{"id":13330,"date":"2011-03-30T20:17:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T20:17:42","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-03-30T20:18:13","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T20:18:13","slug":"jerrys-message-and-a-rambo-take-on-the-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/30\/jerrys-message-and-a-rambo-take-on-the-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerry&#8217;s Message and a Rambo Take on the Budget?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" align=right src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iLuZya3tv-Q\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>Well, the concept of a June election is now dead. So where do we go from here? &nbsp;We don&#8217;t have a lot of time, even qualifying a ballot measure to get on a November special doesn&#8217;t offer a ton of time. &nbsp;So, in theory, Jerry could get to work on getting his deal on the budget right now. And in the video (to the right) that seems to be what he&#8217;s after.<\/p>\n<p>But the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calbuzz.com\/2011\/03\/budget-war-looms-why-backers-matter-in-cd36\/\">folks at CalBuzz have a different scenario<\/a> in mind:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Here&#8217;s how it would work: Set things up so that the Democrats &nbsp;approve, with a majority vote, a conditional all-cuts budget that presumes no tax extensions. (We wonder if Republicans would vote for it.) Then gather signatures to place that on the November ballot, with a provision that if the measure fails the cuts will not occur because the 2009 taxes and fees will be re-instated for five years. As a practical matter, cuts can be delayed to occur after November. And costs can be shifted to local government for local responsibilities whether the measure wins or loses.<\/p>\n<p>Then let Grover Norquist, Jon Fleischman, radio heads John and Ken and the rest of their not-our-problem cadre be forced to argue for the budget ballot measure while Democrats and labor argue against it.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, make the &#8220;yes&#8221; position a vote for cutting programs for widows, orphans, fish and fawn and the &#8220;no&#8221; position a vote for freedom, justice and common decency on our streets and in our homes. Recall: in the history of ballot propositions in California, &#8220;no&#8221; beats &#8220;yes&#8221; 67% of the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, there are a lot of interesting moving parts in this scenario, some that will probably require some legal approval. But why not go for something that will a) work and b) might be something that progressives can really support. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Now, I tend to think that the CalBuzz\/Jerry Brown revenue package proposed is hardly progressive. &nbsp;In fact, I can&#8217;t really see any way to argue that it is. &nbsp;It takes money disproportionately from those that can&#8217;t afford to save money. &nbsp;So, why not put on a revenue package, either in addition to, or instead of, that at least includes some sort of a fair share for corporations and resource hogs. &nbsp;Why not put that oil extraction on there? Or an overhaul of the income tax system that actually provides for more than two tax brackets.<\/p>\n<p>There are more that we all could think of if we brainstormed, but maybe a little creativity here could be beneficial.<\/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\/iLuZya3tv-Q\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>Well, the concept of a June election is now dead. So where do we go from here? &nbsp;We don&#8217;t have a lot of time, even qualifying a ballot measure to get on a November special doesn&#8217;t offer a ton of time. &nbsp;So, in theory, Jerry could get to work on getting his deal on the budget right now. And in the video (to the right) that seems to be what he&#8217;s after.<\/p>\n<p>But the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calbuzz.com\/2011\/03\/budget-war-looms-why-backers-matter-in-cd36\/\">folks at CalBuzz have a different scenario<\/a> in mind:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Here&#8217;s how it would work: Set things up so that the Democrats &nbsp;approve, with a majority vote, a conditional all-cuts budget that presumes no tax extensions. (We wonder if Republicans would vote for it.) Then gather signatures to place that on the November ballot, with a provision that if the measure fails the cuts will not occur because the 2009 taxes and fees will be re-instated for five years. As a practical matter, cuts can be delayed to occur after November. And costs can be shifted to local government for local responsibilities whether the measure wins or loses.<\/p>\n<p>Then let Grover Norquist, Jon Fleischman, radio heads John and Ken and the rest of their not-our-problem cadre be forced to argue for the budget ballot measure while Democrats and labor argue against it.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, make the &#8220;yes&#8221; position a vote for cutting programs for widows, orphans, fish and fawn and the &#8220;no&#8221; position a vote for freedom, justice and common decency on our streets and in our homes. Recall: in the history of ballot propositions in California, &#8220;no&#8221; beats &#8220;yes&#8221; 67% of the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, there are a lot of interesting moving parts in this scenario, some that will probably require some legal approval. But why not go for something that will a) work and b) might be something that progressives can really support. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Now, I tend to think that the CalBuzz\/Jerry Brown revenue package proposed is hardly progressive. &nbsp;In fact, I can&#8217;t really see any way to argue that it is. &nbsp;It takes money disproportionately from those that can&#8217;t afford to save money. &nbsp;So, why not put on a revenue package, either in addition to, or instead of, that at least includes some sort of a fair share for corporations and resource hogs. &nbsp;Why not put that oil extraction on there? Or an overhaul of the income tax system that actually provides for more than two tax brackets.<\/p>\n<p>There are more that we all could think of if we brainstormed, but maybe a little creativity here could be beneficial.<\/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":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3t0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330","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=13330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}