{"id":13009,"date":"2011-01-06T02:15:24","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T02:15:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-01-06T02:15:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T02:15:24","slug":"norquistians-put-ideological-fealty-above-democracy-and-the-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/06\/norquistians-put-ideological-fealty-above-democracy-and-the-middle-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Norquistians Put Ideological Fealty Above Democracy and the Middle Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You know how we are going to need to cut into our core expenditures next year unless we get some additional revenue? &nbsp;This seems to be Gov. Brown&#8217;s intentions, but to do that, he needs a 2\/3 vote in each house. &nbsp;Of course, that means that he needs some Republican votes.<\/p>\n<p>Well, &#8220;Americans for Tax Reform&#8221; aka Grover Norquist&#8217;s group that intends to drown the government in the proverbial bath tub, has no intention of not creating a feces laden storm if any of the Republican legislators break their pledge to him. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The national anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform will e-mail and fax letters tomorrow to California legislators who signed its no-tax pledge, warning them the group will consider any vote to put tax extension measures on the ballot a violation of that pledge, said the group&#8217;s state affairs director Patrick Gleason. &#8230; &#8220;This is to make clear that putting before a vote a measure to extend the taxes that Brown has proposed would violate the pledge,&#8221; Gleason said. &#8220;We count that as an assist. It&#8217;s not a direct score, but it&#8217;s an assist.&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.sacbee.com\/capitolalertlatest\/2011\/01\/americans-for-tax-reform-placi.html\">Capitol Alert<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Instead, Mr. Gleason would like to see not only the government, but the entire middle class drowned in the process. &nbsp;A cuts only budget would bring the wrecking ball to our K-12 system, and shut down many social services. &nbsp;In a very real sense, the fate of California&#8217;s middle class is on the line.<\/p>\n<p>At a juncture like this, in a state like California where the plebiscite has become King, a vote of the people seems to make the most sense. &nbsp;If the people really loathe taxes, and Grover and the gang are representing the wishes of California, shouldn&#8217;t a vote be the best thing for everybody. &nbsp;After all, if the taxes were defeated, it would really signal to all the world that Californians favor short-term self interest over what was once called the &#8220;California Dream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the other side of the coin would be that California would approve taxing ourselves, as our neighbors to the north <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/10992\/oregon-voters-deliver-gamechanging-victory\">did last year<\/a>. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If we are going to have a system dominated by a slew of ballot initiatives, we need to give the people the vote on the very future of the Middle Class. &nbsp;To do any less would be to thwart democracy for only the grand purpose of political expediency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You know how we are going to need to cut into our core expenditures next year unless we get some additional revenue? &nbsp;This seems to be Gov. Brown&#8217;s intentions, but to do that, he needs a 2\/3 vote in each house. &nbsp;Of course, that means that he needs some Republican votes.<\/p>\n<p>Well, &#8220;Americans for Tax Reform&#8221; aka Grover Norquist&#8217;s group that intends to drown the government in the proverbial bath tub, has no intention of not creating a feces laden storm if any of the Republican legislators break their pledge to him. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The national anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform will e-mail and fax letters tomorrow to California legislators who signed its no-tax pledge, warning them the group will consider any vote to put tax extension measures on the ballot a violation of that pledge, said the group&#8217;s state affairs director Patrick Gleason. &#8230; &#8220;This is to make clear that putting before a vote a measure to extend the taxes that Brown has proposed would violate the pledge,&#8221; Gleason said. &#8220;We count that as an assist. It&#8217;s not a direct score, but it&#8217;s an assist.&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.sacbee.com\/capitolalertlatest\/2011\/01\/americans-for-tax-reform-placi.html\">Capitol Alert<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Instead, Mr. Gleason would like to see not only the government, but the entire middle class drowned in the process. &nbsp;A cuts only budget would bring the wrecking ball to our K-12 system, and shut down many social services. &nbsp;In a very real sense, the fate of California&#8217;s middle class is on the line.<\/p>\n<p>At a juncture like this, in a state like California where the plebiscite has become King, a vote of the people seems to make the most sense. &nbsp;If the people really loathe taxes, and Grover and the gang are representing the wishes of California, shouldn&#8217;t a vote be the best thing for everybody. &nbsp;After all, if the taxes were defeated, it would really signal to all the world that Californians favor short-term self interest over what was once called the &#8220;California Dream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the other side of the coin would be that California would approve taxing ourselves, as our neighbors to the north <a href=\"https:\/\/calitics.com\/diary\/10992\/oregon-voters-deliver-gamechanging-victory\">did last year<\/a>. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If we are going to have a system dominated by a slew of ballot initiatives, we need to give the people the vote on the very future of the Middle Class. &nbsp;To do any less would be to thwart democracy for only the grand purpose of political expediency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117,204],"tags":[571,60],"class_list":["post-13009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117","category-204","tag-571","tag-60"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3nP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}