{"id":9078,"date":"2009-06-08T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-08T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-06-08T22:47:17","modified_gmt":"2009-06-08T22:47:17","slug":"examining-democrats-failed-budget-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/06\/08\/examining-democrats-failed-budget-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Examining Democrats’ Failed Budget Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the votes aren’t there for taxes<\/a> and if the votes aren’t there for Arnold’s cuts<\/a>, then what are there votes for? That’s the key question in Sacramento right now, and the answers we’re getting from inside the Capitol aren’t encouraging. From Matier and Ross<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Budget bailout: The latest plan being floated by state Senate Democratic leader Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento to solve the state’s $24.3 billion budget problem goes something like this:<\/p>\n

— Make $19 billion in cuts. [Steinberg’s people claim this is a misquote – see note just below this blockquote about this statement.]<\/p>\n

— Tap into $4.5 billion of reserve money.<\/p>\n

— And “borrow” a couple of billion from local government.<\/p>\n

Steinberg says the cuts will be deep and painful, but that the state will be able to survive without completely gutting education and health care for the poor.<\/p>\n

And therein lies the irony.<\/p>\n

“It’s a double bind,” said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. “We do our best to minimize the pain, and then everyone just thinks we were crying wolf.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shorter Darrell Steinberg: “We’re going to have a cuts-only budget.”<\/strike><\/p>\n

Note from Robert:<\/b> Steinberg’s communications director Jim Evans chimed in down in the comments<\/a> to say Steinberg was misquoted by Matier and Ross:<\/p>\n

Hi all, Actually my boss was misquoted by the fine people of the Chronicle on this one. He told KCBS’s “In Depth” (where Matier got his info) we will do $19 Billion in “SOLUTIONS.”  That is different than $19 B in cuts.  For reference, the Gov’s framework is about 60% cuts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back to your originally scheduled post.<\/p>\n

The problem is that nobody will see this as “minimizing the pain” – instead everyone will think, with good reason, that Democrats cannot be counted on to defend the people who voted for them. While the 2010 governor’s race will probably see some higher turnout, there is going to be a big dropoff downticket. Dems aren’t giving people an incentive to vote for them, even though it’s highly likely that the Dem budget strategy is being driven by electoral considerations (i.e. how to position themselves to win the purple seats).<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that Democrats are taking the “no votes for taxes” at face value. Instead of putting in the work to find those votes – votes that the Binder poll<\/a> shows would be popular with voters and therefore should not actually be all that difficult to produce – Democrats are shutting out those voices demanding new revenues<\/a>, particularly those from unions that led the fight against the flawed May 19 propositions:<\/p>\n

For example, there are pledge forms being passed around to lawmakers by a major labor union that might have attracted takers in budget battles past. The union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, wants the legislators to sign statements of support for up to $44 billion in new or higher taxes on the wealthy, oil companies, tobacco and other industries, products and people.<\/p>\n

But so far the drive hasn’t produced a single signed form, even from the Democrats who normally march into California’s budget fights in lock-step with organized labor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What explains this, as Shane Goldmacher and Evan Halper explain in a devastatingly accurate analysis, is that Dems have embraced Governor Hoover’s shock doctrine:<\/p>\n

But even some of the most liberal Democrats say some union leaders are ignoring the reality of an angry public, a sour economy and a state government approaching insolvency. Moreover, more taxes would require Republican support in the Legislature, and the minority party has made clear that there will be none…<\/p>\n

The Democratic leadership has largely accepted the governor’s framing of the budget crisis as one requiring deep cuts, quickly. Any taxes they may push for are expected to be limited.<\/p>\n

“Of course there are going to be cuts,” said Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). “This is the worst drop in revenue since the 1930s. We’re going to try to be as surgical as we can in making very difficult decisions, but we will make the decisions.”<\/p>\n

Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), a veteran lawmaker and former caucus leader, said, “When someone tells us ‘No new cuts,’ I say, ‘Look, don’t tell me that.’. . . . There is the sense that we must do what we must do to keep California solvent.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suppose in this case “surgical” is meant as a metaphor for outright amputation of limbs.<\/p>\n

Totally missing in this discussion is any examination of the economic consequences of the cuts<\/a>. Instead what we’re seeing is a movement toward a mostly-cuts budget with some raiding of other funds to enable Democrats to say they preserved programs – even if they accede to an evisceration of those programs through 50% cuts. To hear elected Democrats tell it, the real battle will be to find votes for fee increases, which could offset more of the cuts but would certainly fail to close the entire gap.<\/p>\n

Instead we ought to be seeing Democrats using the proposed cuts to aggressively assert a totally different message on the budget – that we are in this crisis because of tax cuts and tax giveaways to the wealthy and to corporations. That doesn’t seem to be on the table in either the Assembly or the Senate.<\/p>\n

What all of the above suggests to me is that Sacramento Democrats are essentially clueless in how to deal with the budget fight, and have been for many years now. No wonder the unions are fed up<\/a> and planning to take their cause directly to the voters. Sacramento has failed us. Time to take our state back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the votes aren’t there for taxes<\/a> and if the votes aren’t there for Arnold’s cuts<\/a>, then what are there votes for? That’s the key question in Sacramento right now, and the answers we’re getting from inside the Capitol aren’t encouraging. From Matier and Ross<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Budget bailout: The latest plan being floated by state Senate Democratic leader Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento to solve the state’s $24.3 billion budget problem goes something like this:<\/p>\n

— Make $19 billion in cuts. [Steinberg’s people claim this is a misquote – see note just below this blockquote about this statement.]<\/p>\n

— Tap into $4.5 billion of reserve money.<\/p>\n

— And “borrow” a couple of billion from local government.<\/p>\n

Steinberg says the cuts will be deep and painful, but that the state will be able to survive without completely gutting education and health care for the poor.<\/p>\n

And therein lies the irony.<\/p>\n

“It’s a double bind,” said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. “We do our best to minimize the pain, and then everyone just thinks we were crying wolf.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shorter Darrell Steinberg: “We’re going to have a cuts-only budget.”<\/strike><\/p>\n

Note from Robert:<\/b> Steinberg’s communications director Jim Evans chimed in down in the comments<\/a> to say Steinberg was misquoted by Matier and Ross:<\/p>\n

Hi all, Actually my boss was misquoted by the fine people of the Chronicle on this one. He told KCBS’s “In Depth” (where Matier got his info) we will do $19 Billion in “SOLUTIONS.”  That is different than $19 B in cuts.  For reference, the Gov’s framework is about 60% cuts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back to your originally scheduled post.<\/p>\n

The problem is that nobody will see this as “minimizing the pain” – instead everyone will think, with good reason, that Democrats cannot be counted on to defend the people who voted for them. While the 2010 governor’s race will probably see some higher turnout, there is going to be a big dropoff downticket. Dems aren’t giving people an incentive to vote for them, even though it’s highly likely that the Dem budget strategy is being driven by electoral considerations (i.e. how to position themselves to win the purple seats).<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that Democrats are taking the “no votes for taxes” at face value. Instead of putting in the work to find those votes – votes that the Binder poll<\/a> shows would be popular with voters and therefore should not actually be all that difficult to produce – Democrats are shutting out those voices demanding new revenues<\/a>, particularly those from unions that led the fight against the flawed May 19 propositions:<\/p>\n

For example, there are pledge forms being passed around to lawmakers by a major labor union that might have attracted takers in budget battles past. The union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, wants the legislators to sign statements of support for up to $44 billion in new or higher taxes on the wealthy, oil companies, tobacco and other industries, products and people.<\/p>\n

But so far the drive hasn’t produced a single signed form, even from the Democrats who normally march into California’s budget fights in lock-step with organized labor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What explains this, as Shane Goldmacher and Evan Halper explain in a devastatingly accurate analysis, is that Dems have embraced Governor Hoover’s shock doctrine:<\/p>\n

But even some of the most liberal Democrats say some union leaders are ignoring the reality of an angry public, a sour economy and a state government approaching insolvency. Moreover, more taxes would require Republican support in the Legislature, and the minority party has made clear that there will be none…<\/p>\n

The Democratic leadership has largely accepted the governor’s framing of the budget crisis as one requiring deep cuts, quickly. Any taxes they may push for are expected to be limited.<\/p>\n

“Of course there are going to be cuts,” said Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). “This is the worst drop in revenue since the 1930s. We’re going to try to be as surgical as we can in making very difficult decisions, but we will make the decisions.”<\/p>\n

Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), a veteran lawmaker and former caucus leader, said, “When someone tells us ‘No new cuts,’ I say, ‘Look, don’t tell me that.’. . . . There is the sense that we must do what we must do to keep California solvent.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suppose in this case “surgical” is meant as a metaphor for outright amputation of limbs.<\/p>\n

Totally missing in this discussion is any examination of the economic consequences of the cuts<\/a>. Instead what we’re seeing is a movement toward a mostly-cuts budget with some raiding of other funds to enable Democrats to say they preserved programs – even if they accede to an evisceration of those programs through 50% cuts. To hear elected Democrats tell it, the real battle will be to find votes for fee increases, which could offset more of the cuts but would certainly fail to close the entire gap.<\/p>\n

Instead we ought to be seeing Democrats using the proposed cuts to aggressively assert a totally different message on the budget – that we are in this crisis because of tax cuts and tax giveaways to the wealthy and to corporations. That doesn’t seem to be on the table in either the Assembly or the Senate.<\/p>\n

What all of the above suggests to me is that Sacramento Democrats are essentially clueless in how to deal with the budget fight, and have been for many years now. No wonder the unions are fed up<\/a> and planning to take their cause directly to the voters. Sacramento has failed us. Time to take our state back.<\/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-9078","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-2mq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9078","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=9078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}