Dick Ackerman, man of the people? Mmmmm not so much. Today more than 100 members of the California Partnership, a statewide coalition of community based organizations that fights poverty in California, flooded the offices of Republican leaders in California’s state Assembly and Senate to demand meetings and real solutions to California’s budget through fair tax policy.

Here’s a shot of CHP’s security officer telling everyone to buzz off.

 

Gov. Schwarzenegger is sending his May budget revise in later this week, so a last ditch effort was waged to negotiate the proposed drastic cuts to healthcare, education and California’s safety net for poor and working families. While Senate Assembly Minority Leader, Michael Villines’s chief budget negotiator met with activists for more than half an hour, Republican State Senate Leader Ackerman’s office refused to see anyone, and after two minutes of back and forth, staff called CHP officers to throw CA Partnership leaders out.

Activists from all over the state including the ACLU of So Cal brought hundreds of small plastic boats with them to symbolize the $26 million loophole created to coddle yacht owners while poor Californians risk losing vital programs that support families.

A “cuts only” approach will not work. New revenue such as a corporate property taxes and closing tax loopholes for yacht owners must be part of the solution to the budget crisis.

Thanks for nothing, Dick.

Today’s column in the LA Times takes the Governor to task for his unconscionable cut of homeless services that were working and saving money, in favor of a tax loophole for Dick Ackerman’s yachting pals.  Lopez has spent lots of time on the streets of Skid Row, and gotten to know the homeless people that struggle to survive down there.  One of them, Bill Compton, died Monday, and it’s grimly ironic that this happened at the same time that the program inspired by his successful move off the streets had its funding cut.

Bill Compton’s Project Return helped pave the way for AB 2034, which, until its funding was cut by Schwarzenegger last week, was keeping nearly 5,000 people off the streets of California with a smart mix of housing and all the necessary support services.

The governor’s staff has argued that the program can be funded with other revenues, such as money from the voter-approved Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63). But state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, who introduced AB 2034 when he was in the Assembly, said the latter ploy is both illegal and a subversion of voter intent.

“I was sick to my stomach for two days,” said Steinberg, who believed until last week that the governor would be on his side, particularly since the program has substantially reduced hospitalization, incarceration and criminal justice costs for its participants.

For exciting yachting news, the flip…

Lopez then visited the Marina del Rey yacht club and did a little reporting about what was kept in the budget at the expense of getting homeless people off the streets:

If the governor was looking for savings, he could have taken his scalpel to an estimated $45-million tax break for purchases of yachts, planes and RVs.

To find out just how the break works, I called a yacht company in Marina del Rey. A sales rep told me I would have to buy the boat outside of California, but there’s a loophole available in that regard. Technically, he said, if I took ownership of the boat three miles off shore, I’d be out of the state.

In other words, if I wanted to buy a $100,000 sailboat, I would sign the contract at the shop in Marina del Rey and then navigate around the tax bite with a little vacation.

“We would effect delivery out of state, three miles out, with a hired skipper who would take you out,” the salesman explained. If I then sailed down to Mexico for 90 days, I’d avoid the sales tax of $8,250.

That’s roughly the cost, Van Horn told me, of keeping someone in the AB 2034 program for a year, if you count the matching Medi-Cal funds.

May Bill Compton rest in peace.

This is why Dick Ackerman – and Arnold Schwarzenegger – deserve the certificate of merit for being rich and not homeless.  The creativity with which they engineered yet another tax cut for the wealthy while dismissing those who are in vital need of help must be recognized with some sort of award.  There will be a special place in the afterlife for those who put this together.  I won’t say where.

I wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron.

As if the state budget process wasn’t brutal enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger used the “blue pencil” last week to make even further cuts in social programs – to the tune of $700 million.  After the legislature went along with cuts in public transportation and drug treatment, Arnold took another $55 million out of mental health treatment for the homeless – effectively castrating state law.  A Governor who says he wants to pass universal health care cut over $427 million from the state’s Medi-Cal program, and in a gift to his friends in the insurance industry, $6.3 million to help Californians get cheap prescription drugs.  He says it was the only way Republicans in the State Senate would vote for the budget.  But with Dick Ackerman’s bad faith tactics that held our state hostage for 52 days, did he really have to keep such a Faustian bargain?  And with the process now behind us, will he aggressively push to nix the 2/3 vote requirement to pass a state budget, and prove his “post-partisan” credentials?

When it comes to passing a budget, California’s Constitution is beyond absurd.  Not only are we one of only three states to require a super-majority vote of the state legislature, but the Governor then has the right to cut out any expenditures in the budget – a practice known as “blue-pencil.”  The state legislature can only override these cuts by a two-thirds vote.  The U.S. Supreme Court threw out a similar “line-item veto” at the federal level, but California has its own rules that it can live by.

The Governor cut $55 million from mental health, eliminating a six-year old housing program that serves 4,700 adults with severe mental disabilities – all of whom were homeless and frequently hospitalized or incarcerated.  Participants in the program have reduced their number of days spent homeless by 67%, increased the number of days working full-time by 65%, and reduced the number of days incarcerated by 72%.

“This is a program that works, that saves the state money in incarceration costs and that humanely treats a population that usually gets short shrift in Sacramento,” said State Senator Darrell Steinberg, who authored the original legislation.  Schwarzenegger replied that there’s still money from Proposition 63 – the 2004 ballot measure that taxed millionaires to fund mental health programs.

But Prop 63 was intended to supplement existing funding, not to replace it.  When it comes to mental health funding, the Governor effectively robbed Peter to pay Paul.

Of the $700 million that Schwarzenegger cut out of the budget, 75% of the money came from Health and Human Services – with $427 million coming out of the state’s MediCal program.  It’s ironic, given that the Governor says he wants to pass universal health care in California, that when given the choice of what cuts to make he cut health care.

Arnold cut $6.3 million from the California Discount Prescription Drug Program – a project that helps low-income Californians buy affordable prescription drugs.  The health insurance lobby, which gave $5 million to Schwarzenegger’s campaign, had strongly opposed this program because it hurts their bottom line.

I could go on forever, but you get my point.  To read more details about the Governor’s cuts, click here.  But what’s most galling is what he chose not to cut out of the budget – a $45 million tax break for yacht, private plane and recreational vehicle owners.

The Governor was supposed to sign the budget that passed the State Assembly last month – which cut $1.2 billion in public transit, slashed drug treatment programs and delayed cost-of-living adjustments for SSI recipients.  But then the Senate Republicans decided to hold up the budget just because they could.  Only after Arnold pledged to cut another $700 million from the budget did the right-wing extremists end their 52-day tantrum.

Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, who led the standoff, deserves all the outrage coming his way.  But Schwarzenegger never promised him where the cuts would come from, at least not publicly.  He could have either refused to let the Senate Republicans blackmail him and break his promise – or he could have cut $700 million out of the budget in places that didn’t hurt the most vulnerable.  Since Ackerman is a yacht enthusiast, he could have stuck it to him by eliminating his $45 million tax break.

For a Governor who claims to be “post-partisan” and has co-opted Democratic issues in a very blue state, Schwarzenegger showed his true Republican colors.  When the Senate Republicans finally backed off the budget last week with minimal changes, commentators ridiculed Ackerman for having gotten so little out of the standoff.  But with the Governor’s “blue-pencil” cuts, we know that the right wing had the last laugh.

The state Constitution allowed Schwarzenegger to make these drastic cuts, but it also allows the state legislature to override them with a two-thirds majority.  While I dread the prospect of going back to the Senate Republicans to override the Governor, these cuts are so disastrous that we cannot let Arnold get away with it.  Publicly humiliating Arnold and the Republicans is what it will take to prevail.

For starters, you can do what L.A. blogger David Dayen did – fax the following
certificate of appreciation to the office of Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman.  And stay tuned with the California Progress Report, California Majority Report, and Calitics.com for more ideas.

Send feedback to [email protected]

(Here’s a Word doc of the Certificate. You can fax a PDF with a free trial at fax1.com.

Apparently fax1.com requires a non-free email service. If you want to send a free fax and you only have Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, use Fax Zero. – promoted by David Dayen)

This will be faxed to Sen. Ackerman’s office today:

CERTIFICATE OF MERIT

The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless (NCYOWHTH) proudly bestows this award upon State Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine), who has the courage and foresight to be a yachting enthusiast and not a mentally ill homeless person, and is therefore eligible for a major tax break instead of having his social services eliminated.  As an organization of yachters who will also benefit from the same tax cut to the tune of $45 million dollars, coincidentally almost the same amount that would fund the rehabilitation program for mentally ill homeless people, we applaud this setting of the real priorities for our state.  Sen. Ackerman has been a leader in the twin fields of yachting and not being homeless for many years, and we are pleased to award this certificate today.  We ask you to be the keynote speaker at The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless clam bake in Tustin later this year.  After all, there wouldn’t be an organization this strong without you.

Sincerely,
David Dayen
Executive Director, The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless

You can send this too:
Capitol Office fax: (916) 445-9754
District Office fax: (714) 573-1859

Here’s some trivia about State Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman which may shed some light on the late round of budget cuts for social services.  No, Ackerman’s not a mentally ill homeless person, but he is a yacht owner.

Several lawmakers at the center of the budget dispute did not return phone calls or could not be reached. They included Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine — a yacht owner who pushed to ease the tax burden on owners of yachts, planes and RVs.

An Ackerman spokesman said the senator was unavailable.

In other news, it’s 79 degrees and excellent sailing weather in Irvine!

Here’s a little more on this supposedly unnecessary mental health program, cleaved for the benefit of yachting aficianados everywhere:

It has served 13,000 people since November 1999. There are about 4,700 participants today. Among those enrolled as of January, there were 81% fewer days of incarceration, 65% fewer days of psychiatric hospitalization and 76% fewer days of homelessness compared with their pre-enrollment days.

Rusty Selix, executive director of the California Council of Community Mental Health Agencies — like Steinberg, a Proposition 63 coauthor — said the cost of incarceration can be six times higher than the cost of enrolling someone in the mental health program.

“Rehabilitation costs money. But it’s worth it,” said Adrienne Sheff, director of adult services at the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center in Van Nuys. Los Angeles County receives nearly a third of the state funds through AB 2034 and serves 1,700 people.

This program was designed to lessen the cost of those homeless who eat up emergency services – like the guy who showed up at San Diego ERs 87 times in a calendar year.  Ultimately this move, done purely to satisfy short-sighted bean-counters, will end up costing the state far more.  But that burden will be placed on municipalities and local governments, not the state coffers.  Making the bean-counters – and yacht owners like Dick Ackerman – very, very happy.

Here is a question.  Why did Arnold think that the Republicans were bluffing about taking a much stronger stand on the budget?  They promised as much last year during their bloody leadership battles.  I have seen newspapers refer to that as posturing, indicating that they never believed the Republicans would actually follow through.  Did Arnold really thing they would roll over, when history is littered with examples of their obstructionist tactics during previous budget negotiations?

I absolutely love this Economist article on the budget.  The magazine has a well deserved reputation for presenting the news in a straightforward manner.  They hold no punches on this one and go right after the Republicans.

Republicans are causing the delay, as in the past. Ignoring pleas from Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, Assembly members won some spending cuts and tax breaks. Then, while they hit the beaches, state senators demanded further cuts. Last week, in order to try to end the debate, the Democratic Senate president locked them in. Senators lounged around like teenagers at an all-night party, amusing themselves by sending messages to conservative blogs. “To update you—we’ve done nothing,” wrote one. They want a mixture of real and symbolic sacrifices—less money for environmental litigation and trade-union studies, for example.

The Economist points out that the Republicans are digging their heels in because they can under the 2/3rds majority rule and then blames gerrymandering.

The second reason is ideological. California’s districts are so shamelessly gerrymandered that hardly any races are competitive. The elections that matter are the primaries, which are dominated by zealots. The result is a political system in which moderation is punished, both by voters and by other politicians. Dick Ackerman, head of the Senate Republican caucus, adopted a co-operative, pragmatic approach to last year’s budget negotiations. The result was a putsch that nearly dislodged him. Chastened, he promised to take a tougher line on this year’s budget.

The man was fighting for his political life, just a year ago.  His promises were what saw him through.  Did they really think he wasn’t going to follow through?  The Republicans put up and shut up last year, listening to Arnold’s campaign leadership, which exhorted them to behave so he could be re-elected.  They chaffed, but played along.  That wasn’t going to happen this year.  As the Economist notes, they have been cheered on by the ideologues on the blogs.  They took a bold stand and said no to the majority.  Frankly, that is the stuff we advocated on a national scale when the Democrats were in the minority.  It is one of the most effective roles that partisan blogs can play.  While I don’t agree in the least with what they are doing, I understand it.

It would be nice to report that a small band of hard-nosed Republicans was bringing fiscal restraint to California. Unfortunately, it isn’t true. Republicans have been better at pushing for tax cuts than at balancing the budget. This year the state spent a higher proportion of Californians’ incomes than it has for more than a decade. And, having approved tens of billions of dollars-worth of bonds to pay for everything from stem-cell research to road mending, it is racking up ever more debt.

The Republicans are right about one thing: California’s finances are a mess. Thanks to cuts in property rates, the state depends on personal income taxes for 46% of its revenues, more than in all but seven states. And because its taxes are so progressive, it relies especially heavily on the fortunes of the rich. “If the bottom drops out of the stockmarket, the bottom drops out of the budget,” says Jean Ross of the California Budget Project. Partisan posturing, debt and financial gambling: no way to run the world’s eighth-largest economy.

The long term solutions are well known here.  Eliminate the 2/3rds majority and fix Prop. 13.  In the short term, Arnold needs to figure out a way to communicate effectively with the Republicans.  They are not bluffing about being willing to stretch this out until December.  At this rate, the Assembly may be back in session by the time the Senate passes the budget.

It looks like Sen. President Pro Tem Don Perata has come up with the more appropriate moniker for the California Republicans’ sense of “Fiscal Responsibility”:

California’s budget stalemate triggered partisan mudslinging Wednesday when the Senate’s Democratic leader accused minority Republicans of “fiscal terrorism” for demanding more cuts from welfare, public transportation and other programs.

“As far as I’m concerned, (Republicans can) continue to hold up the state budget because I’m not going to capitulate to this kind of terrorism,” Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata said after delaying a scheduled vote by one day. (SacBee 7/26/07)

This is surely what it is. The GOP Caucus has presented a plan to steal food from the mouths of children by slashing CalWORKS, and medical care from the sick by slashing Medi-CAL.  Is that what the GOP has left? Taking from those who have the least so that those who have the most can have a few more dollars. Ackerman’s plan is completely counterproductive at best, and disastrous if it ever comes to fruition. 

It now appears that all that is left is the trappings of decorum. Perhaps something will be worked out, but it appears that post-partisanship is dead. It appears that the work of repealing the 2/3 super majority must become job #1 for California progressives.

(cross-posted from Working Californians)

Yesterday, Speaker Fabian Nunez put out a press release with an aggressive tone, calling on Arnold to meet with the legislative leaders on the budget.

ONE WOULD THINK THAT IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE AT SOME POINT BETWEEN NOW AND THE FIRST OF DECEMBER THE GOVERNOR WOULD CALL A BIG FIVE MEETING SO THAT HIS LEADERSHIP COULD BEGIN TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE STALEMATE BETWEEN THE DEMOCRATIC AND THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP ON THE BUDGET.

Arnold did meet with the leadership yesterday, but it appears that little was accomplished.  Democrats often use the California Majority Report to push a message that may not be getting through in the press.  Today there are two pieces up on the Republicans and the budget.  They are clearly ramping up the pressure on them to agree to the Democrat’s budget version.

Steve Maviglio, the Speaker’s spokesman, kicks things off with a faux memo from the Republicans, claiming that the Republicans have already gotten most of what they wanted.

Well, we’ve done it. We managed to hold the budget up and put the squeeze on the Governor and Democrats. We’re still pinching ourselves that we’ve been able to win so many concessions!

Matt Jones follows this up with a post making the case that the Republican leadership is being obstinate in an attempt to save their jobs.

In the Senate, Republican Leader Dick Ackerman has been hanging on to his post by a single vote or two for the past year. Senators George Runner, Dave Cogdill, and Jim Battin are among those who have been eyeing his post.

These hard-right Republican senators coveting his job have been laying in wait for Ackerman to fold early in the budget talks. So, as a result, Ackerman has to talk tough to hang onto his job, or else he’ll be spending lots more time on his yacht.

Same deal on the Assembly Republican side, with new GOP leader Mike Villines.  He was elected to his post, promising to stand up to the Democrats, instead of “coddling them” as his predecessor was accused of doing.  Jones says that the GOP Assembly Caucus is “restless about Villines first-time performance in budget negotiations” and accuses him of hiding “behind Dick Ackerman’s skirt”. 

This is aggressive language, designed to provoke a reaction from the Republican legislators and their staff.  Doing so would encourage the press to cover the situation more in-depth than their pretty lightweight articles today (see Chron and SacBee)  They are ratcheting up the rhetoric, in attempt to create movement on the budget.  There is deliberate pressure being placed on the Republicans to lay out the programs they would be willing to cut.  Right now they are just calling for cuts without giving any details, something the press is starting to call them on.

Negotiations will continue to go on behind the scenes as this bomb throwing occurs in public.  Soon the legislative staff will start going without paychecks and other state employees will not be far behind.  Such is the typical budget making season in California.  Perhaps we can avoid shutting down the whole state government like Pennsylvania did earlier this week.  That would be nice wouldn’t it?