Since our national system has been so messed up, I’ve never paid attention to California politics much before. But I think now that we have adults in charge of the nation again, I think our next goal as California progressives is to get control of our own state. So a lot of what I’ll be posting politically here on my blog is going to focus on local issues here in California. I think a lot of it will be interesting to people in other areas, too. And I encourage everyone to get involved with and stay informed about what’s going on in your own area of the country.
I do suggest reading the Calitics blog as one of the best way to get informed if you are in California. They really dig into a lot of these issues. I don’t always appreciate their viewpoints, which are a bit to the left of mine, but I’ll try to pass along the most interesting stuff.
What you’re going to see playing out over the next few weeks and months is a fight for who gets the stimulus and how it is distributed, as well as a major battle to move California back to progressive leadership. The times our state has done the best have been when we are leading the nation, not trailing it. Right now the Republican party is controlled by people with heads firmly up their asses in this state, and very big business oriented.
We don’t need big businesses right now, we need education, health care, innovative science and technology research, and small, growing companies. Small companies hire FAR more people as they grow, and that is what we need to start pushing for right now. The jobs aren’t going to come from the big players. I expect those large businesses to start falling like dinosaurs, in fact. It’s time for a lot of very nimble shrews who will be able to adapt to what’s going to be a rapid cycle of change if we are to grow out of this. Otherwise, we go into depression era policies of trying to preserve a dead economic system.
It’s time for change, as we so well know from Obama’s campaign. Now, let’s work on our own states.
Eric Garcetti Stomps On Budget Deal, Lights It On Fire
by: David Dayen
Thu Feb 12, 2009 at 10:32:37 AM PST
Before last night’s blogger conference call with LA City Council President Eric Garcetti, my opinions of the budget deal from Sacramento weren’t very well-formed. I think I have become so inured to craptastic solutions from Sacramento that this one looked no worse than others. Of course, I don’t have a responsibility to constituents and a need to implement the outlines of the plan, so Garcetti’s very forceful words against the package kind of snapped me out of my slumber. Here’s a paraphrase.
“I think it’s a reflection of a broken system. It’s like shooting a little morphine into a sick patient. I think depending on federal dollars to balance the budget is irresponsible, and will blunt the impact of the stimulus. It means that the county and school districts will see a lot of projects rolled back. The health care cuts are going to be devastating. You’re going to see a lot more homeless people this year, a lot more people who need critical care and can’t get it. So there is no joy in this resolution other than that it is a resolution.”
Very strong stuff. And he’s not wrong. My one quibble would be that it’s not the reliance on federal stimulus dollars to balance the budget, which is necessary and will save jobs throughout the system, that gets me, but the continued reliance on borrowing and the raid of voter-approved funds for mental health and early childhood programs, which is illegal and will require the unlikelihood of passing new initiatives.
There isn’t any margin for error if, say, one of the FIVE measures that will now be on the ballot in order to secure the budget fail, or if the giant corporate tax cut fails to satiate business, or if nobody wants to buy our debt or buy the state lottery, which is losing revenue. It’s another seat-of-our-pants craptastic budget which makes no long-term solutions and essentially keeps intact a broken structure. Garcetti is right that the problem is systemic, and so that’s the goal for progressives in the state for this point forward – systemic change.
3 Responses
If California would start taxing cannabis it would quickly solve its budget problems.
As for California, and all the other states with budget deficits, I say the taxpayers of each state should decide how to deal with their respective problems.
Californians had fun getting rid of taxes, but couldn’t give up programs. The result was inevitable, world economic crisis or not, wasn’t it?
On the other hand, if us idiot taxpayers, via our dumbass Congress, choose to pauper the future to pay for our mistakes, I guess California deserves as much consideration as any other dumbass state (like, for example, Florida).
When Charlie Crisp became governor, he couldn’t wait to ram through a real-property tax reduction. Whoopee! When our bill went down, I immediately switched to a pricier wine for my daily nip (I made that up). Now, the schools are struggling, the court system is whining, and things are generally in a funk. Would decreased tax revenues due to the “housing crisis” have been an issue? I suppose so, but it became a double whammy.
The one lesson I believe Citizens will never learn is that the services they enjoy from government cost money (usually more money than they are worth, but that’s a problem that will never end), and that we either pay for them or do without them (or a lesser form of them).
You said California should lead the nation,that’s the problem with California right there.My state Michigan along with other states in Great Lakes Region tried that once.We started the Republican Party.Not just to abolish slavery but to end polygamy and other sins in the territories.What we learned was to take over our own state.We have more state parks than any other state in the country.Our state was destroyed buy the federal government and businesses.You see pics of Michigan before 1920’s is disturbing.Mining,forests,lakes destroyed.Now we our very environmental.First we bought our state from federal government.We decide what gets mined,clear cut,and fished.Forests are replanted,Fish are replaced with hatcheries,and mining is done very clean.We approve along with others states and Canada refineries and dumping in Great Lakes because we have jurisdiction over lakes not federal government it’s in our states constitutions so forget about transferring water.We are committed to 10% clean energy by 2015 passed by our state government.Yes we build cars they account for 5-8% of pollution,Carbon Coal Plants are the majority of pollution which we are working to get rid of. Our state has learned the hard way how to take control.We have many natural resources,that we fight tooth and nail to protect.You have to start doing the same thing.Your state makes a lot of money off Coal and Oil instead of stopping production,you complain at car companies and even made out car companies to be villians ,When your state is like a drug dealers of carbon pollution selling oil and coal and complaining about the addicts which are car companies and coal plants.By the way another thing that get people in other regions upset is that you always want federal government to flip the bill for your problems.When your state owns it’s resources the state gets the money not the federal gov’t ,that’s how Michigan funds a lot of our programs from our natural resources,plus we have higher business taxes but we have a flat rate income tax so rich don’t complain.In Michigan Arabic is the second spoken language in our state and we border Canada where french is also a first language with English.The problem is that Spanish is constantly forced in our schools because of federal programs,which come from where.Every Region in the US is different and the federal government needs to back off and let the states do what they need to do.We all have different issues and problems and cultures and all the mandates have only helped the South and the South West and thrown other region off,The problem is California high jacked the Democratic party,and Texas high jacked the Republican party.Enjoy the Democratic majority but if it get to liberal and to much goes to California the Great Lakes Region will vote them out,the people here are all about compromise and the middle road.Business balanced with environment and workers rights.