I saw Bill Maher on Friday in an interview with former Mexican President Vicente Fox, lamenting that Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t be able to face off as Presidential candidates due to Constitutional violations.  “Isn’t that sad,” he said.  For all his conceits as a free thinker, Maher represents a kind of baseline Hollywood groupthink when it comes to Arnold, reading the headlines and the magazine covers but never bothering to uncover the whole story.  That story can be easily divined from this weekend’s veto massacre.  In addition to stopping the California DREAM Act, he vetoed needed legislation for the state’s migrant farm workers, allowing them to organize through a “card check” system.  He even disabled a bill that would have added a sunset clause to the card check system, making it ever harder for them to organize and support themselves and their families.  Here’s another bill that went down the drain:

On Saturday, another bill was vetoed, AB 377, by Assemblymember Juan Arambula (D-Fresno). It would have required an employer who is a farm labor contractor to disclose in the itemized statement furnished to employees up to five names and addresses of the legal entities that secured the employer’s services.

According to the sponsor of the bill, the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation more than 40,000 California farms grow fruits and vegetables on almost four million acres in this state, so it is not surprising that a 2006 survey of Central Valley farm workers found that 70% could not identify the name of the farm they were working on.

The same survey found that 56% had not been paid the minimum wage when working on a piece rate; 31% had not been paid all the overtime they were owed; and that 42% had unexplained deductions made from their pay. Between 60% and 80% of harvest work is done by labor contractors. Without being able to readily identify the farm who hired the contractor, enforcement actions against the contractor are unlikely to either make the worker whole for wages owed or to have any deterrent effect at all against a grower who shares legal responsibility for the contractor’s labor law violations.

So while Governor Schwarzenegger told the hundreds of farm workers who were at the Capitol in September that he was supportive of their goals, in the end, he vetoed these bills and sided with agribusiness.

Indeed, this is part of a persistent pattern by the Governor to make life harder for working families while protecting the corporate interests that helped get him elected.  Far from a governor of the people, he is simply a corporatist who has the backs of the elite.  Because we don’t have a functioning political press, this contempt for the average Californian will probably not make it too far off the blogs and insider political circles.  But they have real-world consequences that people will only discover when they are put in the situation that legislation could have covered, and they aren’t likely to connect the dots.  A sampling of the pro-worker legislation that was vetoed:

• SB 549 (Corbett)-this bill would have protected the job of a worker taking time off to attend to the funeral of a family member.

• SB 727 (Kuehl)-this bill provided that employees covered by family temporary disability insurance (FTDI) could take the leave to care for a grandparent, siblings, grandchildren and parent-in-law.

• AB 537 (Swanson)-this bill expanded the definition of family under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) to allow eligible workers to take job-protected leave to care for a seriously ill adult child, sibling, grandchild, or parent in law.

• AB 435 (Brownley)-this bill would have addressed harsh limitation periods on bringing certain wage discrimination claims. These claims are frequently brought by working women who have been underpaid relative to their male counterparts, and many of these women are struggling to raise kids in single parent situations.

• AB 1636 (Mendoza)-this bill would have expedited a job retraining voucher to disabled workers unable to return to their former jobs; workers such as these are struggling to adapt to replace the income needed for the family to survive.

• SB 936 (Perata)-this bill would have increased the benefits paid to permanently disabled workers over a 3 year period. Since 2004 these workers have seen their benefits slashed by 50% or more according to studies by University of California researchers. At the same time, insurer profits have exceeded all benefits paid to or on behalf of disabled workers; it’s a concept that is clearly not family-friendly. The families and kids of disabled workers suffer as they struggle to keep pace with the financial devastation of injuries.

AB 435 is the state version of the Lily Ledbetter Pay Act, attempting to remedy a horrible Supreme Court decision from earlier in the year.  So Arnold is putting himself squarely in the position of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Smuel Alito.  This is our post-partisan “leader.”

Furthermore, he vetoed meaningful health care reform in AB 8, and put forth flawed legislation of his own that has no chance of coming out of the legislature, partially financed by the stupid, shortsighted practice of leasing the lottery to private interests.

I’d like to say that there’s an “on the other hand,” a couple bills Arnold allowed through that provide aid or comfort to the working class.  But on these issues, he comes down squarely on the side of his corporate buddies.  It feels like spitting into the wind to keep noting this.  Maybe someday Bill Maher won’t have a big-time TV show, he’ll be working for his own retirement, and he’ll realize that he’s been screwed by this Administration.  But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Remember, the Governor said that he had a plan to fix the state’s health care system in October, 2006.  He said he’d tell everyone about it after the election.  ONE YEAR LATER, Schwarzenegger announced at a big press conference yesterday that the bill is almost ready.  It’s not a bill being carried to the Legislature by anyone, at least not yet, although I expect the leadership will bring it along just to have something to negotiate against.  But this is a complete waste of time and energy, to wait 12 months to present something that has no earthly hope of passing.  And paying for it, in part, by privatizing the lottery, which is a long-term money-loser for California.

I mean, this is ridiculous:

Every time he was asked about the numbers, he revealed that this proposal is still a ways from being fully cooked, starting with this response to a question about the financing of the bill–where the money comes from: “This is our proposal. We think that’s the best way to go. But this is not final because it is still being negotiated. A lot of this stuff is still being negotiated.”

Counting on money from the Feds seems tricky to me, given the veto of SCHIP by President Bush. That will leave a gaping hole as far as children’s coverage, and paying for it, are concerned.

When asked about affordability and what Californians at different income levels would have to pay out of pocket, he said: “Well first of all, the numbers that I have given you–this is our proposal. So these are not the final numbers. Because like I said, with the numbers, those things are still being discussed–what the numbers should be.” Maybe we should be happy that the exact shape and form of affordability, a key part of the bill, are not yet written in stone. With an individual mandate, that seems to me to be an area to really scrutinize.

There’s a summary of the plan, which ISN’T THE FINAL PLAN SO DON’T CRITICIZE IT, at the link.  It seems to me that the deal here is to try and avoid all specifics so there can be absolutely no discussion about the biggest domestic issue facing the state and the nation, so Arnold can evade all responsibility for whatever transpires until the moment he signs a bill, at which point it’s entirely because of his leadership.

That’s post-partisan, baby.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has finally managed to bring people with differing viewpoints together to agree in a post-partisan fashion.  See, nobody likes his revised budget plan, as Bob Salladay reports.  Conservatives think that it doesn’t go far enough, spends too much, and relies on too many shaky budgeting gimmicks, like privatizing the lottery for a short-term cash infusion.  Democratic leaders have rightly called it mean-spirited and cruel for slashing aid to the poor and cutting public transit funding, among other things.  The state’s pundit class has sneered at the cynical nature of saying that you could balance the budget responsibly to begin with.  And the Legislative Analyst’s Office, who are supposed to play it right down the middle, criticize the revision as well.

The administration has attempted to address a $2 billion decline in the state’s fiscal outlook. Due to several overly optimistic assumptions, however, the May Revision overstates its reserve by about $1.7 billion-leaving an estimated reserve of $529 million. Even this reserve level would be subject to considerable risks and pressures. As a result, the Legislature will face a significant challenge to develop a 2007-08 budget that realistically reflects revenues and spending while maintaining a prudent reserve. As it sets its own priorities, it should identify solutions that realistically balance the state’s finances on an ongoing basis while also avoiding new ongoing commitments (absent identified funding to pay for them).

The Governor is more about fantasy than reality, anyway, so it shouldn’t be suprising that his budget numbers would be a carefully crafted fiction.

A budget is a moral document.  Priorities in the budget mirror priorities in the real world, what kind of California you want to see.  Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to see a California where investment bankers get rich while the poor and the middle class who struggle to survive are left on their own.  And this would have been worse if the state didn’t find a little more unexpected revenue at the end of last month.  Nobody should be surprised that this Governor automatically thinks “cut the poor” when faced with a budget crunch.  That translates directly to who he values in society.  This isn’t the result of Arnold “reverting back” to his pre-post-partisan self, as Speaker Nunez claimed in his statement.  This is who he’s always been.

UPDATE: One thing that should be stated is that the Governor is very much an acolyte of Reaganomics.  He puts everything on credit and passes the problems off to future executives and future generations.

The state of California is not generating the revenue that they expected.  This is clear and it’s been known for some time.  The original budget that the Governor proposed, based on those sunny estimates, is obsolete.  In order to balance the budget, spending will have to decrease or revenue increased.  We know what choice the Republican will make.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is likely to call for state spending cuts beyond those he proposed in January when he presents a revised budget to the Legislature next week, administration officials said Tuesday […]

In January, Schwarzenegger outlined a $103 billion general-fund budget for the 2007-08 fiscal year and proposed balancing it by withholding cost-of-living increases for welfare recipients, cutting welfare payments to children whose parents fail to comply with work requirements, and reducing aid to the homeless, among other things.

The cuts to welfare will remain in the budget the Republican governor is slated to unveil on Monday, Palmer said. That could set up a showdown with Democratic lawmakers, who have made it clear they oppose reducing the social safety net for children.

But don’t worry, there’s a Plan B; privatizing the lottery!

over…

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is poised to call for privatizing the state lottery, a move that would bring California a cash infusion of as much as $37 billion to help solve pressing budget problems but also could sacrifice a major revenue source for decades to come.

….It comes at a time when the state is facing only a modest budget deficit for the coming fiscal year – about $1 billion. But billions more in bond payments will be due soon after.

This is “kick-the-can-down-the-road” budgeting, and it’s no different than George Bush trying to run out the clock on Iraq so that the next executive has to clean up the mess.  It’s irresponsible to put so much of a debt burden on future generations.  We’re looking at hundreds of billions of dollars in debt for decades and decades, in bond issues and the loss of revenue for short-term gain.  Kevin Drum thunders on this, and he’s absolutely correct:

Once again, Arnold “We Have To Stop This Crazy Deficit Spending” Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to figure out a way to increase our deficit spending so that he can continue to pretend that he hasn’t raised taxes. That’s all this is about.

He’s already done this once with his deficit bonds, which will have to be repaid out of increased taxes eventually, and now, in order to make sure that “eventually” is sometime after he leaves office, he wants to raid the lottery to tide himself over. The result, of course, will be lower revenue in the future and therefore higher taxes. But not on his watch.

Schwarzenegger may have a sunnier persona than George Bush, but the cynicism on offer here is even worse than Bush’s. Arnold knows perfectly well he’s raising taxes. He’s just hoping the rest of us are greedy enough to allow ourselves to be convinced otherwise.

We’re going to have three and a half more years of this nonsense, of this focus on short-term glitz at the expense of long-term security.  We are getting played, and I would like to see some of our Democratic leaders in this state make this point forcefully.