I’ve been hearing the California crisis, and the Governor’s response, referred to as a kind of shock doctrine, used to transform the state’s social safety net and radically alter the lives of the poor and downtrodden.  And that’s entirely true.  But not necessarily through the budget cuts, which have met fierce opposition from Democrats and the nascent activist progressive movement.  No, the real shock doctrine is happening behind the curtain, with a proposal engineered with bipartisan support, that will really permanently turn the state into an experiment in Chicago Boys free-market fundamentalism, not unlike the conservative “paradises” created in developing nations, all of which are crashing, by the way.

Last year, the Governor and legislative leaders put together the Parsky Commission, a classic blue-ribbon panel led by Gerald Parsky, a right-wing investment fund manager and professional hack who has consistently been put to use by Republicans in Sacramento and Washington to carry out their radical plans.  He was George Bush’s California campaign chair in 2000 and 2004.  The idea behind this one started from a decent premise – California has a taxation problem, and needs a study group to look into how to reform it so that it’s better equipped to handle boom-and-bust economic cycles.  Supposedly, all ideas – including Prop. 13 – would be “on the table” from this commission, which would seek a more stable solution.

Of course, the fix was in from the start.  Because this panel respected the 2/3 requirement for raising taxes, it sought revenue-neutral solutions, tinkering and shifting the tax burdens rather than reforming them.  So predictably, the end result is a proposal that broadens the tax base while shifting the burden downward onto the lower and middle classes while relieving the wealthy.  The Governor’s Chief of Staff tipped her hand about this previously when she said that the problem with California’s tax structure is that it’s too progressive.

Some of the Commission’s proposals, like broadening the sales tax to include services in addition to goods while lowering the rate overall, make a bit of sense.  But the rest of it is pure right-wing fantasy:

At the 14-member commission’s penultimate meeting in Los Angeles June 16, its members appeared to narrow its potential recommendations, due July 31, to two proposals.

Both would lower the top income tax levels and, in one case, eliminate the state’s corporate tax and the portion of the sales tax pocketed by the state.

Under one proposal, what the commission refers to as Tax Package 1B, all Californians would pay a 6 percent income tax rate. The state’s wealthiest residents currently pay 9.3 percent with lower percentages as earnings fall.

The effect of the proposal would be to increase the taxes on Californians earning less than $100,000 to broaden the tax base.

The state’s 8.8 percent corporations tax would be eliminated, as would the 5 percent of the sales tax the state retains […]

A new “business net receipts” tax makes up for much of the lost revenue from the sales and corporation tax eliminations.

“Business net receipts” taxes are essentially a value-added tax.  And one estimate predicts that it would take in $28 billion dollars annually.  But everything must be revenue neutral, so in a time of crisis, the Parsky Commission would go to a FLAT TAX and eliminate the corporate tax rate, as well as possibly cutting the capital gains tax.  It’s impossible to see this as anything but a giant wealth transfer from the rich to the poor.  Simply impossible.

Useful idiots like the folks at Calbuzz prefer not to actually take sides on an issue when just splitting the difference between left and right automatically provides the best practice every time.  Their somewhat illuminating article about all of this betrays a bias toward that wise “sensible centrism” that ends up orienting toward crazed right-wing solutions every time.

The political play is to produce a tax reform bill so clean it can be introduced in both houses with assurances no one will be allowed to bog it down with amendments.  Democrats will be able to avoid drastic program cuts and Republicans can claim they’ve cut taxes.  The bill breezes through both houses on an up-or-down vote and bada bing it gets signed by Arnold and everybody goes to dinner.  No muss, no fuss, no partisan fingerprints […]

Getting a consensus recommendation from the commission, which includes conservatives like former Reagan economic adviser Michael Boskin and liberals like Santa Cruz County Treasurer Fred Keeley is by no means guaranteed. Even if commissioners do agree, their proposal will be fly-specked by lefty groups who will dislike elements that are not progressive, and industry groups, who will push for business-friendly changes.

As a political matter, forcing an up-or-down vote on a package in the Legislature would address what-about-me objections from all quarters, in the same way as the prohibition on amendments to congressional legislation produced by the military base closure commission in the 1990s finally solved that intractable problem. (Or like a Pete Wilson-Willie Brown deal from days of yore in Sacramento.)

After all, the impending bankruptcy of state government should be sufficient to show players at every point of the political spectrum not only that sweeping change is needed, but also that everyone will have to compromise to keep California from sinking into the 9th Circle of Hell.

This is “the midpoint between two points always works best” pop politics masquerading as serious thought, and what else would you expect from a duo who can spin a whole article out of a picture of two politicians smiling.  Somehow, “lefty groups” arguing against the literally insane idea of a flat tax has the same moral and intellectual equivalency of business groups trying to wiggle out of a way to pay their taxes.  A flat tax would very clearly shift the burden of taxation to the middle class, and practically every taxpayer would actually see their tax burden increase except the few at the top.  But because we’re in crisis, and everyone will have to “sacrifice,” surely we should ram through a right-wing fantasy, turning California into Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, all of whom have flat tax systems.  How’s that working out for them?

Over the last decade, Eastern European countries became darlings of the far right by instituting free-market economic policies designed to break convincingly from their Communist past. The so-called Baltic Tigers-Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia-garnered worldwide plaudits for a number of free-market reforms, led by the imposition of a flat-rate income tax, especially from the American right. “The flat tax is making a comeback,” trumpeted the conservative National Review. The three nations are “leading a global tax reform revolution,” said the right-leaning Heritage Foundation […]

Too bad for them that it hasn’t worked out. Latvia, which has a flat tax of 25 percent, and Lithuania and Estonia, which have 21 percent tax rates, are all in deep economic trouble. They all have huge government budget deficits, a sign that they took in too little in tax revenue to cover their costs, primarily state expenditures to provide a generous welfare state. Conservatives might argue that they didn’t slash welfare benefits enough, but there is no dispute that the flat tax didn’t provide the expected revenue.

This is the future that would be put into place – with a no-amendment, up-or-down vote – under the Parsky Commission.  Somehow, the elected legislature of the people cannot be trusted with tax law, but an unelected, unaccountable blue-ribbon commission should be empowered to create this radical change in law with no public input.  That’s the wise and sensible solution.  Because we can’t have all this messy “democracy” mucking up the need to protect the rich and transfer wealth downward more radically than any proposal ever seen in America.  California Budget Bites has more.

It’s important to note that this all stems from the revenue-neutral demand embedded in the proposal.  Otherwise, it could never pass because it would need a 2/3 vote.  So somehow, a flat tax, elimination of corporate income taxes and slashing of capital gains taxes get thrown into the mix, something that nobody outside the fringe far right would ever endorse.  The 2/3 rule, AGAIN, prevents a real solution.

If you wonder why I oppose a so-called “bailout” for California, it’s because in addition to everything else, that attacks the wrong problem.  We need a major restoration of democracy in the state, and instead we get “solutions” that don’t reflect the desire of the citizenry.  That’s why only a local grassroots movement to finally remove the structural barriers, not a one-time cash infusion, will work.

Democratic legislative leaders are in Washington today arguing for increased stimulus money for California.  I’ve been arguing that this is required for some time, and hopefully it will be done in such a way that a) it can be applied to the General Fund deficit (so far Arnold has not asked for budget relief in that way) and b) it can be used without up-front money that will be matched, because the cash crisis limits our ability to do that.

However, there is something else that the Obama Administration can do right away to help the bottom line of the state and its citizens, and that is deal with the crisis in the housing market here.  It’s no secret that California is one of the hardest-hit states by foreclosures; in Stanislaus County, for example, 9 percent of all houses and condos in the county have been foreclosed upon, a staggering figure.  That’s almost $4 billion dollars worth of foreclosures in Stanislaus alone.  In larger counties like San Bernardino and Riverside, you can see how this foreclosure crisis affects new housing starts (there are a glut of cheaper foreclosed homes on the market) and thusly unemployment figures.

Only four years ago, Riverside and nearby San Bernardino, often called the Inland Empire, were California’s economic powerhouse, accounting for more than a fifth of the state’s new jobs. Today, unemployment reigns in the sprawling region east of Los Angeles. The 9.5 percent jobless rate in the two counties matches Detroit’s as the highest of any major metropolitan area in the U.S.

Although there was a surge in construction employment in the U.S., and about a 50% increase in California (as a percent of total employment), construction employment doubled (as a percent of total employment) in the Inland Empire […]

With the housing bust, the percent construction employment has declined sharply and the unemployment rate has risen to almost 10%. Is it any surprise that jobless rate in the Inland Empire matches Detroit’s as the highest of any major metropolitan area in the U.S.?

Nobody is calling on the federal government to prop up a sick housing market that will not see a broad recovery for a while.  But foreclosures have a disruptive effect on the greater economy.  They hurt property values, they hurt banks, and they hurt employment.  The crisis is only slated to grow if nothing is done, with homeowners of every income class affected.  And so foreclosure aid would be a major boost to California, and it can be done both quickly and effectively.  By pledging that $100 billion from the TARP program will go to limit foreclosures, Obama has already begun this effort.  Ted Lieu thinks that the Obama Administration understands the nature of the problem. (over)

Time is of the essence. I commend the incoming Obama Administration for pledging up to $100 billion from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to help distressed homeowners stay in their homes. In California, which has the highest number of foreclosures in the nation, we experience one foreclosure filing every 30 seconds to 1 minute. The TARP funds, which the U.S. Senate recently released, should be immediately put to use to rescue homeowners from foreclosure. Our economic recovery will not begin until we slow down the astronomical rate of foreclosures and stabilize the housing market.

Strategic direction is of the essence. The haphazard strategy of the Bush Administration’s use of the initial $350 billion in TARP funds resulted in the following: more foreclosures, less market confidence, and zero benefits for the ordinary citizen. How does giving yet another $20 billion to Bank of America so it can complete its purchase of Merrill Lynch’s brokerage arm help anyone on Main Street? Answer: it doesn’t. The only people this TARP money under the Bush Administration has been helping have been Wall Street firms. It is time for change and January 20th cannot come soon enough.

State efforts are of the essence. Helping our economy recover will require the combined efforts of both state and federal resources. In California, I introduced the California Foreclosure Prevention Act to provide immediate foreclosure relief. This Act imposes a foreclosure moratorium, but allows lenders to avoid the moratorium if they have a comprehensive loan modification program designed to keep people in their homes. Swift passage of this Act will complement and enhance proposed federal efforts. We need action and we need it now.”

However, more needs to be done.  Earlier this month, Democratic Senators got Citigroup on board for what is known as “cramdown” legislation, which would allow bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages that would give homeowners the ability to pay them.  The lenders take a haircut but it’s a better situation for them than foreclosure, and those who get to keep their homes can continue to contribute to the economy.  It’s a great idea and a major step toward reforming the hideous 2005 bankruptcy bill.  Yet despite supporting it, Obama’s team doesn’t want to include this reform in the economic recovery package, which I think is a mistake.

President-elect Obama and his advisers are resisting attempts to include a provision in the economic stimulus bill backed by congressional Democrats that would allow bankruptcy judges to shrink mortgages.

In a hastily convened Democratic Caucus meeting last week, Obama economics adviser Jason Furman made it clear to lawmakers that Obama thinks the so-called “cramdown” provision would cost GOP votes and endanger bipartisan support in the Senate.

He committed to dealing with the issue after the bill passes, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Lead supporters of the cramdown provision say the time to deal with the issue is now. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said it’s worth losing some Republican support to help homeowners.

“I would take that risk,” Nadler said. “I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of Republican votes anyway.”

This is absolutely correct by Nadler, and risking a few votes on the margins is no reason not to limit foreclosures now.  There is an urgency here, because each foreclosure hurts the housing market more and makes it less liable to recover quickly.  We cannot wait a few months for the sake of political expediency.  Cramdown needs to happen fast, particularly for us in California.

Bipartisan death cultists love to tell us that the real problem in California is that gerrymandered seats lead to extremists of both sides in safe elections, and that no opposition can win in such a rigged game.  Thanks to the Swing State Project and some dedicated individuals who have done the work, we can now pronounce that myth dead.  Completely dead.

Volunteers processed county-level information to come up with the Obama/McCain split in virtually all California Congressional districts.  Fresno, Madera, San Joaquin, Santa Clara and Ventura counties have yet to release the county-level data, so we’re missing a few districts, but hopefully that information is forthcoming.  What we can already view, the data for 43 of the 53 districts, is stunning.

Obama won 34 of those 43 districts, including 7 held by Republicans.  He just missed in CA-46 (McCain was under 50% and the spread was less than 5,000 votes).  Also, seven of the 10 currently unknown districts are held by Democrats, and I’ll bet CA-24 goes blue as well, or at least close to it.  I think we can say that Barack Obama won or was extremely competitive in 43 of the 53 Congressional districts in the state.  Here are the 7 GOP-held districts where Obama won:

CA-03 (Lungren): Obama +1,600 votes

CA-25 (McKeon): Obama +3,000 votes

CA-26 (Dreier): Obama +12,000 votes

CA-44 (Calvert): Obama +2,500 votes

CA-45 (Bono Mack): Obama +13,000 votes

CA-48 (Campbell): Obama +2,500 votes

CA-50 (Bilbray): Obama +14,000 votes

The data I’ve wanted is the downticket ballot dropoff stats, and now we have them.  I’ll list it for these seven key districts, plus CA-46 (Rohrabacher), which Obama nearly won.  These are rough estimates of the total number of votes in the Presidential contest and the Congressional contest for each district:

CA-03 Presidential 336K votes; Congressional 314K votes

CA-25 Pres. 271K, Cong. 250K

CA-26 Pres. 292K, Cong. 267K

CA-44 Pres. 269K, Cong. 253K

CA-45 Pres. 276K, Cong, 266K

CA-46 Pres. 303K, Cong. 285K

CA-48 Pres. 330K, Cong. 308K

CA-50 Pres. 329K, Cong. 313K

Though it may have made a small difference at the margins, the ballot dropoff is relatively small, actually, and to be expected to a certain extent.  Some people are just going to come out for the Presidential election, on both sides.

But what is indisputable from these numbers is that Democrats can win in California in virtually every district, even when they are “hopelessly” gerrymandered.  The shifts from 2004 to 2008 are quite incredible and represent a realignment.  In ’04 Kerry lost CA-03 58-41.  Obama won.  Kerry lost CA-25 59-40.  Obama won.  Kerry lost CA-26 55-44.  Obama won 51-47.  Etc.  You can check the numbers for yourself.

There’s only one Congressional candidate who outperformed the top of the ticket and that’s Charlie Brown.  Obama lost CA-04 54-44.  Therefore it’s untrue that, even in unfriendly areas, there is no Democrat that can make a race competitive.  The right Democrat can win in any seat in California.  And I think the numbers would bear this out in the Assembly and Senate as well.

The “hopelessly gerrymandered” line is an excuse.  An excuse used by elites who are pretty happy with the status quo and don’t want the crazy libs having a working majority in the legislature.  An excuse used by those in Washington who don’t want to spend money on expensive California races.  It’s a pernicious excuse because it restricts progress and leads us to the brink of crisis.  But it’s an excuse, nonetheless.

It’s very rare to hear the problems of the state’s budget and cash crises discussed correctly, particularly in the wider media.  The journalistic fetish of “balance” and making sure the only valid opinion is perfectly situated in the middle of any argument means that the go-to “experts” for the traditional media are always these Solomon-like High Broderists with advice like “the legislature should just get together for drinks more often.”  Thus the breadth of opinion on a show like Warren Olney’s ranges from California Forward to a beat reporter.  And the problems of the state are always ascribed to “the legislature.”  Not the fact that we have a majority vote for elections but a 2/3 vote for any tax and budget issue, making it literally impossible for the elected representatives of the state to do the job entrusted them by the voters.  No, that would be too simple.  It must have to do with Democrats and Republicans not drinking together enough.

Two more examples of this today.  First, the California Alliance for Jobs, which actually helped lead the fight for Prop. 1A’s high-speed rail bonds, has a couple radio spots out today with “funnyman” Will Durst blaming “the legislature” for stopping all those infrastructure projects and hurting the state.  The MP3 is here.  Amazingly, Durst spoke for 60 whole seconds and didn’t make a Monica Lewinsky joke.  But he also failed to make clear in any way that any particular political party is responsible for budget gridlock.  Durst says that we need a responsible budget with cuts and revenues, without mentioning that the Democrats have PROPOSED AND PASSED that.

Then wet noodle Gray Davis offers his wisdom on the crisis:

“It’s deja vu,” Davis told a cluster of reporters after listening to Schwarzenegger’s somber address. “California has experienced feast-or-famine budgeting as long as I can recall, and (it) will go on for all eternity until the people pass a genuine rainy day fund.”

Yes, THAT’S the problem.  Not having revenues too closely aligned to the boom-and-bust cycle.  Not ratcheting down property taxes so corporations pay less for their space than an average suburban couple in Nebraska.  Not Yacht Party obstructionism.  It’s all about that rainy day fund (which, by the way, was PASSED but which the Governor has continually raided).

The sad thing is that Davis knows he’s lying, but he’s either unable to or incapable of admitting it.  And so the bipartisan fetishists say “can’t we all get along” without recognizing that their rhetoric, which doesn’t assign blame or give any citizen a roadmap to what the problem really is, sends the state careening into disaster.  I have nothing but contempt for these people, even more than the Yacht Party in many ways, because they so blithely abuse their own power.

The blogosphere has been talking a lot today, due to the release of Scott McClellan’s book, about the media whitewashes and their failures to properly inform the country in the run-up to war, due to corporate dictates or budget constraints or sheer laziness.  That has a residual effect everywhere.  The same problems we see with the media at the national level are magnified at the local level, where money is even tighter and cluelessness abounds.  I had to do a double-take when I read the LA Times’ paean “GOP maverick” Sen. Abel Maldonado, supposedly in the context of his re-election “campaign” for State Senate.

SANTA MARIA– — Sen. Abel Maldonado crouched to desk level and, with a mischievous smile, enlisted the help of sixth-grader Michelle Grahame to sweat the governor over the state’s looming budget cuts.

The 12-year-old was immersed in her computer animation project, an Earth-like blue sphere hovering behind a curiously grown-up message: “Please don’t cut Education.”

Maldonado, on a tour of Ralph Dunlap Elementary, persuaded her to tweak it to read: “Please don’t cut Education Arnold.” He left with a printout he promised to deliver to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is hashing over ways to close the state’s estimated $2-billion budget gap.

“We’re in some challenging times, but I’ve made a commitment not to cut education,” Maldonado, a Republican, told school officials and PTA members after the tour. “We’re going to have to get creative.”

It was a gentle jab at Schwarzenegger, but Maldonado has crossed the governor and his party leadership before, earning the scorn of conservatives and Republican loyalists. One party official writing on a conservative blog declared that the senator, one of the few Latino Republicans in Sacramento, “is not one of us.”

Those same maverick traits, however, have intrigued party moderates who are struggling to make the GOP more appealing to the fastest-growing segments of the California electorate: Latinos and independents.

I’m flummoxed at why you would publish this glowing profile, which reads like it came right out of Maldonado’s press office, without revealing some information that people might find helpful.  To wit:

• There is a fleeting reference to a “write-in campaign organized by Democrats,” but absolutely no mention of Dennis Morris and his quest to offer the voters in the district an actual choice to the as-of-now unopposed Senator.  Mark Buchman of the SLO County Dems is quoted blaming Don Perata for the lack of an opponent to begin with, but even though Buchman is Morris’ acting campaign chair, the story never allows him the opportunity to mention the write-in hopeful.

• There is NO MENTION AT ALL of the fact that Maldonado has crossfiled to run as a write-in candidate on the Democratic ballot in an effort to short-circuit that campaign organized by those scheming Democrats, no mention of the effort to run on both sides of the ballot.

• There is no mention of Maldonado’s actual record on anything but the 2007 budget, like his vote against the Global Warming Solutions Act, for example.

• There is a mention of Maldonado’s signing on to a plan even more far-reaching than the Governor’s, to SELL the California Lottery, a shortsighted and ridiculously stupid idea that amounts to borrowing against the future yet again, but there is no independent analysis of that proposal; it’s just stuck in there as the midpoint between two supposed extremes and therefore teh awesome.

This is just an abandonment of actual reporting in exchange for a gauzy personal profile.  And considering there’s an election coming up in less than a week, it’s an abdication of responsibility.

Now, the LA Times doesn’t have much of a presence in the 15th Senate District, they don’t have many full-time reporters covering California politics, so they stumble into these half-hearted attempts to inform before election time, and this is what they come up with – a hagiography of a guy who’s running as a Democrat and a Republican to shut down any efforts to challenge him.

This is the media we have in 2008.

Seeking to increase the statewide per capita vomit output, this $16 million dollar boondoggle called California Forward continued its weeklong rollout with yet another fawning article, this time from Shane Goldmacher.

Could late and unbalanced budgets, along with partisan gridlock, disappear from Sacramento?

That’s the goal of a new bipartisan political foundation that unveiled its campaign Wednesday to improve state government, bringing along a three-year, $15.9 million budget and high hopes for overhauling the way the state does business.

If there’s one thing we’ve seen over the years, it’s that bipartisan unelected commissions really do change everything.  After all, the Iraq Study Group got us out of the war, right?

“California cannot be a leader in the 21st century if its government is not functioning effectively and efficiently for the people of this state,” said the group’s co-chairman, Leon Panetta, a Democrat who has served in Congress and as chief of staff to President Clinton.

Thomas McKernan, a wealthy Republican activist in Orange County and CEO of the Automobile Club of Southern California, is the other co-chairman.

The foundation’s leaders promised it will differ from past reform coalitions. As board member and former state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, a Fresno Republican, put it, California Forward has “the resources to get the job done.”

You don’t need ten cents to know what has to be done in California.  You need to let elected officials govern.  I believe in checks and balances, but here we have barriers and deadbolts.  And guess what, the entire state understands this already.  Well over 2/3 of the state believe major changes need to be employed in the budget process, like eliminating the stupid requirement allowing 1/3 of the legislature to block tax and budget proposals.  Everyone gets that budget reform needs to reflect democracy.

But closing loopholes, while helpful, doesn’t come close to real budget reform and restoration of the representative democracy and accountability that have been eroded for decades by an initiative process that encourages both ad-hoc automatic spending formulas and paralyzing revenue limits.

The governor properly points out that the common cycles of feast and famine – both in California and elsewhere – make little sense. But the fix is not more formulas. It’s a return to a system of representative government that forces voters to make choices between good services and low taxes, and makes all politicians accountable instead of rewarding them, as the process does now, for fudging, borrowing and irresponsibility.

I don’t think Peter Schrag was given $16 million dollars to come up with that.

Of course, it wouldn’t be right to just advocate for democracy in Sacramento, because that would be too terribly “Democratic.”  It’d ruin the street cred of these sensible wise men, these moderate militants, who think that the best solution necessarily includes a little bit from the left and a little bit from the right, claiming that the real solution is just to tell lawmakers that “governing is more important than winning,” because holding hands in a circle is the $16 million dollar answer.  We actually need partisanship and a politics of contrast so voters can make real choices.  This call for bipartisan solutions only goes out when progressive ideas are flourishing.  Sacramento wasn’t “broken” when the energy market was deregulated.  It wasn’t “broken” when Prop. 13 made it impossible for the state to gather expected revenue.  It’s only “broken” when a tiny group of Yacht Party Republicans are straining to hold back the tide of legitimate government with a proper revenue structure.

And by the way, guy from California Forward who emailed me within 10 minutes of the last time I wrote about this: don’t bother.  I’ve little interest of being assimilated into the Borg.

So apparently a bunch of foundations are paying Leon Panetta $16 million dollars to come up with new solutions to the political morass in Sacramento.

“The principal dysfunction of Sacramento,” Panetta says, “is similar to what’s happening in Washington: the inability of the elected leadership to come together and arrive at necessary compromises for solutions to the problems we face.”

And how do the politicians get prodded into doing that? “Those who are elected have to be convinced that governing is more important than winning. They have to believe that good government is good politics. If they don’t, they’ll keep on fighting in trench warfare.”

I enjoy pixies and unicorns as well, but “magic bipartisanship” isn’t the $16 million dollar answer here.  It’s actually quite a lot more simple.

• Eliminate the requirements that stalemate government and restrict the elected majority from doing the business of the state, in particular the 2/3 requirement for budgeting and taxes.

• Watch the productivity.

Most Californians are not in the mythical center; this is a fiction used to explain irresponsible government.  If the state legislature would be allowed to do their job, suddenly this desperate desire for bipartisanship would melt away, and the party in power would rise or fall on the consequences of their actions.  As it stands they’re not allowed to have any consequences, and we all suffer.

Panetta and his compatriots offer the same warmed-over stew of redistricting reform (please, do redistrict Santa Monica and downtown LA and San Francisco and Marin County and make them competitive.  Have fun with that) and open primaries (yes, because Louisiana is a bipartisan love-fest).  Now, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some ideas that would at least have an impact.

Says Panetta: “We’re not interested in walking off a cliff — or simply issuing reports and letting them sit someplace. Our goal is to focus on reforms that we can, in fact, put in place.”

But he adds that everything will be considered: Tax restructuring, including Proposition 13. School financing, including Proposition 98 guarantees. The two-thirds vote requirement for budget passage. (Why not at least return to how it was before 1962 when a budget that didn’t increase spending by more than 5% could be passed on a majority vote?) Spending limits. (California had one before voters eviscerated it about 20 years ago.) Initiative reforms that would control ballot box budgeting.

Some of these are great, some not so much.  But it’s so clear that California legislators aren’t allowed to do their jobs, and as long as that remains the case, nothing else will get done.  And wrapping it up in this language of “bipartisanship” is almost criminally stupid.  When you can’t get yacht sales tax avoidance stricken by the minority party, when looking at tax breaks is treated like some kind of heresy, when “Budget Nun” Elizabeth Hill finally gives up because her policy prescriptions sit on a shelf, your problem isn’t going to be cured by sitting in a circle and gazing longingly at one another.  It’s going to be solved by having a government that reflects the popular will.

You can mail my $16 million check to the Calitics home office.