"The most consistent and smartest thinking and writing about progressive politics isn't happening in Sacramento, but being churned out day after day on sites and by organizations like Calitics, Orange County Progressive, and the California Budget Project." - CalBuzz
Now I know the corporate media haven't been talking about it lately, but just because they're not talking about it doesn't mean it's not happening. Rather, it's quite dangerous that it's falling under the radar. Believe it or not, the climate crisis is getting worse.
We all now know that Arnold topped off the "budget of misery" with even more misery, cuts that may not even be legal. These cuts will literally kill thousands of HIV-positive Californians. These cuts will throw thousands of working families off their health care programs, and may ultimately kill a number of them. Don't be fooled, these cuts are lethal and we're only starting to feel the pain.
However, a few good progressives haven't given up yet. Courage Campaign is responding by calling on the Legislature to return to Sacramento ASAP to vote to override Arnold's additional line-item veto cuts. Included after the flip is the full letter from Courage Public Policy Director (and friend of OC Progressive) Robert Cruickshank.
It looks like a budget deal may finally be made. Yes, yes, I know I've been saying that for a while. But now, it really looks like Arnold is caving on eliminating CalWORKS as Democrats cave on stopping cuts-only madness. While it could have been even worse, this will nonetheless take the cake as a horrendous "deal" that will cause massive pain in many people's lives.
Arnold looks to be getting his desired enrollment cap on Healthy Families, California's S-CHIP program. While other states are actually expanding health care coverage for children of working families, kids will be turned away from the doctors' offices and health clinics here. Oh, and it gets worse. Home health care services for disabled people will be gutted. State parks may be closed. More state workers will be fired.
And you know what makes this even worse? We'll be paying for these cuts long into the future. Remember that it costs more to care for sick people in the emergency room than at the health clinic. It costs more to turn away tourists and day-trippers from state parks than to keep the parks open. It costs more to throw troubled kids in jail than to prevent future crime with good education and after-school programs.
So all in all, "Arnold's Folly" will deeply hurt all of us. And really, this isn't just his folly. Karen Bass and Darrell Steinberg must also share the blame for not doing more to present a progressive alternative. The corporate establishment also shares the blame for refusing to pay their fair share of taxes while still expecting giveaway after giveaway after giveaway. And ultimately, we the people also share the blame for living in la-la land for far too long in expecting all the amenities in the world and refusing to think about paying for any of them.
Thanks to the many silly gimmicks, false accounting, and empty rhetoric in "The Age of Arnold", "The California Dream" now looks to be nothing more than an illusion. Will we ever see it again?
Earlier this morning, The Sacramento Bee reported that a possible deal fell through last night and that The Legislature will work some more today to finalize a long-awaited budget deal. However, The LA Times is already reporting now that a budget deal may be announced as soon as later today. Unfortunately, many of Arnold's ugliest social safety net slashings will be included. But fortunately, some of the deepest education cuts he was looking for, as well as a weakened two-tier pension overhaul for state workers, look to be out of the running.
Honestly, I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved right now. While the final deal will likely be better than what Arnold had specifically wanted, it's still quite awful and it will likely counteract whatever positive effects we get from the federal stimulus spending.
Still, stay tuned here at OC Progressive as we follow the latest budget news from Sacramento.
We need not look further than The Sacramento Bee's interactive map of California job losses to see how bad policies in Washington and Sacramento have really made an impact... In a negative way. Fortunately, there may be signs of life in other parts of the country as President Obama's stimulus spending finally starts to kick in. However, the federal stimulus will likely be offset here by even more massive cuts to the very social safety net that's badly needed to survive a recession.
Oh, jeez. I guess you can call this "turning lemons into lemonade", but is this really fair to all the small businesses that depend on state business? Here's what I'm talking about.
Many California credit unions will accept state IOUs - formerly called registered warrants - even though many banks say they will take the IOUs only until Friday, July 10.
But some entrepreneurs are stepping in. A search on Craigslist for "California IOUs" turns up numerous offers to buy the warrants for cash at a discount.
The state started paying more than $3 billion in bills with the IOUs because it has run out of cash, and the legislature and governor have yet to come up with a solution to more than $26 billion in red ink for the state budget. The state will pay 3.75% interest on the IOUs Oct. 2, or earlier if it comes up with the cash.
The payments affect product and service vendors and contractors with the state. Small businesses and independent contractors could have financial problems waiting to get their money. State employees, and recipients of Social Security and unemployment benefits are being paid normally, not receiving IOUs.
Financial institutions can accept the IOUs for face value before they are eligible for redemption, and then the institution will get the interest, not the creditor, according to State Treasurer Bill Lockyer.
But Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and Citigroup are among the banks that have said they will accept IOUs only until July 10.
I guess it's good that at least some credit unions will continue to accept the state IOUs. Still, this doesn't look good for all of those who bank at "the big banks". Will they be forced to sell the IOUs at a discount to random people on Craigslist? Or will they have to wait even longer to just be paid for their services?
It's too bad we have a Governator who cares nothing about the suffering people in California. For all his talk on being "pro-business", he doesn't seem to want to lift a pinky to help these vendors and contractors stay in business.
A solution's near? Oh, never mind. It's a stopgap that might just delay the inevitable.
Unusually unified legislators were moving today to prevent the state from issuing IOUs next week by delaying some payments to schools and local governments - but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warned he would veto the maneuver.
On votes of 69-0 and 54-0, Assembly members passed two of three bills designed to free up cash and buy the state time while legislators and Schwarzenegger wrestle with the bigger task of healing a gaping wound in the state budget. The third bill was also expected to be approved by the Assembly, and the state Senate was also expected to pass the
But hey, I guess it's something. It would buy the Legislature that nearly exhausted resource that is time. But Arnold, oh Arnold, he doesn't want anything that isn't exactly what he wants.
Schwarzenegger, in a statement, said that what lawmakers passed "amounts to nothing more than a piecemeal proposal."
"Since the first day we began working to solve this $24-billion deficit, I have been clear: the Legislature must solve the entire deficit," he said.
If it passes both houses, "I will veto it because it doesn't solve the problem," the governor said.
Stay classy, Mr. Governator. Let the state run out of cash next week and let the state simply collapse.
"If the governor wants his legacy to be 'I refused to sign a bill that would have prevented IOUs,' that's his choice," Steinberg said. "I think it's a bad choice."
Two of the bills would defer payments that would have been due to all levels of the public education system and cities and counties for road repair until later in the fiscal year that starts July 1, or the 2010-2011 fiscal year, as well as cut deeper into state spending for schools in the fiscal year that ends next Tuesday.
The third bill redrafts a measure legislators passed earlier this year that would transfer money from regional redevelopment agencies to the state. In April, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly ruled the cash grab was unconstitutional because the redevelopment money wouldn't necessarily be used by the state within the redevelopment agencies' areas. The bill passed by the Assembly today would require that the funds be used in school districts that at least partially overlap the redevelopment areas.
Assembly budget chairwoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said the trio of bills would raise a total of about $5 billion. Legislative staff said that could be enough to delay the issuance of IOUs through July and August.
Honestly, this all smells fishy and it certainly doesn't solve any of our long-term budget issues. But still, a workable budget that can actually pass is probably still a few more days away and this may at least stop this horrid hot mess from worsening exponentially. I mean, would you accept an IOU from The State of California?
But again, Arnold doesn't care about averting any more pain and suffering. He just likes to posture. It's too bad he's doing it at our expense.
OK, so the big news we all expected actually happened yesterday. The Republicans blocked the Democratic "already compromised" budget that was already full of heavy cuts. Why? They say they want "a complete solution", but we know that's all hogwash and they really like being obstructionists.
So what can we do now? Senate President Pro-tem Darrell Steinberg tries to provide some answers. (h/t to Calitics)
It looks like Sacramento Democrats may finally be growing some spine and standing up for us. Can this be true? I doubt it, but at least Steinberg's statements give me some reason to hope again.
As we've talked about before, working-class Californians, even those who were previously middle-class or even upper-middle-class, need a strong social safety net now more than ever before. Now is definitely not the time to take that social safety net away from all these people in desperate need of help.We've been asking the legislators not to do this, and hopefully our Democratic leaders are finally listening.
In the coming days, they'll need to stand strong and fight for a reasonable budget. They can't fail us now. We just can't afford it.
Lawmakers are set today to vote on a plan to plug California's $24-billion budget deficit, despite predictions from leaders of both parties that it won't pass.
Legislative leaders were saying even before the first vote was cast that key provisions of the Democrat-crafted proposal -- in particular, tax hikes on the oil and tobacco industries -- will almost certainly fail to garner the necessary two-thirds approval. [...]
If today's attempts to pass the Democrats' plan flops as anticipated, legislative leaders and Schwarzenegger are expected to gather behind closed doors in coming days to negotiate a compromise.
California Progress Report also admits that the Democratic plan probably won't pass today. But as I've asked before, why did they even give up so much in the first place? They're not hurting themselves as much as they're hurting their constituents.
The cuts in this budget are severe enough, so I don't see how the state will ever recover with even more cuts to more of the social safety net that people need in a recession like this one. I honestly don't see falling halfway down the cliff of doom as that much better than going all the way down as Republicans want. And with Orange County already implementing massive budget cuts, I don't see how our local governments can afford any state raid into local funds as Arnold has proposed.
I don't want to give up hope for California, but it's increasingly looking bleak and downright terrifying here. Perhaps Gus is right and the Sacramento pols don't mind playing Russian Roulette with possibly turning the state's crisis into a national "Greater Depression"?
Maybe under different circumstances, I'd be up in arms over Fresno Assembly Member Juan Arambula jumping ship from the Democratic Caucus. And still, it's a pretty lousy thing for him to do when Democrats supported his candidacy and he was elected on the premise that he'd act more like a Democrat. But whatever, he's termed out and I doubt he'll have an easy time running for elected office ever again.
As Dave Dayen says so well at Calitics today, this really does little if anything to actually impact state business. Why? It's already a mess, and it doesn't change the fact that Democrats need to stand by a sensible budget, and that either a handful of Republicans need to do the right thing a support a truly balanced budget or Arnold needs to stop being a hypocrite ("Give it to me on time... Except if it's not exactly what I want, then I veto it.") and sign a majority-vote fee package.
Honestly, this news isn't all that big. The budget crisis remains, and something needs to be done to solve it. If Arambula wants to be a part of the problem, then that's his problem. Hopefully, Legislature Democrats won't let this make them even more weak-kneed.
Overall, I thought The LA Times put an interesting editorial in its paper today on the ever-worsening budget crisis. They rightly call out Arnold and his GOP for their frighteningly disgusting cut proposals that would destroy the social safety net that the working poor (and increasingly now, middle class) depend upon for survival. However, there was something about it that just did not make sense.
As you probably know by now, brutal budget cuts are being advocated by Arnold and considered by the Legislature. And no, I'm not just using the term "brutal" to be melodramatic. I'm using it to get you to realize how these cuts may literally kill people.
Consider California's HIV/AIDS assistance programs, for instance. Without them, many thousands of HIV positive people may have no access to the medicine and overall health care they need to survive. Without HIV/AIDS services, these people will die.
So please, please take action right now to help save people's lives. Included after the flip is a copy of EQCA's letter. Send it as is if you must, but please feel free to make it your own. Also make sure your own legislators know how you feel about letting people die to "balance the budget".
75% support increasing taxes on alcoholic beverages (62% support among 'No' voters)
74% support increasing taxes on tobacco (62% support among 'No' voters)
73% support imposing an oil extraction tax on oil companies just like every other oil producing
state (60% support among 'No' voters)
63% support closing the loophole that allows corporations to avoid reassessment of the value of
new property they purchase (58% support among 'No' voters)
63% support increasing the top bracket of the state income tax from nine point three percent to
10 percent for families with taxable income over $272,000 a year and to eleven percent for
families with taxable incomes over $544,000 a year (51% support among 'No' voters)
59% support prohibiting corporations from using tax credits to offset more than fifty percent of the
taxes they owe (55% support among 'No' voters)
Duh! - promoted by atdleft)
Remember when rabid anti-tax, anti-government GOP connector Grover Norquist openly fantasized about shrinking government to a point where it can be "drowned in a bathtub"? Well, it seems this may finally come to fruition in California. It seems Mimi Walters and her fellow Yacht Party, "NO!" Party lemmings may finally get the whole state to fall off the cliff with them. I guess we're all screwed.
But wait, is this all really inevitable? When did Grover Norquist & Howard Jarvis become eternal dictators of this state?
And now, let the blame game begin! Who's to blame for last night's election results? The LA Times is wasting no time blaming "we the people" for rejecting a craptastic set of initiatives. The OC Register, meanwhile, looks to be pointing the finger at Arnold. The Republican minority's trying to blame it on Democrats, while many Democrats are blaming the Republican minority.
