{"id":8934,"date":"2009-05-21T16:02:51","date_gmt":"2009-05-21T16:02:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-05-21T16:02:51","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T16:02:51","slug":"why-are-cuts-posed-as-inevitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/21\/why-are-cuts-posed-as-inevitable\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Cuts Posed As Inevitable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will be on KRXA 540<\/a> at 8 to discuss this and other topics in California politics<\/I><\/p>\n

Last night I was on Angie Coiro’s Green 960 show<\/a> to discuss the failure of the May 19 propositions and where we go from here. Opposite me (virtually speaking) was Sen. Mark Leno, although we agreed much more than we disagreed (which is how I prefer it!).<\/p>\n

Leno said something quite interesting, and unfortunately the best I can do right now is to paraphrase it. He said something to the effect of “for too long Democrats have been Arnold Schwarzenegger’s enablers,” that they haven’t done enough to push back against him.<\/p>\n

I think that’s a welcome and truthful admission. And yet I wonder if the enabling has completely stopped. Republicans are busy pushing their narrative of what happened on May 19, that voters rejected taxes and demanded spending cuts. Unfortunately, Democratic leaders appear to be enabling this point. Certainly Senator Darrell Steinberg and Speaker Karen Bass have said that they don’t believe that is what happened and that voters want to protect key government services. And yet the rest of their statements, as David Dayen explained yesterday<\/a>, are unhelpfully claiming cuts are inevitable<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Legislative leaders in both parties said drastic cuts will be made to close the gap, although Democratic lawmakers hinted that bridging the gap with cuts alone may be too difficult in a $92 billion general fund budget.<\/p>\n

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he agrees with the scope of Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts, which total about $9.8 billion. The big debate, he added, will be over how to close the rest of the gap.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Steinberg is signaling a fight over the rest of the hole beyond $9.8 billion. But it doesn’t strike me as wise to even concede that amount in cuts.<\/p>\n

As I’ve explained before<\/a>, spending cuts are an extremely damaging way to “balance” the budget. Mass layoffs and cuts to core services will actually exacerbate the economic crisis and in turn exacerbate the collapse of tax revenues. Further, polls have shown massive public support for taxing the wealthy and corporations. Why aren’t Democrats starting there?<\/p>\n

Having talked with several legislators in Sacramento yesterday, they feel chastened, and they understand that voters are angry with them. And yet I’m not quite sure they understand the risks they’re running. A raid on local government money alone could produce open revolt (of the political kind) against the state legislature. Such a raid will push dozens of cities into bankruptcy and worsen planned cuts to police and fire services. That’s a recipe for even deeper public anger with the Legislature.<\/p>\n

Democrats in particular need to think about the medium-term before accepting cuts as inevitable. Many Dems believe a 2\/3 majority is winnable in 2010. It is certainly within the realm of possibility – but Democrats also risk endangering their own position by causing a massive “throw the bums out” backlash in the November 2010 election.<\/p>\n

The Democratic leadership should instead finally stop the enabling, as Leno recognized was necessary, and start assertively proposing their own better solutions. The reason many Democratic voters sat on their hands on May 19 was because they weren’t given anything positive or hopeful to embrace. There were no progressive solutions offered, and nothing that would have suggested a line would be held. Voters want something to rally behind. Taxing the wealthy in order to protect schools and health care services and local government seems a good place to start.<\/p>\n

The special election was the exact opposite of the November election. Whereas Barack Obama got himself elected president by empowering millions, building a grassroots movement that made voters feel they were a respected part of the process, and by offering a hopeful message of change, he generated major enthusiasm even though he offered  solutions that the Republicans thought they could easily oppose.<\/p>\n

California voted 61% for Obama and his agenda of taxing the wealthy and sustaining the government safety net in our time of need. That needs to be the Democratic model moving forward. Cuts aren’t inevitable. Republicans have been rejected as wild extremists by most Californians. Democrats have the space to assert a less ruinous and more assertive budget agenda. Starting off by conceding that cuts and not new taxes should be the solution unfortunately doesn’t help them either solve the budget or improve their fortunes  in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will be on KRXA 540<\/a> at 8 to discuss this and other topics in California politics<\/I><\/p>\n

Last night I was on Angie Coiro’s Green 960 show<\/a> to discuss the failure of the May 19 propositions and where we go from here. Opposite me (virtually speaking) was Sen. Mark Leno, although we agreed much more than we disagreed (which is how I prefer it!).<\/p>\n

Leno said something quite interesting, and unfortunately the best I can do right now is to paraphrase it. He said something to the effect of “for too long Democrats have been Arnold Schwarzenegger’s enablers,” that they haven’t done enough to push back against him.<\/p>\n

I think that’s a welcome and truthful admission. And yet I wonder if the enabling has completely stopped. Republicans are busy pushing their narrative of what happened on May 19, that voters rejected taxes and demanded spending cuts. Unfortunately, Democratic leaders appear to be enabling this point. Certainly Senator Darrell Steinberg and Speaker Karen Bass have said that they don’t believe that is what happened and that voters want to protect key government services. And yet the rest of their statements, as David Dayen explained yesterday<\/a>, are unhelpfully claiming cuts are inevitable<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Legislative leaders in both parties said drastic cuts will be made to close the gap, although Democratic lawmakers hinted that bridging the gap with cuts alone may be too difficult in a $92 billion general fund budget.<\/p>\n

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he agrees with the scope of Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts, which total about $9.8 billion. The big debate, he added, will be over how to close the rest of the gap.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Steinberg is signaling a fight over the rest of the hole beyond $9.8 billion. But it doesn’t strike me as wise to even concede that amount in cuts.<\/p>\n

As I’ve explained before<\/a>, spending cuts are an extremely damaging way to “balance” the budget. Mass layoffs and cuts to core services will actually exacerbate the economic crisis and in turn exacerbate the collapse of tax revenues. Further, polls have shown massive public support for taxing the wealthy and corporations. Why aren’t Democrats starting there?<\/p>\n

Having talked with several legislators in Sacramento yesterday, they feel chastened, and they understand that voters are angry with them. And yet I’m not quite sure they understand the risks they’re running. A raid on local government money alone could produce open revolt (of the political kind) against the state legislature. Such a raid will push dozens of cities into bankruptcy and worsen planned cuts to police and fire services. That’s a recipe for even deeper public anger with the Legislature.<\/p>\n

Democrats in particular need to think about the medium-term before accepting cuts as inevitable. Many Dems believe a 2\/3 majority is winnable in 2010. It is certainly within the realm of possibility – but Democrats also risk endangering their own position by causing a massive “throw the bums out” backlash in the November 2010 election.<\/p>\n

The Democratic leadership should instead finally stop the enabling, as Leno recognized was necessary, and start assertively proposing their own better solutions. The reason many Democratic voters sat on their hands on May 19 was because they weren’t given anything positive or hopeful to embrace. There were no progressive solutions offered, and nothing that would have suggested a line would be held. Voters want something to rally behind. Taxing the wealthy in order to protect schools and health care services and local government seems a good place to start.<\/p>\n

The special election was the exact opposite of the November election. Whereas Barack Obama got himself elected president by empowering millions, building a grassroots movement that made voters feel they were a respected part of the process, and by offering a hopeful message of change, he generated major enthusiasm even though he offered  solutions that the Republicans thought they could easily oppose.<\/p>\n

California voted 61% for Obama and his agenda of taxing the wealthy and sustaining the government safety net in our time of need. That needs to be the Democratic model moving forward. Cuts aren’t inevitable. Republicans have been rejected as wild extremists by most Californians. Democrats have the space to assert a less ruinous and more assertive budget agenda. Starting off by conceding that cuts and not new taxes should be the solution unfortunately doesn’t help them either solve the budget or improve their fortunes  in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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":[],"class_list":["post-8934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2k6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}