{"id":13311,"date":"2011-03-25T23:04:57","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T23:04:57","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-03-25T23:04:57","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T23:04:57","slug":"steinberg-ready-to-pull-the-plug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/25\/steinberg-ready-to-pull-the-plug\/","title":{"rendered":"Steinberg Ready to &#8220;Pull the Plug&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" align=right src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jRk6hhJ27TY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>Sen. Steinberg looks pretty peeved in this little impromptu press conference. &nbsp;His frustration with dealing with the Republicans is plainly visible, and for that you really can&#8217;t blame him. &nbsp;After all, if you can blame him for anything, it is being too patient with them. &nbsp;The question that is worth pondering now is whether we should have seen this coming three months ago?<\/p>\n<p>Look, the Republicans are content to sit there and let the clock tick down. &nbsp;As we proceed now, Gov. Brown becomes less popular, and there is a decreased sense of unity of purpose after the disaster that was Gov. Schwarzenegger. &nbsp;Really, if your goal is to beat the government into submission, at this point you are just playing the long game.<\/p>\n<p>And so the Republicans just sit there, taking their salary, taking that per diem, and sitting around playing tiddleywinks. &nbsp;They haven&#8217;t even proposed anything resembling a full solution to the budget plan. &nbsp;They keep talking about pension reform, but any economist or budget analyst can tell you that even if you did slash into public pensions, the savings wouldn&#8217;t come for at least 5-10 years.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the Republicans aren&#8217;t serious about balancing the budget. &nbsp;They are content to watch the teacher layoffs and the elderly lose assistance. &nbsp;It is all one big piece of white noise to them.<\/p>\n<p>So, will the Democratic leadership give up? Well, at some point they won&#8217;t have a choice, but the Republicans are aware of that and have their own plan:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As Gov. Jerry Brown mulls his options on how to bring an election on taxes to the voters, Republicans are readying election measures of their own. GOP operatives filed two initiatives with the attorney general&#8217;s office Thursday &#8212; one to curb public employee pensions and another aimed at capping future state spending &#8212; in the event Brown walks away from talks with Republican lawmakers and opts for a November special election. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to make sure appropriate reforms join any potential November election,&#8221; said former Assemblyman Roger Niello, the sponsor of the pension initiative. Niello, one of the Republicans to support tax increases in 2009, said he supports the five senators who are trying to broker a compromise with Brown. &#8220;My preference is that they work out a deal,&#8221; he said. (<a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/california-politics\/2011\/03\/republicans-file-pension-spending-measures-just-in-case-talks-with-jerry-brown-collapse.html\">LA Times<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If it comes to a November ballot, it&#8217;s going to be pricey, and there are going to be a lot of ugly measures. &nbsp;This just might end up being 2005 all over again. Whether it will defeat Gov. Brown like it did to Schwarzenegger is a whole other question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" align=right src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jRk6hhJ27TY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>Sen. Steinberg looks pretty peeved in this little impromptu press conference. &nbsp;His frustration with dealing with the Republicans is plainly visible, and for that you really can&#8217;t blame him. &nbsp;After all, if you can blame him for anything, it is being too patient with them. &nbsp;The question that is worth pondering now is whether we should have seen this coming three months ago?<\/p>\n<p>Look, the Republicans are content to sit there and let the clock tick down. &nbsp;As we proceed now, Gov. Brown becomes less popular, and there is a decreased sense of unity of purpose after the disaster that was Gov. Schwarzenegger. &nbsp;Really, if your goal is to beat the government into submission, at this point you are just playing the long game.<\/p>\n<p>And so the Republicans just sit there, taking their salary, taking that per diem, and sitting around playing tiddleywinks. &nbsp;They haven&#8217;t even proposed anything resembling a full solution to the budget plan. &nbsp;They keep talking about pension reform, but any economist or budget analyst can tell you that even if you did slash into public pensions, the savings wouldn&#8217;t come for at least 5-10 years.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the Republicans aren&#8217;t serious about balancing the budget. &nbsp;They are content to watch the teacher layoffs and the elderly lose assistance. &nbsp;It is all one big piece of white noise to them.<\/p>\n<p>So, will the Democratic leadership give up? Well, at some point they won&#8217;t have a choice, but the Republicans are aware of that and have their own plan:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As Gov. Jerry Brown mulls his options on how to bring an election on taxes to the voters, Republicans are readying election measures of their own. GOP operatives filed two initiatives with the attorney general&#8217;s office Thursday &#8212; one to curb public employee pensions and another aimed at capping future state spending &#8212; in the event Brown walks away from talks with Republican lawmakers and opts for a November special election. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want to make sure appropriate reforms join any potential November election,&#8221; said former Assemblyman Roger Niello, the sponsor of the pension initiative. Niello, one of the Republicans to support tax increases in 2009, said he supports the five senators who are trying to broker a compromise with Brown. &#8220;My preference is that they work out a deal,&#8221; he said. (<a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/california-politics\/2011\/03\/republicans-file-pension-spending-measures-just-in-case-talks-with-jerry-brown-collapse.html\">LA Times<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If it comes to a November ballot, it&#8217;s going to be pricey, and there are going to be a lot of ugly measures. &nbsp;This just might end up being 2005 all over again. Whether it will defeat Gov. Brown like it did to Schwarzenegger is a whole other question.<\/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],"tags":[3405],"class_list":["post-13311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117","tag-3405"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3sH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13311","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=13311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}