problem with dark-of-night deals is that you never get a chance to get a debate over value choices,” she said. “These three tax breaks represent a reduction of one-third the income taxes paid by California corporations…. They really represent a stark contrast in values and what kind of future we want to see for Californians.”

The tax breaks will cost the state $640 million for the rest of this fiscal year and for the 2010-11 budget year as lawmakers search for ways to close a $24.3 billion deficit, according to Ross’s report, “To Have and Have Not.” By the time they are fully implemented in 2014-15, the tax breaks could cost nearly $2.5 billion a year, she said.

Corporations are LYING, by the way, when they say that this makes the state more competitive.  See this paper or this one showing that state enactments have had little effect on economic development.  Big business simply wants to lighten their tax burden.

The legislative revolt against Schwarzenegger could be directed into sensible options for closing the budget gap, like repealing the corporate tax cuts, restoring the Reagan/Wilson tax brackets in between $47,500 and $1,000,000 imposing an oil severance tax, extending the sales tax to services while lowering the overall percentage, boosting enforcement of tax cheats, and more.  Right now, we have to settle for signals.  And this is a particularly good one.

(The California EFCA would provide easier access to unions for farmworkers. It will pass out of the legislature, the question is whether Arnold will sign it. He should. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Another Reason for the California Employee Free Choice Act

Supposedly we have the water available, we have the shade available, we have bathrooms available but dare not use them for fear of being fired. It was as if we had none at all.

— Rigoberto Ramirez, Blueberry worker

We’ve shared stories with you about farm workers who’ve had no water to drink. Now we want to tell you about workers who do have water, but don’t have the opportunity to drink it because of the pressure put on them by the companies they work for. Please read their stories and then take action to help them by sending Gov. Schwarzenegger and your legislators an e-mail today.

YOU CAN TAKE ACTION TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR FARMWORKERS!

The following is from a May 26th complaint the UFW filed on behalf of workers at Munger Farms, where 3 farm labor contractors employ more than 40 crews and 1,000 workers to harvest blueberries. Pickers are working hourly, but have a huge quota of 5 boxes a day–which forces them to work through their breaks, not drink water or go to the bathroom for fear of losing their jobs. This is not an imaginary fear. It happened to about 60 workers on May 26. The workers were promised 3 days of work. They were fired after one day before they even had the chance to acclimatize themselves to the brutal pace demanded. Here is the story of an experienced blueberry picker, Guillermo Cruz:

We started working at 8 am and we were asked to pick 5 boxes of blueberries for the day which is a total of 65 pounds of blueberries. I did everything that I could to meet the quota. Company supervisors were constantly on top of us and yelling at us if we dropped any blueberries on the ground which made us very nervous and confused on what to do. Workers could not afford to go to drink water or even go to the restroom because of the tremendous fear of losing their jobs. Some workers even worked through their lunch breaks to try to meet the quota. The company would not even allow us to take our third break. Many workers were running and going as fast as they could to try to meet the goal. I was one of the few that was able to make 4 boxes and could not understand why I would be fired if I had done everything in my power to meet the quota. The time we worked we saw crews of 60 workers going and coming because of the tremendous pressure to meet the quota and the company was firing workers every day.

Some of the workers are still waiting for their pay checks.

KERO Ch 23, 6/1/2009 UFW Prepared To Press Charges – UFW Representatives May File Against Munger Farms

DELANO, Calif. — Last week, dozens of blueberry pickers were protesting against unfair working conditions in Delano. Monday night the United Farm Workers Union said that they are ready to press charges against the berry farmers. Dozens of field workers said they were fired and never paid. MORE

This is not the only incident. On May 26, the UFW filed charges on behalf of Giumarra vineyard worker Francisco Farfan. Francisco was suspended and sent home for the day after the foreman said Francisco had gone too many times to drink water. He was keeping up with the workload demanded. It was hotter than 100 degrees that day. Francisco believes he was suspended for taking safety measures that did not impede his work performance and to which he is legally entitled.

Two days later the UFW also filed charges on behalf of vineyard workers at Sunrise Agriculture. Again, the about 100 workers there did have water. The problem was they were not allowed to drink the water unless they were on an official break–10 minutes every 4 hrs–or at lunch. These workers also did not have shade to protect them from the sun and were not trained in heat safety as required by law.

Such incidents show that workers need the ability to speak up without being afraid of losing their jobs. It’s why SB789 CA Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers is so vital. This bill will make it easier for farm workers to organize, speak up to improve working conditions and help enforce the laws that CA’s government cannot enforce. SB789 passed the CA state senate and will next be heard in the assembly and then go to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Please take action today and tell them to pass SB789, a bill that will give farm workers the power to protect themselves.

Farm workers can not wait. Violations occur every day and little is done. Complaints regarding lack of drinking water, shade and work breaks to make use of these simple but lifesaving measures are an everyday occurrence for farm workers (worker stories). Last year six farm workers died of heat-related causes. Fifteen farm workers have died of heat-related complications since July 2004.

If you get time, this short documentary made late last summer is worth watching.  It’s 20 minutes long.  California’s Harvest of Shame is narrated by Speaker Emeritus Nunez, himself the son of a migrant farm worker, and includes a prologue and epilogue by actor and activist Martin Sheen.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR FARMWORKERS!

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s address to the legislature was notable only for its fatuousness.  He demands the destruction of the social safety net in California and pleads that we have “no choice,” while hiding the decisions he made which brought us to this point. He claims that his budget is not “just about cuts,” then offers the same reforms that the voters have time and again rejected, or half-measures like firing groundskeepers (to privatize school responsibilities to low-wage contractors, incidentally).  Evidently, the May 19 special election, which has been massively over-interpreted and interpreted wrongly by the Governor, was supposedly a call to arms against tax increases, but a spending cap and rainy day fund, which were on the ballot and voted down by 66% of the electorate, are still viable ideas.  He drew a line in the sand by calling for the dissolution of the Integrated Waste Management Board, an organization that IS NOT FUNDED WITH ONE PENNY FROM THE GENERAL FUND but instead with fees on garbage collectors.  He talked about spending less per inmate on the prison population but his budget seeks only to get rid of precisely the services, rehabilitation, drug treatment and vocational training, that would lower recidivism rates, unstuff the prisons, and allow us to spend less on their management.  He admitted that money from the sale of surplus property cannot go toward the General Fund, in a fleeting moment of truth, but claims it would lower our debt payments, which is true, but precisely what Arnold has been increases with borrow and spend policies for the last six years.

Of course, Arnold urged swift passage of all his Shock Doctrine proposals, because that’s how it works.  The goal is to give nobody time to think, only to acquiesce in the face of crisis.  Some, like Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, will not put her brain on autopilot, mindful of the Depression that would ensue from an all-cuts budget and the drastic consequences for our economy.

“The Governor’s opening statement that the voters in rejecting the special election measures said, “don’t ask us to solve complex budget issues, that’s your job,” is right,” she said. “He was wrong however in his assertion that Californians want an all cuts solution …We have choices. For instance, restoring the top income tax rate on high wealth incomes of $250,000 and above in place under Republican Governors Pete Wilson and Ronald Reagan would allow us to avoid $4 billion of these cuts. Enacting an oil severance fee on oil drilled in California, revenue collected by every state and country in the world that produces significant amounts of oil, could avoid another $1 billion in cuts.

“The Governor talked of us acting courageously. Acting courageously is looking at all alternatives and making smart, rational choices that lessen the cuts with some sensible new revenues,” she said.

Noreen Evans, similarly, has stepped up, at least rhetorically, to offer a counter-weight to the Governor’s Shock Doctrine tactics:

SACRAMENTO – Santa Rosa Assemblywoman Noreen Evans is emerging as one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fiercest critics, a noteworthy development given her prominent role in the high-stakes back-and-forth over the state budget crisis […]

“I don’t know what the point of that exercise was, really,” the Democrat said immediately after the speech as she stood outside the Assembly chambers.

Schwarzenegger told Assembly and Senate lawmakers that he has “faith in our ability to once again come together for the good of the state.”

But Evans said the governor was not helpful “at all” in bridging the divide between Republican and Democrat lawmakers. Rather, she labeled Schwarzenegger’s approach to budget matters as one of “shock and awe.”

“It’s working because it’s shocking, and it’s awesome, and it’s terrible,” she said.

While there are some voices in the Legislature creating pushback, my experience is that the Democrats fall in line with their leadership (same with the Yacht Party, actually; it’s practically a Parliamentary system).  And given the clear signs from Bass and Steinberg to bend over backwards to enable Arnold’s proposals and get it done quickly, I think the only way to halt this forward march would be to mass support inside the Capitol around specific proposals.  For instance, the California Budget Project today released a report about the $2.5 billion corporate tax cuts included in recent budgets in September 2008 and February 2009, cuts we certainly cannot afford in this economic climate.  If everyone must share in the pain, as the Governor said, that must mean something. And so these $2.5 billion in corporate giveaways ought to be repealed.  Period.  Full stop.  Here are some of the gems from these tax breaks:

Nine corporations, dubbed the “lucky nine” in the CBP’s analysis, will receive tax cuts averaging $33.1 million each in 2013-14 due to the adoption of the elective single sales factor apportionment, according to estimates by the Franchise Tax Board.

Eighty percent of the benefits of elective single sales factor apportionment will go to the 0.1 percent of California corporations with gross incomes over $1 billion.

Six corporations will receive tax cuts averaging $23.5 million each in 2013-14 from the adoption of credit sharing.

Eighty-seven percent of the benefits of credit sharing will go to the 0.03 percent of California corporations with gross incomes over $1 billion.

Are there 27 Democrats in the Assembly, or 14 in the Senate, willing to go to the mat to force the repeal of these unnecessary corporate giveaways, providing revenue that can go to the poor, the sick, the infirm, the elderly?  Rank and file Democrats never think to show their power in these negotiations.  In a time of crisis, they should – and force the Governor toward a more equitable solution.  Richard Holober’s post, which I referenced earlier, closes with this:

It’s time to re-unite a fractured progressive movement – based on hope, not fear. We need leadership that can think beyond the imminent crisis, reach out to build a coalition, and organize for budget justice. Labor and community based activist organizations must supply the leadership.

Let’s mobilize behind broadly supported values: require corporations to pay their fair share of taxes; increase the progressivity of our tax system; and eliminate undemocratic super-majority budget and tax rules that give a handful of reactionary politicians a stranglehold over funding our schools, health and public safety services. The campaign may take years. We can win, but first we need to get out of the budget crisis bunker.

Which politicians will enable us to escape that bunker?

I’ve been reading, watching, and listening to a ton of coverage of the budget. Not shocking, I suppose. At any rate, you see a wide range of storylines, but it basically all boils down to not enough revenue, too much spending.

Yet that’s really only half the story.  Every time I hear Arnold talking about our overgrown spending and how our day of reckoning is upon us, why is it that nobody mentions that Arnold put his foot on the gas as we were driving off of the cliff. Remember that whole recall election? You know, where Arnold spent the campaign talking about the “car tax.” That would be the vehicle license fee that would have brought in about $30 billion since it was cut. Given all of the cuts that we have made, it wouldn’t have avoided everything. Back on April 15, the CA Budget Project’s blog took a look at why we are in the mess we are in.

Over the past 15 years, lawmakers have enacted tax cuts that will cost the state nearly $12 billion in 2008-09. That’s a larger loss than the $11.0 billion 2009-10 temporary increase in state tax revenues included in the February budget agreement.

You can get the full details on our thousand little cuts in this PDF from CBP. It really is staggering. We used the bubbles to slash at our traditional tax base, then sit back in amazement at our structural deficits. Now, where ever could that have come from?

Furthermore, why is it that Republicans only fall in love with “rainy day funds” when there is a budget shortfall, but during the good budget days, they just want tax cuts? Well, that’s relatively simple, it’s hard to pass a tax cut (although not impossible…see our most recent corp tax cuts) in a shortfall. So, if you want to slash at the government, you go for reserves.  That being said, reserves aren’t a bad idea. They’ve worked pretty well to blunt some of the pain here in San Francisco. Asm. (then supervisor) Tom Ammiano worked diligently to get the reserves approved. But the thing is, we had the money to do so at the time. Had we put money into reserves during the bubbles, rather than giving tax cuts to the rich, we would have skated across this recession with few cuts. Instead, here we are.

My ultimate point here is to make the point that the media, and the Legislative Democrats, should not let the Governor simply slink away from his legacy. He was driving this bus from way back in 2003 when he thought it was a good idea to cut taxes. To pretend that didn’t happen is both dishonest and delusional.