I didn’t have the time yesterday to mention that the Legislative Analyst’s Office has confirmed what everyone had feared for a while, that California is staring a $10 billion dollar budget deficit in the face and there’s seemingly no political will to address the structural fiscal problems underlying the projected deficit and do something about it.  All of the top legislative leaders had something to say about the LAO report, and I didn’t see a ton of leadership there.  Arnold and the Republicans focused on major budget cuts while making vague and insufficient nods toward “serious discussions” on budget reform.  Speaker Nuñez was pretty vague himself though he held the line on a cut-only approach, and Senator Perata had perhaps the strongest response, though it’s perhaps too focused on the past:

“Since last May, I have talked about California’s flawed and unbalanced fiscal structure. Today’s LAO report is another sobering reminder that quick fixes will not provide a long-term solution to the state’s budget woes.

“I once again call on the Governor and my fellow legislative leaders to begin a serious discussion about how to build a structurally balanced budget.

“There is an ongoing gap between state expenditures and revenues that this Governor helped create by slashing Vehicle License Fees and refusing to balance that loss with revenue from another source. That alone accounts for $6 billion of this problem.

“An honest dialogue about closing the budget gap must include exploring all options.”

But the real strong medicine was delivered by the LAO’s Elizabeth Hill.

In releasing her five-year fiscal outlook Wednesday, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said lawmakers face tough decisions for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“All the easy solutions are gone,” she said.

Hill, the state’s top budget analyst, called for immediate cuts to “double up” savings for the current and upcoming fiscal years. She also offered solutions certain to meet political opposition, including raising taxes.

Her projections were worse than previously stated by the Schwarzenegger administration, which pegged the shortfall at $6 billion. Hill said the deficit has increased due to growing government expenses that have outpaced revenues in an economy weakened by the real estate slump.

Realistically, since you can’t deficit spend, it’s going to take a combination of revenues and cuts to balance the budget.  This problem is only likely to get worse.  The median home price in the state dropped $60,000 in a month.  That severely impacts property tax revenue.  And the state lost a Supreme Court case where they were trying to stop a payment of $200 million in interest to the teacher’s pension fund.  But those are just the short-term issues.  The problem is long-term.

Hill said the state’s structural imbalance has been around for years – a challenge state leaders have failed to address.

“We’ve been facing a problem every year since 2001-02,” Hill said. “And when you look out to 2012-13, we still do not have our expenditures and revenues in line.”

The state has confronted bigger fiscal crises before. In 2003-04, lawmakers were facing gaps as big as $38 billion. The state resorted to borrowing, which Hill said is exacerbating the current problem because cash is going to debt payments.

Borrowing at this point is almost immoral.  There’s going to be a need to maybe allow some painful cuts in exchange for long-term fixes in revenue structure.  Next year will be incredibly difficult.

UPDATE by Brian: Robert is too modest to pimp his dKos diary on the FP, so I’ll do it for him. Please give it a rec, as the story is certainly worthy of additional eyeballs.

Sunday’s article, “How Anti-Union, Anti-Tax OC Conservatives Defeated Adequate Fire Protection in 2005,” seems to have struck a nerve among Orange County conservatives. Yesterday the Orange County Register, whose editorials against Measure D in 2005 were a prime target of my article, devoted their lead editorial to the charges I laid out here on Sunday.

It’s understandable that conservatives bristle at being called to account for the catastrophic outcomes of their ideological agenda. The devastation wreaked on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina irreparably damaged the Bush Administration and set the Republicans on the long road to losing the Congress. Millions of Americans saw the effects of Grover Norquist’s “drown government in a bathtub” strategy. The Register‘s editorial pages, long devoted to a similar anti-government, anti-tax, anti-union agenda, have a clear interest in distancing themselves from last week’s disaster.

But their editorial defense does not quite achieve its objectives. The Register does not rebut the fact that OC firefighters lacked necessary equipment that Measure D would have funded. More importantly, the editorial actually reinforces my core argument – that the conservative agenda the Register and others in OC promoted is intended to leave Californians lacking adequate fire protection and placing their safety in the hands of a private market.

First, it’s worth reviewing the basic charges. Last weekend the Register‘s own reporters explained that Orange County Fire Authority lacked basic resources needed to battle back the fast-moving and unpredictable Santiago Fire in its crucial first hours:

Two of the Orange County politicians now complaining about the lack of air support for the Santiago Fire opposed firefighters’ effort to purchase new helicopters and trucks two years ago.

In fact, county officials today are sitting on more than $80 million in excess revenue from a statewide public safety sales tax adopted 13 years ago.

That surplus has been a longstanding sore spot for OC firefighters, who at times this week were so overwhelmed they had to seek refuge inside fire retardant tents.

The firefighter’s 2005 ballot initiative would have redirected a small portion of the ½ cent sales tax, providing $8 million for new helicopters and $33 million for new fire trucks.

The LA Times also reported about the shortages:

[OCFA] fire engines were staffed below national standards, it had fewer firefighters per capita than neighboring counties, and its army of men and women ready to fight the blaze may have been weakened by changes in the county’s volunteer firefighter program….

“We’re out there with a handful of crews trying to stop this big fire, and all we could do was just put out spot fires,” said Chip Prather, chief of the Orange County Fire Authority. “It would have been great to have the cavalry come in, but there were several fires burning, and it was taking time for the resources to get here.”…

The size of those crews was one way that Orange County fell below the national standard. Most of the county’s engines were staffed with three people. Four per engine is the voluntary minimum standard from the National Fire Protection Assn., a private organization that writes fire safety guidelines.

Crews with three firefighters work more slowly than larger crews, according to a study by the Insurance Services Organization, a national group that evaluates fire departments.

Todd Spitzer, a Republican Assemblymember from Orange, was another target of today’s editorial for his criticisms of equipment shortages. On Tuesday he explained the lack of resources left parts of central Orange County vulnerable on the fire’s critical first night:

The evening the Santiago fire began, Chief Prather and I stood at the Foothill (241) Toll Road and Santiago Canyon Road, watching firefighters set backfires to consume fuel that would have sent the fire into East Orange. Homes in north Tustin were threatened when the fire jumped the 261 Toll Road, potentially burning into Lower Peters Canyon. Homes in Irvine, at Jamboree and Portola Parkway, were nearly lost.

We had no relief for the “left flank” of the fire. That portion of the fire was slipping toward Foothill Ranch and northeast Irvine. But structure protection was the focus, so all our ground resources were in Irvine. I was on the phone repeatedly with the Office of Emergency Services regional command based in Riverside, which was charged with prioritizing all the requests for assistance based on need. Orange County kept getting told that the Santa Ana winds would keep the fire burning toward Irvine. We warned, however, that the fire was slipping south and if it crossed Santiago Canyon Road because of a wind shift, it would burn out of control. Our concerns were dismissed as not consistent with weather predictions.

(North Tustin, where I was born and raised, is where most of my family still resides.)

The situation Spitzer describes is fundamentally one of a shortage of resources. With more trucks, helicopters, and firefighters, Spitzer and Chief Prather’s concerns might not have been dismissed.

Yesterday’s editorial, however, addresses neither of these concers about equipment shortages. Instead they try to claim that the Proposition 172 system of allocating public safety funds worked – despite the fact that, in 2005, Steven Greenhut, the senior editorial writer for the Register, denounced California taxpayers as “weak” for having approved Prop 172 in November 1993, in the aftermath of the 1993 firestorms.

For instance, the Measure D battle two years ago was over the disbursement of Proposition 172 sales-tax funds that voters had already approved for public safety. Conservatives were on both sides of the issue as the firefighters sought to take a share of tax dollars that mostly had gone to fund the Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s Office. This wasn’t about “stingy” taxpayers unwilling to pay for public safety, as the liberals allege, but about divvying up the taxpayers’ money among agencies.

But the Register’s own reporting contradicts this. To revisit the Register article discussed above:

In fact, county officials today are sitting on more than $80 million in excess revenue from a statewide public safety sales tax adopted 13 years ago.

The firefighter’s 2005 ballot initiative would have redirected a small portion of the ½ cent sales tax, providing $8 million for new helicopters and $33 million for new fire trucks.

Redirection of some Prop 172 monies toward fire protection was one of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission recommendations – along with replacing outdated helicopters – which Measure D would have accomplished. Nor is it clear that Measure D would have negatively impacted the OC Sheriff’s Department or the District Attorney’s office as claimed. The Yes on D campaign explained – as illustrated by their mailers, which anti-Measure D blogger Matt “Jubal” Cunningham thankfully preserved for posterity – that even with this redirection of part of OC’s Prop 172 allocation, the OCSD and DA would both continue to see increased budgets from Prop 172.

The editorial points out that Orange County and San Diego County are not the only California jurisdictions with underfunded fire protection. But they neglect to explain the source of that problem – in SD, OC, and statewide, it has been 30 years of conservative anti-tax policies, from Proposition 13 to the opposition to Measure D, that has left public services destitute.

However, neither the technical details of Prop 172 allocation nor Orange County’s fire protection needs were at the heart of the conservative anti-Measure D campaign that the Register championed two years ago. As I explained on Sunday, the attack was really on unions and public employees. Greenhut compared the fight between the Sheriff’s union and the firefighters’ union to the fight between Hitler and Stalin. Cunningham believed that beating back the power of government employee unions was the main reason to oppose Measure D, even going so far as to say the firefighters threatened basic rights.

Sadly, yesterday’s editorial repeats these arguments:

We pointed out at the time that the average salary and benefit package for firefighters in all categories was about $175,000 a year.

In other words, public fire protection should come at the cost of public employees. They should have to give up health care, pensions, and pay before taxpayers are asked to reallocate already-collected monies to better tackle OC’s perennial firestorms. Apparently, the Register does not believe that firefighters should be able to afford to meet OC’s sky-high cost of living.

Finally, the editorial goes on to validate my conclusions that stinginess with public tax money would lead conservatives to suggest turning everything over to the market. As I wrote on Sunday:

It seems unlikely that Orange County conservatives will be giving up their virulent anti-tax, anti-firefighter crusade even in the aftermath of October’s firestorm. Instead we should expect them to ramp up their argument that private enterprise and the market will do a better job of fighting fires than “greedy” public sector employees.

That is precisely what the Register did in its editorial:

A broader goal would be more privatization efforts and more private ownership of land. Private firefighting firms would have a financial interest to promote prevention, and more private ownership of land would mean better-maintained property. Private owners are far better at protecting their property than public owners, who follow an entirely different set of objectives.

This is already happening here in California, as Bloomberg News reported last week:

“What we’re trying to do here is provide our policyholders an additional level of protection,” said Stan Rivera, director of wildfire protection for AIG Private Client Group. The average home insured by the unit is valued at $1.7 million….

The Wildfire Protection Unit has six trucks outfitted to spray Phos-Chek, the fire retardant used by the U.S. Forest Service. Customers can have Phos-Chek sprayed on brush surrounding their homes before each fire season. During a wildfire, the trucks are sent out whenever a fire comes within three miles of a home and spray all combustible areas.

Such protection doesn’t come cheap. It’s available only to customers of AIG Private Client Group, which serves affluent individuals and their families. The average customer spends $19,000 a year on the insurance, which may also cover yachts, art collections and ransom demands, Rivera said.

AIG Private Client Group has about 55,000 customers throughout the U.S., Rivera said. California is “one of the biggest” markets for the group, he said.

If you can’t afford this coverage, though, you’re screwed:

Some victims of the California fires may wish they had their own firemarks. During this week’s wildfires, “there were a few instances where we were spraying and the neighbor’s house went up like a candle,” Crays said.

This is the future the Register happily embraces – public fire protection should be underfunded; any attempt to rectify this is an illegitimate grab by overzealous, anti-liberty public unions and their overpaid, greedy workers; and members of the public should be on their own when it comes to fire protection, regardless of ability to pay.

For the thousands of Orange County residents who could not possibly afford this kind of fire protection, the Register’s far right ideology leaves them with nothing. Here’s to hoping that my beloved home of Orange County will finally wake up to the agenda that their conservative elite is promoting.

On Thursday Kirk Murphy wrote a compelling piece at Firedoglake, “Drown it in a Bathtub?” – How Grover Norquist, the Club for Greed, and Arnold Let SoCal Burn, explaining how anti-tax sentiment in San Diego County left firefighters without adequate resources to respond to this week’s inferno.

Unsurprisingly, this has happened elsewhere. As firefighters battle to save Silverado Canyon and prevent the Santiago Fire from reaching Riverside County homes, we are now learning that Orange County firefighters faced similar crippling shortages of equipment and personnel – shortages that prevented them from being able to quickly extinguish the Santiago blaze.

Specifically, Orange County Republicans campaigned hard against Measure D, a 2005 ballot proposal that would have diverted $80 million in surplus public safety funds from Proposition 172 to help properly staff Orange County fire departments. The failure of Measure D leads directly to the OCFA’s inability to quickly contain the Santiago Fire when it broke out Sunday evening.

The full story is below.

As today’s LA Times explains:

Before the Santiago fire started in the hills northeast of Irvine, the Orange County fire department already had been hobbled.

Its fire engines were staffed below national standards, it had fewer firefighters per capita than neighboring counties, and its army of men and women ready to fight the blaze may have been weakened by changes in the county’s volunteer firefighter program….

“We’re out there with a handful of crews trying to stop this big fire, and all we could do was just put out spot fires,” said Chip Prather, chief of the Orange County Fire Authority. “It would have been great to have the cavalry come in, but there were several fires burning, and it was taking time for the resources to get here.”…

The size of those crews was one way that Orange County fell below the national standard. Most of the county’s engines were staffed with three people. Four per engine is the voluntary minimum standard from the National Fire Protection Assn., a private organization that writes fire safety guidelines.

Crews with three firefighters work more slowly than larger crews, according to a study by the Insurance Services Organization, a national group that evaluates fire departments.

Why was the OCFA shorthanded? Why didn’t they have enough funds to adequately crew their engines? Because conservative Republicans fought efforts by the OCFA to get more funds to hire trained firefighters. Friday’s Orange County Register explains:

Two of the Orange County politicians now complaining about the lack of air support for the Santiago Fire opposed firefighters’ effort to purchase new helicopters and trucks two years ago.

In fact, county officials today are sitting on more than $80 million in excess revenue from a statewide public safety sales tax adopted 13 years ago.

That surplus has been a longstanding sore spot for OC firefighters, who at times this week were so overwhelmed they had to seek refuge inside fire retardant tents.

The firefighter’s 2005 ballot initiative would have redirected a small portion of the ½ cent sales tax, providing $8 million for new helicopters and $33 million for new fire trucks.

But the entire Board of Supervisors, the sheriff and district attorney opposed the measure, saying it was an attempt to pick the pocket of county law enforcement. County voters rejected the initiative, with 73 percent voting no.

This week, State Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange and Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell joined Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather in blaming state fire officials for not sending enough air support during the early hours of the fire.

Spitzer called the lack of resources being delivered by the state “unconscionable.”

That rankled firefighters, who remember that both Campbell and Spitzer campaigned against their funding measure and signed the ballot arguments against it.

The opposition to Measure D was led by virtually the entire Orange County law enforcement establishment, and its elected political leadership:

The county supervisors, Sheriff Mike Carona, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs and the Orange County Employees Association all fought a bitter campaign against the ballot measure, titled Measure D.

Supervisors Campbell, Spitzer and Chris Norby argued that the union-sponsored initiative sought to cover bad spending practices by the fire authority and dip into critical law enforcement resources….

Campbell saw Measure D as a move by the firefighters’ union to “add new union members.”

He came up with a novel idea for thwarting the ballot initiative: The supervisors placed three other initiatives tinkering with proceeds of the public safety tax on the ballot.

The Register article conveniently does not mention that the paper’s own notoriously right-wing editorial pages – known for a history of virulent anti-tax, anti-union attitudes – also opposed Measure D:

“D is For Deception”

Some political battles remind me of the bloody fight between Stalin’s communist forces and Hitler’s Nazi forces. For whom do you root? You root for a very long war.

At first glance, taxpayers might be justified in taking a similar view with regard to Measure D, the countywide ballot initiative Nov. 8 that pits some of the most aggressive and self-interested government unions against each other.

If the unions spend their dues pounding each other, one might reason, perhaps they will have less money to spend on the liberal causes they typically endorse.

Despite such well-warranted cynicism, on closer examination it is imperative that taxpayers defeat Measure D, which represents a new low in money grabbing by an already well-funded special interest.

The whole of the editorial is a typically disgusting attack on firefighters, government, regulation, etc, concluding that Californians were “weak” to pass Prop 172 in 1993 for public safety funds, even though they did so just a week after the 1993 firestorms had gutted Malibu, Altadena, and Laguna Beach. To Steven Greenhut and the Register editorial board, the firefighters’ union is merely a greedy parasite on the public, using bureaucratic rules to claim they need more fire crews in a cynical ploy to line their own pockets.

The Register was not alone in the attack on firefighters and Measure D. Harry Sidhu, a member of the Anaheim City Council, wrote to the paper to express his opposition to Measure D:

Moreover, while the fire authority has mutual-aid agreements with other agencies to respond to major emergencies, it does not serve the entire county every day. Its mission is to protect the 43 percent of the county’s population that lives in its contract cities and unincorporated areas. Taxpayers in cities with their own fire departments should not be forced to subsidize contract cities.

If passed, Measure D would directly impact countywide law enforcement, countywide criminal prosecutions and countywide jail operations in a negative way. On the other hand, there is no negative impact upon the firefighters should Measure D fail.

In other words, the OCFA only helps those cities too cheap to pay for their own fire departments (the “contract cities”) – so why should Anaheim subsidize them? It’s not like a fire that breaks out in the dense brush of the unincorporated foothills and canyons of eastern OC would *ever* threaten the rest of the county. Oh wait…

In the wake of Measure D’s defeat, Jon Fleischmann of the Flash Report conducted a laudatory interview with former State Sen. John Lewis, who led the campaign against Measure D:

JF: Was there a turning point in the campaign?

JL: No, I don’t think there was a seminal moment where we said “Aha, now we’ll win”.  Instead there were a series of events that each contributed to our victory.  For openers, the unanimity of the Board of Supervisors was key.  If there had been a crack there it would have given fire a huge issue to exploit.  The rapid fire endorsements we received from the Orange County Republican Party, California Republican Assembly, and State Senator Tom McClintock helped immensely with Republican voters.  It is important to note that the Orange County Democrat Party stayed neutral on this race.  Firefighters thought they had that endorsement in the bag.  I know some of the Deputies and OCEA leaders were disappointed that the Dems didn’t endorse against D, but we were ecstatic they stayed neutral.  It showed we were out hustling them in every way.

It was around the time of gaining these great endorsements that Steve Greenhut from the Orange County Register did a great column and series of editorials on the greed of the OCFA union.  He came up with some jaw dropping statistics that really turned public sentiment our way.

Also, I think our opponents late start signaled their over confidence, perhaps they gave too much weight to that early OCFA poll.

The wingnutroots also got involved. Matt Cunningham (aka “Jubal”) and his “OC Blog” gave a great deal of attention to Measure D, leading the online war against adequate fire protection. Matt explained his opposition to Measure D in this post:

It is my belief that government employee unions pose the single greatest domestic threat to local liberty today. They are, as a wise man said, “government organized as a special interest.” Government at all levels — at least in California — is increasingly under their thumb. When fear and money cause our state and local elected officials — and the power of taxation — to be more responsive to the demands of government workers than to taxpaying voters at large, a role reversal occurs and so-called public servants become the masters….

The Democratic Party long ago abased itself to the government employee unions. Republican Party in Orange County remains an institution dedicated to liberty and limited government. Lately, it has become active in fighting for those beliefs at the local level by supporting and opposing candidates for local, “non-partisan” office. it ought to extend that activism by opposing Measure D….

I, for one, have no desire to give the OCPFA any more money. Why feed the beast? It is already the most politically imperious of our local government employees unions, and displays an arrogant penchant for treating the taxpayers’ money as its own.

Orange County’s public employee unions already possess too much power, and I see no reason to change the status quo and direct even more public money to the most politically aggressive one.

The Republican Party of Orange County can do more to defend and eventually expand the realm of liberty here in OC by opposing Measure D, than by remaining on the sidelines. I hope the members of the OC GOP central committee believe likewise.

To Matt, as with Greenhut and the Register editorial board, the issue here wasn’t about fire protection. No, it was about a full-scale attack on basic rights and liberties by an evil “salaried bureaucracy” trying to enrich itself unfairly and illegitimately.

To return to the LA Times article today, some are critical of Chip Prather and the OCFA for apparently driving away some of the volunteer firefighters that used to help staff county engines. Volunteers are definitely a necessary part of adequate fire protection. But they are no substitute for full-time, trained professionals who can rapidly respond to an outbreak of fire. The notion that volunteers, not trained experts, should be responsible for fire protection is an inherently conservative notion – “starve the beast” that is government and force everyone else to shoulder the burdens of social costs, without the financial or material resources to actually meet public needs effectively.

It seems unlikely that Orange County conservatives will be giving up their virulent anti-tax, anti-firefighter crusade even in the aftermath of October’s firestorm. Instead we should expect them to ramp up their argument that private enterprise and the market will do a better job of fighting fires than “greedy” public sector employees. As Bloomberg reported this week, the 2007 fires revealed the growing role of private firefighters:

“What we’re trying to do here is provide our policyholders an additional level of protection,” said Stan Rivera, director of wildfire protection for AIG Private Client Group. The average home insured by the unit is valued at $1.7 million.

AIG this year expanded its Wildfire Protection Unit to 150 ZIP codes in California and Colorado, up from 14 when it was formed in 2005. The unit has had the busiest week since its inception as fires burned at least 719 square miles (1,861 square kilometers) from Santa Barbara to San Diego, destroying 1,342 homes and 34 businesses and causing at least seven deaths.

Special Service

The Wildfire Protection Unit has six trucks outfitted to spray Phos-Chek, the fire retardant used by the U.S. Forest Service. Customers can have Phos-Chek sprayed on brush surrounding their homes before each fire season. During a wildfire, the trucks are sent out whenever a fire comes within three miles of a home and spray all combustible areas.

Such protection doesn’t come cheap. It’s available only to customers of AIG Private Client Group, which serves affluent individuals and their families. The average customer spends $19,000 a year on the insurance, which may also cover yachts, art collections and ransom demands, Rivera said.

AIG Private Client Group has about 55,000 customers throughout the U.S., Rivera said. California is “one of the biggest” markets for the group, he said.

And if you can’t afford such coverage? Well, you’re shit out of luck:

Some victims of the California fires may wish they had their own firemarks. During this week’s wildfires, “there were a few instances where we were spraying and the neighbor’s house went up like a candle,” Crays said.

Unless the conservative assault on public services and social protection from risk is halted and beaten back, that is California’s future.

By Dave Johnson.  This piece originally appeared at the Speak Out California blog.

As I read my Monday morning (Oct. 1, 2007) San Jose Mercury News a headline jumped out at me: “Cigarette tax would hurt poor“.

How often do we hear that taxes “hurt” or “punish” one group or another?  How often do we hear that taxes are a “burden on the economy” or “cost jobs?”  How many politicians talk about providing “tax relief?”

George Lakoff, of the Rockridge Institute writes that this language “frames” taxes as an affliction:

For there to be “relief” there must be an affliction, an afflicted party harmed by the affliction, and a reliever who takes the affliction away and is therefore a hero. And if anybody tries to stop the reliever, he’s a villain wanting the suffering to go on. Add “tax” to the mix and you have a metaphorical frame: Taxation as an affliction, the taxpayer as the afflicted party, the president as the hero, and [people who believe in government] as the villains.

This anti-tax rhetoric results from an anti-government worldview that is pushed by conservatives, in which they portray our government as some kind of enemy of the public.  Ronald Reagan is famous for sayings like, “Government is the problem, not the solution” and, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ ”  The constant use of negative framing like this to describe government and taxes leads regular people to think about their government as a negative, malevolent force. We have been hearing this drumbeat for so long, and with so little pushback to counter these ideas, that many people just accept that this is the way it is.

But are taxes really an affliction?  Is government really a negative force in society?  Let’s step back from the affliction frame for a second and take a different look at the idea of taxes and government.

Let’s start with the basics.  Who is the government?  The Constitutions of the United States of America and of the state of California both begin with the words, “We the people.”  So “we, the people” are the government.  The government is US — you and me!  When you think about it this way, it makes the things Ronald Reagan said sound contradictory.  How can we, the people be the problem?  How can it be scary that we, the people are here to help each other?

What does our government do?  Again, back to the basics, our government builds the roads, hires teachers and police and firefighters and judges, and, in the bigger picture, sets up the rules for the society we want.  We build roads and the roads allow us to get to the schools, businesses, stores and parks where we work, shop, study and relax.  And because we have our schools and jobs and stores and parks, and the rules for the society we want, in theory we are able to live a little better every year.  When the government is functioning as it should, these rules enable all of us to pursue happiness and our businesses and people to prosper.  And these rules are decided by us through our elections. 

In other words, WE decide what our government does and how our money is used to our mutual benefit. 

So how can government and taxes be bad if the government is us?  Looking at things this way, doesn’t this all mean that taxes are like a savings and investment account where we get back so much more than we put in?  And, building on that, since we use the taxes to our mutual benefit aren’t we all better off if there are more taxes rather than less?  Doesn’t that just make us all stronger?

What about all the “government bureaucracy” that conservatives complain about?  Well, looked at in this new way, the government’s money is our money, so of course we want to be able to account for how it is being spent.  That means it has to be tracked every step of the way.  We want to know that it is spent honestly and efficiently, and the necessary transparency and the oversight that accomplishes this does require people and procedures. 

Conservatives also say government is “inefficient.” But anyone who has worked in a corporation has experienced the alternative.  In many corporations a few people at the top decide how things are going to be, and they pass commands down from the top.  Anyone who disagrees has the choice to do what they are told or leave.  It’s great for the people who are at the very top – but sometimes not so great if you are not. 

The processes involved when lots of people get together to decide how to utilize our shared resources can get somewhat cumbersome.  Anyone who has ever been in a homeowners association understands this.  But in our system of government everyone is involved in making the decisions.  This can take longer than it can take in a business, but it also lets all of us have a say.

This is how democracy works.  This is the price we pay for letting everyone have a say in how our society is set up.  Together we mutually decide how best to build and manage our society, and this can take some time and effort.  We decide the best ways to spend our money and we want systems in place so that we know that the money is being used properly. 

So we all have a choice.  If we want firefighters and police to be there for us when we need them, and if we want good schools and teachers so all of our children have an opportunity to succeed, then we have to pay the necessary taxes to pay for those things.  And if we want to continue to have a say in how our government works and what it does, we have to put up with the decision-making process.  It’s a part of growing up and taking on the responsibilities.

Or, we go a different way.  We can hand those choices and responsibilities over to the “private sector” – the corporations – and let others decide how things are going to be done and how our money and common resources will be used.  Thinking about Enron and Katrina and Iraq and our current privatized health care system, I wonder how we can expect that will work out for us? 

Dave Johnson regularly blogs at Seeing the Forest

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A quick note by Brian: This is kinda off topic, but I wanted to mention the Regional Platform meetings being held around the state to talk about the California Democratic Party’s platform. Here’s the schedule of events.

Think Pieces

• Speak Out California!: Do Taxes ‘Hurt’? Is Government Bad?
  http://speakoutca.org/archives/2007/10/do_taxes_hurt_i.php
• Open Left:: Externalized Costs: The Free Market’s Free
  Lunch–A Local Case At The Port of Los Angeles
  http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1752
• jawfish – Why iPhones and Text Messages and MP3s Matter
  http://www.jawfish.net/wordpress/archives/165

Whiskey is for drinkin’

• California Progress Report – “Financing Water Projects” by
  the California Legislative Analyst’s Office is our site of the day
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/financing_water.html
• California Progress Report – Something’s
  Happening on California Water Issues This Monday—Senate
  Staff Told to Report to the Capitol Even Though It’s a State
  Holiday
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/somethings_happ.html
• California Progress Report – Governor
  Schwarzenegger’s Desk Still Cluttered, Water Investment
  Principles Hearing Held
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/governor_schwar_15.html
• California Progress Report – Why the Sierra Club Opposes
  New Dams in the Special Session on California Water
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/why_the_sierra.html
• The California Majority Report // Assembly Democrats
  Searching For Water Solutions
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2340
• California Progress Report – Economics and the Complexity
  of the Science of Water May Be High
  Hurdles in the California Water Special Session
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/economics_and_t.html

Basic Fairness

• The Mad Professah Lectures: California Heterosexual
  Supremacists Claim They Will Miss June Primary Ballot
  http://buckmire.blogspot.com/2007/10/california-heterosexual-supremacists.html
• The Mad Professah Lectures: Appellate Court Ruling Protects
  Domestic Partner Property Rights
  http://buckmire.blogspot.com/2007/10/appellate-court-ruling-protects.html

Pending Legislation

• The Bayne of Blog: Students kick off “Yes on Proposition
  92” at Sac City College
  http://blog.bayneweb.com/2007/10/students-kick-off-yes-on-proposition-92.html
• California Progress Report – California State University
  Executive Pay Hikes–Illegal Gift of
  Public Funds–Another Reason AB 1413 Needs to be Signed by the Governor
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/california_stat_18.html
• California Progress Report – California Health Care in the
  Special Session: An Analysis of
  the “Working Draft” of Legislative Language That No One Claims to “Own”
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/california_heal_8.html
• California Progress Report – My California Family Leave Law
  on Governor Schwarzenegger’s Desk
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/my_california_f.html
• California Progress Report – Schwarzenegger’s Decision to
  Sign or Veto Oakland School Bill May Be Purely Political
  http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/schwarzeneggers_14.html
• Working Californians | Expanding the Family Leave Laws
  http://workingcalifornians.com/blog/julia_rosen/2007/10/05/expanding_the_family_leave_laws

From Here to DC

• CA 11: Obey or Hoyer/Emmanuel?
  http://ca-11.blogspot.com/2007/10/obey-or-hoyeremmanuel.html
• Trash Dirty Gary: Dirty Gary Offers Blackwater a License To
  Kill
  http://nomoredirtygary.blogspot.com/2007/10/dirty-gary-offers-blackwater-license-to.html
• The Bayne of Blog: Lungren calls waiting to gather override
  support “cynical”
  http://blog.bayneweb.com/2007/10/lungren-calls-waiting-to-gather.html
• Conejo Valley Democrat – Bush’s Poodle: Why
  Gallegly Won’t Fund Children’s Health Care
  http://conejovalleydemocrat.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/bushs-poodle-why-gallegly-wont-fund-childrens-health-care/
• Dump Doolittle: CA-04: We’re numero uno!
  http://solongjohn.blogspot.com/2007/10/ca-04-were-numero-uno.html
• The Bayne of Blog: McNerney brings Congress close to home
  http://blog.bayneweb.com/2007/10/mcnerney-brings-congress-close-to-home.html

Local News

• SoHum Parlance: Another casualty of the marijuana wars
  http://redwoodreality.blogspot.com/2007/10/another-casualty-of-marijuana-wars.html
• LAist: The Sherrifs Department May Have Arrested You or
  Towed Your Car Because They Were Playing A Game
  http://laist.com/2007/10/04/bad_sheriffs_department.php
• BlogaBarbara: Nuns Paying for Sins of The Fathers…
  http://blogabarbara.blogspot.com/2007/10/nuns-paying-for-sins-of-fathers.html
• SoHum Parlance: Crisis in Sohum
  http://redwoodreality.blogspot.com/2007/10/crisis-in-sohum.html
• BeyondChron » Religious Leaders Denounce
  Crackdown on Homeless
  http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4980#more
• BeyondChron » The Chronicle Sinks to a New Low
  http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4981#more
• The People’s Vanguard of Davis – City Retiree Medical
  Benefits: Smart Financing or Voodoo Economics?
  http://davisvanguard.blogspot.com/2007/10/city-retiree-medical-benefits-smart.html
• The N-Judah Chronicles – Reader Mail: When Statistics and
  Life Collide On the N Judah Line
  http://www.njudahchronicles.com/2007/10/reader_mail_when_statistics_an.html
• San Diego Politico: Still more on the 78th
  http://www.sandiegopolitico.com/2007/10/still-more-on-78th.html

All The Rest

• . . . Surf Putah: UC Academic Student Employee Union
  Contract Details Are Now Out
  http://surfputah.blogspot.com/2007/10/uc-academic-student-employee-union.html
• The California Majority Report // Today’s Fresh Meat
  http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&ptid=9&aid=2342
• Joe Scott: The Body Politic – Arnold in 2010?
  http://www.joescott3.com/index.php/js/permalink/arnold_in_2010/
• Erik Love @ Courage Campaign | Blackwater: Terrifying
  civilians in Iraq and… California?
  http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/community/post/eriklove/BpJ
• The Liberal OC » Western C-PAC Guest List
  Announced: What? No Coulter!?
  http://www.theliberaloc.com/2007/10/04/western-c-pac-guest-list-announced-what-no-coulter/
• Out of the Blue, Into the Black: Over Before It Has Begun
  http://tgangale1.blogspot.com/2007/10/over-before-it-has-begun.html
• The Ruth Group » Blue Angel Dying
  http://www.ruthgroup.org/2007/10/04/blue-angel-dying/
• LAist: Politicians Say the Dumbest Things: Nuñez
  is ‘Middle Class’?
  http://laist.com/2007/10/05/politicians_say.php

(brilliant ideas – promoted by Robert in Monterey)

In a recent report in the Bee, CA State Treasurer Bill Lockyer brainstorms ways to balance the state budget, including a suggestion that that we consider cutting the UC system off of all public funds, and having “public” universities raise their own funds by – you guessed it – raising student fees. As if the state hasn’t already kicked students in the gut repeatedly by jacking up tuition and fees, turning our public universities into de facto private institutions.

This from the same “Democrat” who proudly said he voted for Schwarzeneggar for the recall in 2003. And a graduate of UC Berkeley in 1965, back when tuition was so low as to be nearly free. But I guess those were different times, eh Bill?

But in a sense, Lockyer is right despite himself. The state infrastructure is woefully underfunded and underbuilt, given our growing population. We’ve got a 25 million person infrastructure in a 37 million person state, and we’re headed towards 50 million in the decades to come. Yet his proposals largely suck. So what else could we do, since we’re in modest proposal mode?

Lest I be accused of mere churlish sniping from the sidelines, I’ll bite:

1. Legalize pot and decriminalize all other drugs, with an amnesty for every inmate locked up in CA jails for the victimless crime of nonviolent possession of drugs. Tax the pot, and use the savings from the criminal justice system + new tax revenue to a) fully fund local addiction treatment clinics and clean needle exchanges, and b) pay down the deficit. Most of the social costs of drug use stem from their criminalization, not the chemicals themselves. Far better to deal with the actual addiction through medical treatment, leave people who can handle it alone, and tell the prison industry and the prison guards’ unions to find another cash cow to exploit.

2. While we’re at it, repeal the 3 strikes law that has clogged our prisons with nonviolent offenders. A new prison costs the same as a new college, and housing an inmate in an overcrowded cell block is around the same cost as educating a student. Instead of slashing public eductaion, why not reduce the % of the California population we’re warehousing?

3. Repeal Prop. 13. If that’s too scary for timid defenders of the status quo, afraid of what Howard Jarvis’s winged monkeys might say in attack ads, why not take a baby step and repeal it just for commercial property? Corporations never die, so why should they pay 1978 tax rates for eternity?

4. Pass SB 840, Sheila Kuhl’s Universal Health Insurance Act, which will remove a huge source of our growing state deficit, namely rising insurance costs for state employees, which effectively funnels budget funds directly into health insurance corporations’ profit margins, at a rate far exceeding inflation. Private health insurance is a huge part of the problem, and removing profit from the equation would help the budget planning process out tremendously.

5. Raise taxes, both income and (if you’re courageous enough) wealth taxes. There’s a ton of big money sitting around in this state, and for all the whinging about excessive taxes, our rates are fairly low compared to most other large urbanized states.

6. Stop borrowing money to pay for programs that could be funded outright; pay as you go with taxes. The “no tax” approach to the state costs us a huge amount more in the long run just on interest payments alone. Some things (infrastructure projects, for example) make sense with bonds and debt financing, but most of the initiative bond measure stuff should just be part of the regular budget. Which brings us to…

7. Change the 2/3 raising tax and budget supermajority requirements to simple majorities. Asking a virulently antigovernment, antitax, anti-public good Republican party rump have veto power on the state of California’s future is just absurd. If they want to dictate terms, then perhaps they should win a majority first.

Will Democrats follow any of these ideas? Probably not, but they’re all better than junking the state public higher eductaion system just to balance the books in the short term.

originally at surf putah

Can someone please answer these questions for me:

1. Why does it cost California $42,000 per inmate when it only costs Florida $18,000?

2. Why does it cost California $163,000 per prison bed (building them, that is) when it only costs Michigan $54,000?

3. Why does California have the third highest tax per gallon of gasoline, and ranks 43rd in per capita spending on highways?

4. Why has per pupil spending nearly doubled ($6,000 to $11,500) over the last decade and student achievement has remained stagnant?

5. Why has it cost well over $5 billion and 15 years to retrofit the Bay Bridge when it cost us $1 billion (inflation adjusted) and 5 years to build it from scratch?

Seriously, what are the answers to those questions?

The most sickening thing about Paul Pringle’s excellent LAT story on Governor Schwarzenegger’s little non-profit scam is that we’re talking about a very rich man, one who prides himself on not drawing a salary for his public service, one who has boasted that he can’t be bought.  But yet he willingly sucks up all kinds of goodies and treats on the public dime.  I’m going to excerpt Pringle’s report on the flip, but first, a little story.  Plenty of people I’ve talked to in Santa Monica have encountered Schwarzenegger, and I honestly can’t say that even one reaction is a good one.  Of particular note is the story of one employee at a Starbucks in a ritzy area of town, one that receives celebrity customers all the time.  When Arnold came in and asked for a couple beverages, he scoffed at the notion that he would have to pay for them.  “I’m the governor,” he said.  The employee told me that he was pretty much the only celebrity customer that’s ever pulled that move.  But it makes perfect sense in the context of this article:

California’s larger-than-life governor is unabashed about living large, but keeping him in luxury sometimes depends on the same taxpayer subsidies granted to hand-to-mouth charities.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, a millionaire many times over, bills much of his overseas travel to an obscure nonprofit group that can qualify its secret donors for full tax deductions, just as if they were giving to skid row shelters or the United Way.

So rich donors give in to a fund that Arnold uses to finance his lifestyle, and the donors can both hide their identity and receive a tax deduction, robbing the state coffers of tax revenue.

Nonprofit watchdogs say using charitable write-offs to pay for sumptuous travel is an abuse of tax codes.

“Wow, that’s a problem,” said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy. “Why should our tax dollars subsidize his lavish lifestyle?”

Making matters worse, Borochoff and others say, is that the nonprofit that finances Schwarzenegger’s globe-trotting, the California State Protocol Foundation, could be a vehicle for interests that hope to curry favor with the governor.

By giving to the foundation, donors avoid having their identities made public, because charities are not governed by the disclosure rules that apply to campaign contributions. And they can donate unlimited amounts to the nonprofit, which is not subject to contribution ceilings the way campaign accounts are.

This is unbelievably wrong.  A multi-millionaire governor, first of all, shouldn’t be living large off of any kind of donation fund.  Second of all, it shouldn’t be a back door around campaign finance laws.  And the nonprofit that runs this fund refuses to open their books and disclose their donor lists.

But this is all too typical.  It’s the same sense of entitlement that a rich man uses to demand free lattes at Starbucks.

Here’s a fun anecdote about Schwarzenegger ripping off the Simon Weisenthal Center:

Schwarzenegger has tapped at least one other charity for some of his travel. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, celebrated for its Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and far-flung Nazi-hunting efforts, paid more than $51,000 to help send the governor to Israel in 2004, a year when the charity ran a deficit, records show.

The trip carried a steep tab because of the private jet, said people familiar with Schwarzenegger’s travel […]

The governor could easily pick up outsized travel bills himself, and a spokesman said Schwarzenegger does pay for his private jet when he flies domestically on state business.

But trips abroad are something else.

The argument Arnold always makes against this is that a foundation bankrolling his travel means that the public sector doesn’t have to.  That’s a load of garbage.  We all finance this travel through bad legislation and payouts to the donors who pay into this slush fund in secret.  In addition, by allowing these donors to write off their donations for hotel suites and Gulfstream Jets and caviar, taxpayers ARE footing the bill, at least in part.

All of this is to say that the Arnold of the “I can’t be bought” days was never telling the truth.  His outsized celebrity ego actually has instilled a sense that he shouldn’t operate under the constraints of, you know, having to pay for stuff.

Highlighting his considerable foreign expertise, Governor Bill Richardson last week set forth a path to avoiding military confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program. Richardson called on Bush administration to stop threatening Iran with “incendiary rhetoric,” and instead recognize our interests in engaging Iran diplomatically. 

Richardson’s week ended with a well-received speech before Latino leaders in Florida.  Decrying the tone of the debate in the Senate on the immigration bill and how Latinos are portrayed in the media, Richardson asked: 

Do you notice that when they depict immigrants, they have someone crossing a wall, jumping as if they are criminals? How about the farmers who break their backs working or those who are cleaning the toilets and working at the hotel where we stay? How about the American media covering the immigrant who died protecting his country?

Also of note, Pollster.com added Richardson to its Top Democrats charts, joining Clinton, Obama and Edwards.  Charles Franklin of Pollster.com stated, “For other Democratic candidates, we’ve not seen a substantial upturn anywhere. Richardson stands alone in that respect at the moment.”

For a full review of Richardson’s week, continue reading.

Last week began with Richardson campaigning in Iowa.  He stepped up his rhetoric opposing the ongoing U.S. occupation in Iraq. As noted by the Rocky Mountain News:

While all the other Democrats call for an end to the conflict, Richardson goes a step further by saying virtually every American soldier – with the exception of Marine embassy guards – should be pulled out by the end of the year. He is pressuring congressional Democrats to pass a resolution by the end of the summer revoking authority for the war.

Richardson also addressed the question of the process he would employ if as President he believed war necessary:

If I am president, I would only go to war if I get authority from Congress. If you go to war, it’s my view that first you exhaust every diplomatic option, you exhaust mediation, even sanctions, build international support for your goals.  I would not hesitate to go to war if it preserved the security of this country, but I believe this administration has been too trigger-happy. And I would use diplomacy.

Richardson has been consistent on the primacy of diplomacy in conflict resolution.  On Iraq, Richardson advocated that the U.S. explore all diplomatic avenues, including returning to the U.N. and developing support within the Security Council for U.S. objectives.  Under the U.N. Charter, only the Security Council can authorize a member state to wage war. 

Richardson’s view, that the U.S. must place the matter of invading Iraq to a vote of the Security Council prior to commencing hostilities, was rejected by many in Congress, including John Edwards, and ultimately was the path President Bush pursued.

On March 11, 2003, eight days before President Bush announced the U.S. was at war with Iraq, Richardson urged patience and diplomacy, criticizing the Bush Administration’s rush to war, in an interview on CNN.  At this time, polls showed most Americans supported going to war and were critical of the U.N. Richardson defended the work of the U.N. Richardson explained how unilateral U.S. military action in Iraq would undermine the U.N. and hurt the prestige of the U.S. abroad:

CROWLEY: I want to ask you the question, first, if there is no Security Council resolution approving of a war on Iraq, and if the Bush administration should go ahead, who loses in that scenario?

RICHARDSON: Well, I think the United Nations loses because it shows a lack of relevance to this crisis.

And, secondly, I think, Candy, that the United States loses because we’re going into a major conflict without the blessing of the U.N. Security Council, without some of our major allies like France and Russia, and also those 10 other members of the Security Council, the 10 non-permanent members that have a voice right now.

So I think it would come at considerable cost especially if we’re to win the war, which we would, issues relating to a post-Iraq configuration to the prestige of the United States worldwide to bring some kind of order to the Middle East and bring some kind of Persian Gulf-lessening attention. So, I think everybody would be a victim. The United Nations, the United States and, certainly, our NATO allies. I think would be hurt, too, because if they don’t support us the breakdown of the NATO alliance might be next to go.

CROWLEY: Well, I want to cite a couple of figures for you. One of them just came from a CBS/New York Times poll, which showed that right now only about 34 percent of Americans believe the U.N. is doing a good job handling this situation.

Fifty eight percent think it’s doing a poor job. On top of that, we also found that 55 percent would support an invasion, even if the Security Council says don’t do it. What does that say about how Americans view the U.N., and has that changed since you were the ambassador?

RICHARDSON: Well, the United States as a populous, here in new Mexico, there’s not much support for the United Nations. But at the same time, Candy, what everyone should understand is the United Nations does a lot of things that we, the U.S. as the only superpower, don’t want to do.

They get involved in conflicts in Kosovo, in the Congo in Africa, in Guatemala and Latin America. Immigration issues, AIDS, refugees. We don’t want to get directly involved in these, but we use the arm of international support, legitimacy of the United Nations to do it.

Now, in the Persian Gulf, conveniently, the U.N. supported our efforts in 1991 to get a broad coalition. And I think we’ve used the U.N. in the war on terrorism to get international support.

But clearly in this Iraq crisis, the U.N. has to step up and simply enforce its 1881 resolution. And it’s not doing that. So, it’s going to be a big loss for the U.N. in terms of its peacekeeping relevance, unless it really steps up and gets tough on Saddam Hussein. I think that’s the issue.

CROWLEY: So, am I right, am I hearing you correctly that you believe that the U.N. Security Council should pass the resolution that Britain and the U.S. are proposing?

RICHARDSON: Well, I would go a little differently, Candy. I think the U.S. and Britain should compromise. That’s the essence of diplomacy. To get nine votes, if it means postponing for 30 days, or 15 days or 10 days, a new resolution with benchmarks on Iraq’s behavior, let’s do it. I think that France and Russia are basically gone.

They are going to veto. But it would be a partial victory if we get nine votes for a victory of a majority in the Security Council. If we don’t do that, I think it’s going to be tremendous prestige loss overseas. I think, domestically, it’s going to cause more problems for the administration. The Congress will be divided. This is a time when it’s frustrating, but what’s the rush, really. Iraq is not heading down Baghdad into the United States.

Again, it is a threat, but it’s not an immediate threat. It’s not something that is like the war on terrorism, where we’re under alert from a potential terrorist attack in this country. So let’s be judicious. Let’s be calm. Let’s be patient.

While in Iowa, Richardson sat down for an interview with the editorial board of The Des Moines Register. The reporter covering the interview wrote:

Richardson might not be the best-known candidate – for now, anyway – but he might have the best credentials. His resumé includes U.S. congressman, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy and governor. He served in Congress under three presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

That’s him on paper.  In person, he’s a bit beefy, his eyes scrunch up, and his body shakes when he laughs. He boasts that he holds the world’s handshaking record – more than 13,000 handshakes in eight hours. And his sense of humor comes through loud and clear. . . .

Yet he has a serious side.  It’s the side that made him a go-to envoy while still in Congress. He helped negotiate the release of the body of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot killed in North Korea in 1994. The next year, he negotiated the release of two Americans detained in Iraq. Then he secured release of three Red Cross workers being held in Sudan.

During the interview, Richardson highlighted three issues of such importance that he would make special efforts to reach bipartisan consensus: getting out of the Iraq war; setting up solid funding for Social Security and Medicare for future generations; and achieving energy independence.  The reporter added:

If that sounds like a lot, his vision for the country is equally expansive. Building an America without divisions by race or ethnicity. Launching an Apollo-like program to secure energy independence. Curing cancer. Giving the middle class a break. “My vision is to think big for this country,” he said.

On June 27th, Richardson gave a major address at the Center for National Policy in Washington, D.C.  Richardson laid out his vision for engaging Iran and convincing Iran to halt its development of nuclear weapons.  Richardson also spoke on building support to fight international terrorism and nuclear proliferation, while bringing peace and stability to the Middle East.

I am convinced that a concerted diplomatic effort, backed up by tough sanctions, undertaken with our international partners and grounded in bipartisan cooperation at home, stands an excellent chance of persuading Iran to forego nuclear weapons and to adopt more responsible policies.  We need to end the taboo on open-ended talks, so that we can begin serious, continuing, and senior-level negotiations on the full range of nuclear, Middle East security, and economic issues. . . .

We need to be absolutely clear that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, and we need to be absolutely credible when we say what we will do about it if the Iranians continue to disregard the will of the international community. . . .

Richardson added the Bush Administration was foolish to fund Iraqi exile groups in the delusional expectation that they would somehow topple the regime, and called on Bush not to repeat the mistake with Iran:

The Bush administration foolishly tried this approach with Iraq, and we know what it got us. There is no reason to expect better results with Iran. . . No constructive dialogue with Iran is possible until we break the vicious cycle of suspicion and hostile, incendiary rhetoric. If we want Iran to improve its behavior, we would do well to stop threatening to attack them.

Bill Richardson advocated that the U.S. reach out to moderate elements in Iranian society to defuse the standoff between the two countries.  Richardson reiterated his position that the U.S. must remove all troops from Iraq as soon as possible:

The presence of American troops in Iraq fuels the insurgency and strengthens Al Qaeda.  I strongly believe that the complete withdrawal of all US military from Iraq will have a salutary effect on all of our goals in the region, including our efforts to build a better relationship with Iran, and to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Back in New Mexico, the leading state organization on environmental issues, the non-partisan Conservation Voters New Mexico gave Richardson an “A” in its annual scorecard of elected officials:

The CVNM Scorecard recognizes Governor Bill Richardson with a solid “A” for his commitment to protecting the environment. The Governor weighed in behind a strong renewable energy agenda in 2007 and exercised his veto power on several anti-conservation measures, including a line-item veto of $945,000 for “Gila basin water development”, and a pocket-veto of SB 220 that would have provided a de facto $6.9 million subsidy to the coal industry.

Sandy Buffet, the Executive Director of the CVNM applauded Richardson’s efforts to make “New Mexico the ‘Clean Energy State.‘” She also complimented Richardson for his work on a non-environmental issue, but one affecting the integrity of the state government and New Mexico elections:  uphelding strong campaign finance reporting rules from efforts by the state legislature to reverse progessive statutes.

In response Richardson stated:

We have worked closely with all those who seek to conserve our water, air and public lands and establish New Mexico as the clean energy state — and this grade shows we’ve worked well together.  Having enacted 23 pro-conservation bills this year, this legislative session was an unprecedented success with significant increases to our renewable energy portfolio standard, passage of the surface owner’s protection act and the Renewable Energy Transmission Authority.

On the political front, independent polls issued last week re-confirmed Richardson’s growing support in Iowa and New Hampshire.  The campaign’s internal poll released to the media showed Richardson at 13% in Iowa, and at 18% (above Obama) among likely caucus voters.  And, in in action I believe is related to Richardson’s rise in the polls, the week also saw Obama launch TV ads in Iowa and Edwards commence a TV campaign in New Hampshire. 

In response to Richardson’s momentum in Iowa and New Hampshire, Pollster.com added Richardson to its Top Democrats charts, joining Clinton, Obama and Edwards.  Charles Franklin of Pollster.com explained, “While Richardson is still in fourth place in both states (5th in NH if you include Gore), his is the only trajectory that is clearly moving up.” 

The positive trend in Iowa polls was noticed by reporters in the state:

Lending credence to a poll showing his support has jumped to double digits among likely Iowa caucus-goers, Bill Richardson attracted more than 200 people to a “job interview” in Iowa City. The Democratic governor of New Mexico made an impression Tuesday with the folks who will be doing the “hiring” when Iowans caucus in January.

“He’s the ‘been there, done that’ guy in the field” of Democratic candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination, Sally Peck of West Branch said of listening to Richardson. “He’s not just mouthing platitudes. He has the experience others don’t.”

For months, Richardson has been calling for comprehensive immigration reform in harmony with the ideals upon which our nation was founded.  In a speech last December at Georgetown University, Richardson spoke on the issue:

I come here today as a border state Governor, and a  Hispanic-American who knows that our nation can no longer afford to  ignore the issue of illegal immigration. I come here as a Democrat who  believes my party has an obligation as the new majority party to pass  comprehensive legislation to reform our immigration laws. And I come  here as someone who believes it’s time for our leaders to tell the  simple truth about this — and every other — issue.

Today, there are over 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Most are law abiding, except for the fact that they have entered this country illegally. And almost all have come here to work — to build a  better life for themselves and their families, just as previous generations of immigrants have done.

Eleven million people living in the shadows is a huge problem, and we need to address it intelligently and thoughtfully — and urgently. If Congress fails to do so, it will only get worse, and the demagoguery about it which we have heard so much of recently will only get louder.

Sadly, Richardson’s prediction that the demagoguery on immigration would only get worse proved true last week. Following the failure of the Senate to advance a bill, Richardson stated:

I am deeply disappointed. You can’t solve a problem by ignoring it. We have got to find a way to bridge the divide and bring people together to address the critical problems facing our nation — immigration, energy, healthcare, education. This is the price America pays for divisive leadership. Congress should continue to work on passing immigration reform.

Richardson explained further his opposition to the Senate immigration bill, while calling for immigration reform, in an address to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on June 30, 2007 in Orlando, Florida.  As reported in the Boston Globe:

“The Congress failed to pass an immigration act, and they must return” to it, said Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a lawmaker of Hispanic background who received one of the most enthusiastic receptions among the seven Democratic candidates for president from the members of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials.

“But it was a bad bill. What I objected to was that they stopped working” on it, Richardson said. He decried that he called an overly onerous provision that would have required undocumented immigrants to return to their home countries to be considered for a green card giving them permanent legal status.

As reported in the Chicago Tribune, at the same conference Obama decried an “ugly undertone that crept into the debate” this year. Yet, Obama defended his vote last year to build the 700-mile fence along U.S. boarder with Mexico because that provision was just one part in a “much more humane” reform bill.  This was not the case.  The “Secure Fence Act of 2006” that Obama, Clinton, Dodd and Biden voted for contained only provisions authorizing the wall and securing the border. Richardson has consistently opposed the border wall as ineffective, a terrible symbol for America and in conflict with our goal of seeking Mexico’s cooperaton on immigration issues.

The Chicago Tribune’s coverage of the Florida conference continued:

But Richardson landed the hardest punch with the crowd when he suggested that the failure to pass fair immigration laws is due partly to a societal failure to recognize that “immigration has historically been a very positive element.”

“I have a message to the American media,” Richardson said. “Do you notice when they depict immigrants, they have somebody crossing a wall … as if they’re criminals? How about the American media looking at the farmworker who breaks his back? How about the American media covering the Latino immigrant that has died for this country?”

Richardson added:  “I’m not running as a Latino candidate. I’m running as an American governor who is enormously proud to be Latino.”

There has been significant blog commentary on the Democratic Presidential debate last Thursday at Howard University.  I won’t add anything further with one exception.  Much of the commentary focused on style and ignored the substance of the candidates’ statements. In particular, on the question of economic growth and tax unfairness, Richardson set forth an unique vision. 

Richardson’s voice is important as he is the only Democratic candidate in the race with executive branch experience and success in working with local communities, private corporations and public entities in creating thousands of new, quality jobs. 

Richardson advocated repealing the Bush tax cuts at the very top of the income bracket, which other candidates did as well.  But Richardson would go much further by replacing the Bush tax cuts with tax cuts for the middle class and to promote job growth, including in the inner cities and rural areas.  Richardson stated: 

We need to rebuild this economy by being pro-growth Democrats. We should be the party of innovation, of entrepreneurship, of building capital, getting capital for African American small businesses. We need to find a way in this country that we say that globalization must work for the middle class.

Finally, the Bay Area Reporter, the leading LGBT paper for the San Francisco Bay Area, profiled Richardson last week:

B.A.R. publisher Thomas E. Horn, who was born and raised in New Mexico and whose family has been involved in the state’s politics – an uncle served as a state legislator and then the state’s Democratic Party chair in the 1950s and 1960s – first met Richardson when he served as a congressman.

“I really think he is the most qualified Democrat in the race for president,” Horn wrote in an e-mail. “His track record is exceptional. He’s done a fine job as governor … and was re-elected with around 70 percent of the vote.”

Horn, who said he expects to make an endorsement in the primary but has yet to back a candidate, said winning the southwest will be key to the Democrats taking back the White House. Not only does he see Richardson having an advantage in the West, but Horn also praised his gay rights track record.

“If a Democrat carries New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, we don’t need Ohio or Florida to win. Richardson is very popular throughout the southwest and stands the best chance of being able to do that,” wrote Horn. “His record of LGBT issues has always been stellar.”