Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign the FY2010 budget revision quietly tomorrow, with up to $1 billion dollars of line-item cuts that could potentially cause more pain for California citizens.  He’ll claim that he was acting responsibly and in the best interests of the people.  As CalBuzz says today in about as shrill a way as imaginable, it’s a load of crap.

“(T)he biggest winner to emerge from our negotiations is California,” the governor bragged, “our state’s legacy, its priorities, and its budget stability.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong!!

Schwarzenegger’s triumphalist braying was little more than a one-step-ahead-of-the-posse exercise in spin control, a pathetically transparent bid to establish a positive narrative for the budget disaster over which he’s presided, in hopes that voters and his suck-up pals in the national media will buy his story without bothering to check it out.

(NOTE TO NATIONAL POLITICAL WRITERS: Schwarzenegger did NOT solve or stabilize California’s budget. Despite his assertion to the contrary, his budget – passed in February and now revised twice – actually RAISED TAXES by $12.5 BILLION. With the latest revision, he threw off enough ballast to keep his hot air balloon afloat but in no particular direction.) […]

In truth, Arnold’s entire tenure has been one continuous failure of leadership. This is just the latest chapter.

From his first days in office (when he sowed the seeds of today’s never-ending fiscal crisis by his irresponsible cut in the vehicle license fee) to his ill-considered $15 billion borrowing bond (which helped make interest payments the fastest growing item in the budget) and his current shameful spending plan (which gives the University of California a major push into mediocrity while continuing the slow death of K-12 education and punishing the aged, blind and disabled), he has been little more than a narcissistic, tone-deaf poseur, surrounded by sycophants and devoid of principle or conviction.

Allow me to sit up and take notice at the shrill-ness.

And their points are completely inarguable.  It’s not just this budget revision, which makes draconian cuts and multiple faulty assumptions of revenue in order to pretend to fill a partially self-created deficit (we’re not getting $1 billion from the federal government for Medi-Cal reimbursement, for example, nor will we sell the State Compensation Insurance Fund for $1 billion).  It’s that his entire tenure has had the goal of enforcing the tax revolt and eroding the New Deal consensus that Californians still by and large support as an electorate, though they lack the governmental structure to carry it out.  And in that respect, he was wildly successful.  Except Californians have figured out implicitly that this vision of the future is abhorrent, and while they haven’t yet put their finger on who to blame, they could do worse than looking at the Governor.  It is no accident that Schwarzenegger is viewed unfavorably by both parties, having driven the state completely into a ditch and hastened the near-depression in which we find ourselves.  The structure of government resists workable solutions to our fiscal problems.  But Schwarzenegger’s reckless management has greased the skids and achieved nothing for the citizenry but future pain and suffering.

In the latest outrage, he enthusiastically endorsed a budget process that will help push the whole country into a deeper recession by canceling out the impact of the federal stimulus package.

Tens of billions of dollars are cascading into California from the federal stimulus package, but the economic oomph is being weakened by massive cutbacks in state spending.

The financial crosscurrents show up in places like downtown Sacramento’s old railyard, now undergoing a huge facelift. Stimulus money from Washington, D.C., will help move the train tracks, a key element of the plan. Separately, though, the slashing of redevelopment funding by the Legislature might derail a housing project at the site.

This push-pull effect will play out in education, transportation and other sectors. Economists say the likely result will be prolonged pain and a weaker recovery despite the $85 billion coming to California from the stimulus program over the next two years or so. Unemployment stands at 11.6 percent in Sacramento and statewide, and is forecast to exceed 13 percent next year.

The state budget “absolutely … will blunt the impact of the stimulus,” said Chris Thornberg, head of Beacon Economics consulting in Los Angeles.

Remember all this when you see some Twitpic of the Governor brandishing his pen and telling his list of followers tomorrow that he “fixed” the budget.  The fix is in, to be sure – and the people will feel the results.

The progressive community needs to have a plan for the next eighteen months (otherwise known as three or four budget cycles).  I believe there is consensus for persuing two parallel tracks toward November 2010, in hopes that at least one succeeds:

1.  Gain control of the state government.  We need to win the governor’s mansion and at least two-thirds in each house.  I say at least because, especially in the Assembly, some of those victories will come from rather reddish seats, and we need to have votes to spare for when one or two have to vote their district.

2.  Change the system in California.  Either through a series of Constitutional amendments or a full-blown convention, we need to alter the rules so that a small minority cannot hold the state hostage time after time.

I also believe we need to come up with a plan for “in the meantime”, that acknowledges we must work under the present rules and with the present composition of the Legislature.

Under Option One, we need to review the current candidates in the field, and recruit new ones if necessary.  Will the two current candidates for governor fight to the last ditch for progressive values, or will they cave to pressure?  Do we need to recruit a new and better Democrat?  Same thing in each Senate and Assembly race.  Is the current incumbent and/or leading candidate a solid vote for progressive values?  Especially for the incumbents, we can ask which bills they supported, and why.  If they’re not strong enough, go find and fund another option.  We need to do this immediately.

Once we have our candidates, we need to make it a full-bore effort to get them elected.  No skipping off to Arizona or Illinois or wherever for their Senate race, no distractions of any kind.  In fact, we need to put out the message:  We will not support any “progressive” ballot measures not focused on structural reform.  The fight to reclaim our state is too big & too important to focus on anything else.

Along those lines, we also need to make it clear to all that electing Brown/Newsom/Kuehl or whomever is irrelevant without control of the legislature, and we need to put in as much energy on the local Assembly & Senate race as the top of the ticket.  Now is not the time for a replay of “Obama Only”.

For Option Two, we need to pick an approach and take action, and do it now.  If the conventon is the choice, let’s hit the streets with petitions to make it a reality.  If piecemeal reform of the present rag is the approach, let’s hit the streets.  I’m not sure if we’re in position to have measures on the ballot by next June, but perhaps November is still open.  

We need to achieve consensus on our goals for change.  Do we want simple majority on tax & budget votes, or do we prefer 55% or 60%?  Do we want to lower the threshold for both, or just one?  Do we want to repeal Prop 13, or modify the terms, or create a “split roll” system?  Do we want a two year budget cycle?  Do we seek modification or repeal of term limits?  Do we want a unicameral legislature?  Do we want to redesign the revenue system in California

It looks like the Governor and the Legislature have resolved the issue over prison reform in the budget by setting that piece aside as a separate issue to be decided later.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger defused an issue today that threatened to blow up a fragile compromise over the plan to erase the state’s $26.3-billion budget deficit.

Instead, Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, said both houses would vote on the plan Thursday night – but without an element that would prescribe details of a $1.2 billion cut in spending on prisons. A vote on that part of the plan will be delayed until next month, the leaders said.

“Everything’s on track,” said Steinberg, after he and Bass met privately with Schwarzenegger in his office. The governor popped out after the Democratic leaders left to dismiss the issue as just one of “some hiccups, and some obstacles and bumps in the road … there will be some difficult moments, but the bottom line is we are going to get this budget done.”

I see, so a plank of the budget that involves policy changes will be put off until another time.

Gee, that doesn’t seem to be the accommodation made for privatizing the welfare enrollment process.  Or enacting measures like background checks and fingerprinting for IHSS clients and recipients.  Or drilling at Tranquillon Ridge.  Or selling the State Compensation Insurance Fund.  Or the lobbyist-fueled deal to extend redevelopment projects and borrow against the funds.  All of those are huge policy changes, some of them unrelated to the current budget, that reflect mainly conservative perspectives.  They must be passed now, now, now, but because Republicans threw a fit and distorted the intent, a pretty modest (though necessary) prison reform part of the package, with savings of $1.2 billion dollars, gets delayed.

These dead of night budget deals and the disproportionate urgency placed on them are fruits of a poisoned, horrible broken process for determining budgets in this state.  It’s why everyone with a brain considers this not only a bad deal but one we’ll have to revisit in a few months anyway.

And this is what we’re talking about when we talk about the shame of the Democrats for giving in on virtually every part of this negotiation, without exception, and for failing to show the leadership for thirty years necessary to stand up to a broken process and actually do something about it.

In most public schools expect larger classes, fewer counselors and librarians, and a slimmer menu of arts classes and athletic programs — and maybe a tighter array of courses generally. More subtly, the quality of all services, from graduate programs at Berkeley to the condition – and maybe the safety – of the neighborhood park will decline. Will any of those things – and there are countless more – bring the realization that you can’t have a great state, or maybe even a decent one, on the cheap?

What’s badly wanted here is political leadership with courageous enough to talk about that link and not celebrate surrender to the anti-tax fanatics of the right. In this current budget deal, the Democrats got a few face-savers on education funding and welfare reductions, but in the end, despite all the nervous smiles, they lost.

The New York Times today writes that a “pinch of reality” has threatened the California dream.  Yet the political leadership still live in dreamworld, seemingly satisfied with the broken structure of government, confined to a short-term strategy and a political process that works for them as individuals but for none of their constituents, and just unable to operate against a minority the public hates but which runs circles around them.  We have deferred that California dream for so long that it may be unable to get it back.  But without a functioning democracy, and with a majority leadership that has practically abdicated responsibility in the face of a conservative veto, you can be sure of that proposition.

If you get a chance, take a listen to Warren Olney’s Which Way, LA? tonight.  You can find it right here.

The California portion starts about halfway in, at around 28:40.

So Warren Olney describes the craptacular deal, and then has two lawmakers on to talk about it.  First up is Bonnie Lowenthal, who is positively ebullient about the prospect of selling out local governments and breaking the very fabric of the social safety net.  Asked if she’ll vote for the budget, she goes “I certainly am!”  Olney, incredulously, lists the scope of the cuts, but she replies, “We have a deal, the stalemate is done, the IOUs will be over!”  Later in the show, she enlightens us that it’s better to have something than nothing, and that we saved the “framework” – not the funding, just the framework – of most programs.

Then Chuck DeVore comes on.  Now DeVore is running for US Senate, and needs to be as crazy as he wants to be.  So Olney asks him if he’s voting for the budget.  And he says he hasn’t read it, but it didn’t go far enough with the “reforms” and cuts to programs.  (He also uses the spanking new right-wing canard that California has 12% of the population and 32% of the welfare recipients, which is only true if you count all kinds of services that other states don’t consider welfare as welfare) Then Olney says that there were no new taxes in the deal, and DeVore hails that, and eventually says “this is the best compromise we could possibly get.”  And Olney says, “So then you’ll vote for it.”  And DeVore says “No.”

I guess DeVore didn’t get handed his talking points that he’s supposed to throw a hissy fit about a fake report in the LA Times regarding early release, almost certainly planted by Sam Blakeslee to give cover to Yacht Partiers who want to vote against the budget.

I don’t think you could encapsulate the strategy and approach of the two parties better in a work of fiction.  Lowenthal is just pleased as punch for everything to be over, DeVore knows he can get more and doesn’t want any part of his own handiwork so Democrats can be blamed for the consequences.  One side looks only to put out immediate fires and the other has a long game strategy playing out over decades.

It is not pleasing to be a Democrat at this juncture.

(We should all be asking these questions of our lawmakers. – promoted by David Dayen)

This is a relatively short action diary to gather information on the budget vote currently expected for Thursday.  I agree with David Dayan’s diary earlier today: this budget should not pass.  And if we can’t stop it, at least our representatives should understand that this is not a free vote;  if they vote to pass, there will be consequences not only to the state, but to their careers.

The idea here is one progressives have been using with great impact since the federal Social Security fight in 2005:  using the web as a grassroot’s whipping operation.

A few details below.  

This diary can be used to trade talking points that worked/did not work with the offices of various assembly members or senators, and any information about whether the member agreed to take a stand.

To your Senator or Assembly Representative, you should ask:

1. Will the member agree to vote against the budget, yes or no.
2. If the member is undecided, when the member intends to make up his/her mind.

Be firm, but be polite.

If anyone has specific advice for talking points, please add them to the comments.  I’ll try to work them into the main part of the diary.

What I’m hearing from grassroots progressives in this state is basically unadulterated anger at the craptacular budget deal passed.  If they’re not out in the streets they’re calling representatives and finding every opportunity to make themselves known.  Karen Bass posted a statement on her Facebook page about the budget deal and it has been hammered by critics.  Some negative comments have been deleted.  I’m getting practically an email a minute from some progressive group or another talking about stopping this budget.

I think what we have here is, to analogize, a union shop steward bargaining without the support of its rank and file.  Whether that will matter to the legislators who vote on this on Thursday is unclear.  But if you took the pulse of the activist community, they would argue for one of three things:

(1) send the leadership back to the negotiating table with the mandate that this deal isn’t good enough.

(2) send new leadership back to enforce that message, fire Steinberg and Bass

(3) only agree to a deal if Republicans ensure every one of their members will vote for it, so they can own the policy

I don’t want to really speculate on what will happen.  But I can pretty confidently say that the movement which has become engaged over this budget fight will not be likely to shut up if the Democratic rank-and-file goes along willingly with the leadership and votes this budget into law.  They will want to fight and it will probably be those same rank-and-file lawmakers that bear the brunt of it, perhaps even with primary challenges.

As I’ve said repeatedly, the current structure of government in the state is designed to produce bad outcomes.  We can get mad about it, we can mourn the real suffering this will extend throughout the poor and middle class, or we can organize.  And the desired end state, IMO, is not just to get a marginally better near-term budget, with maybe an extra billion for an oil severance tax here, or a reduction of borrowing to local governments there, but to get a far better structure inside of which to run government responsibly.  I don’t think that can possibly end with a fight on this budget, though it may begin with it.  Because at some point, progressives do need to reject being taken for granted.

Anyway, thought I’d open it for discussion.

…here’s Dave Johnson arguing for option #3, which I think is among the best practices.  We have this assumption that any deal must be voted on by all Democrats, with just enough Republicans for passage slinking along.  That’s not etched in stone.

In addition, let me remind everyone that this budget does NOT require a 2/3 vote.  The budget has already been passed; revising it requires only a majority.  However, that means it would take effect after 90 days, and only a 2/3 vote will allow it to take effect immediately.  Obviously, delaying by 90 days reduces the savings of the deal.  But we’re probably coming back to this soon enough anyway.  And without all Republicans in support, I think you have to allow some Democrats to vote their conscience.  

(In addition, budgets are voted on in various multi-bill packages, so any one vote could go down as well.  That could be a consideration.)

After witnessing enough of these budget negotiations, I’ve finally found the formula, under this broken system, to get the best of any deal.

Whoever cares the least about the outcome wins.

If you don’t care whether children get health care, whether the elderly, blind and disabled die in their homes, whether prisoners rot in modified Public Storage units, whether students get educated… you have a very good chance of getting a budget that reflects that.

If on the other hand you claim to care, you will concede and concede and concede so you can at least play the responsible part and say at the end that you didn’t completely eliminate the social safety net, though what you did get in return will be totally unclear.

And you will do it every single time.

How anyone in public service who claims to care lives with themselves under this current system, then, when your proportion of caring is inversely related to the proportion of care your constituents will receive, is baffling to me.  You’d think at some point over the last 31 years, someone would cry “Stop!”

UPDATE by Brian: I just wanted to add a simple link to meetnori.com, the site that produced that video. To say it is powerful is an understatement, but when you get the full background of Nori’s story, you’ll feel depressed all over again. Sorry…

Today’s LA Times story about a handful of prisoners released with 60 days or less remaining on their sentences probably raises hackles on the backs of the necks of the Tough on Crime crowd, but it really shows how fundamentally broken the state’s prison system remains.  Because look what the charges were on all of the prisoners released.

Reporting from Sacramento — California prison officials, facing severe overcrowding and a financial crisis, have been granting early releases to inmates serving time for parole violations.

State officials said the dozens of prisoners set free from the California Institution for Men in Chino and from lockups in San Diego and Shasta counties had 60 days or less left on their terms, or had been accused of violations and were awaiting hearings. The releases were approved by the state parole board.

At least 89 inmates have been freed or approved for early release during the last two months. Others have been sent to home detention, drug rehabilitation programs or similar alternative punishments.

It’s not an anomaly to see just 89 inmates charged with parole violations.  In fact, more than two-thirds of all prisoners admitted to state prisons in 2007 commit the crime of violating parole guidelines.  This is at least twice as many as virtually any other state.

On average, the nation’s state and federal prisons took in almost two new offenders for every parole violator, but in California, the reverse is true. In 2007, California prisons took in 139,608 inmates and 92,628 of them were parole violators, almost a 2-1 ratio. In only one other state, Washington, did parole violators outnumber those being jailed by the courts, and that was only by 126 inmates.

If Arnie Antionette were truly talking about reform instead of policies that destroy the social safety net, he’d talk about completely overhauling a parole system that is clearly too constrictive, that fails Californians and makes us all less safe.  When you warehouse 170,000 inmates in jails that only fit 100,000, you turn them into institutes of higher learning for violent crime instead of rehabilitation centers.  In addition to the cost of overtime for parole officers and prison guards, the costs to the criminal justice system naturally increase with the revolving door for inmates, not to mention the societal and human costs.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a reform agenda in this state, just a bunch of lawmakers trying to get across the line to the next budget, to the next election.  If there was such a thing as innovation and leadership we would have revamped this failed parole policy long ago.

So the Senate Republicans voted en masse against $11 billion in cuts as part of the budget proposal put forward by the Democrats today.  Lou Correa and Leland Yee voted no as well, and the final vote was 22-16.  Technically, I believe the bill could go to the Assembly, and after passage to the Governor, but Arnold has vowed a veto, so that’s probably out.  Meanwhile, California will start to use the reserve fund to pay bills for the next week or so, and failing a solution after that, will resort to IOUs, which basically was the deal back in February as well.  Yes, the Democratic proposal has its share of gimmickry, but no more than the Governor’s own plan, and considering the Yacht Party refuses to write a plan, ALL OF THEIRS is gimmickry, as is their entire ideology.  But the Yacht Party smells blood in the water, the Democrats have pulled their tax proposals off the table, and the future is incredibly uncertain.  

I cannot disagree with Greg Lucas’ analysis.

Examining the Senate’s budgetary actions of June 24 from a political rather than a policy perspective, the majority party Democrats may not have achieved their objectives […]

Judging from the remarks of Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, the intent of the exercise was to illustrate that Democrats are unwilling to cut as deeply into social programs as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and to portray Republican lawmakers as obstructionist or hypocritical or both for not backing the cuts embraced by Democrats.

“Democrats are asking Republicans to vote for billions of dollars in cuts and apparently your answer today is ‘no,’ Steinberg said. “Why won’t you cut? Why won’t you cut?” […]

In a purely political sense, the “bad” vote is the one cast by Democrats, ostensibly champions of public education, who – if the February budget they backed is included – have chosen to reduce state support of schools by more than $12 billion over a two-year period.

Republicans can portray their “no” vote as a refusal to cut nearly $5 billion more from public schools.

Perhaps a more effective illustration of support for what Democrats call the safety net would be to bring several of the GOP governor’s more draconian proposals to a vote.

It seems unlikely Schwarzenegger’s call to eliminate California’s welfare program would garner the votes necessary for passage. Nor would the governor’s proposal to end state grants to lower-income high school students to help them attend college.

After rejecting those and possibly other gubernatorial proposals then a vote on the more modest – more humane – measure with $11 billion in cuts might more satisfactorily frame the issue.

I would argue that making these “symbolic” votes doesn’t do a ton of good unless you’re willing to use them in the context of the 2010 campaign (and I don’t remember votes coming into play in key districts in 2008) or in a coordinated and widespread media campaign immediately.  To the latter point, we don’t have any such media in California.  It’s a good argument in search of a broadcaster, and that goes for Lucas’ alternative solution.

The real problem is that Democrats don’t appear to have an endgame strategy, and haven’t for years.  The words “two-thirds majority” hasn’t exited anyone’s lips in quite a while.  This is a process problem, and only a process solution will suffice, and teachable moments like these have been wasted for 30 years.  

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.