Democracy: March 2009 Archives

There was a positive response to the idea from last week's post, No Schools For You, that suggested,

"If an Assembly or Senate representative demanded cuts to schools, fire, etc. then the schools, fire, etc. in that representative's district receive the entire cut!  This would be an honest application of representative democracy, allowing the citizens of an area to be governed according to their wishes without it affecting all of the citizens in the state."

Seriously, the leaders of the Assembly and Senate should make the few Republican holdouts an offer: if they think government services to the state's citizens are such a bad idea they should stop insisting on so much spending in their districts!  They say that government spending is a problem, why can't they take those Republican governors who are refusing to accept any stimulus money as role models and refuse any state spending in their districts.  Their constituents can then show their overwhelming support for the anti-government ideology that their elected representatives espouse.

Several years ago, then-Senator Phil Gramm of Texas - a Republican - was one of the loudest to complain and complain about spending and "pork" and "earmarks" in the federal budget.  What is called "pork" and "earmarks" are special appropriations of funds by the Congress for specific projects in specific districts: a museum, science lab, agricultural study or bridge that is badly needed is funded by our government.  This is what Republicans call "pork" -- government doing things that citizens need.  Well the biggest, most expensive project in the country at the time was the Superconducting Super Collider, a massive physics lab being built under the ground in Texas, employing hundreds and keeping many construction businesses going.  Well, when it came time to cut some spending the Congress took Senator Gramm at his word and killed the project.

So I think that it would be a very good idea to ask the Republican anti-tax ideologues to put up or shut up.  Give them the opportunity to put their (take away the) money where their mouths are.  If you want spending cuts, let us cut all the spending in your districts -- or please shut up.

Your thoughts?  Leave a comment. 

A new block conservative Democrats in the Congress has formed what they call the Blue Dog Coalition.  Their objective is to block President Obama's health care, energy and union organizing reforms.  This is pretty clearly an effort to attract corporate money; by announcing they have the power to stop Obama's reform efforts, they can soak up millions from companies they would otherwise have to change their polluting or profiteering ways.

Robert Borosage of Campaign for America's Future writes at Huffington Post,

"The new Senate Blue Dogs claim, of course, to be high minded advocates of "fiscal responsibility." But this is often a cover for more parochial concerns. Nelson objects to the Obama budget because it calls for moving to direct lending for student loans, saving billions in subsidies to banks and using that money to pay for increased grant aid. Nelnet, a leading student lender, will be hit badly by the change. Its headquarters happen to be in Nebraska.

Kent Conrad argues piously that the deficits are too high, but that doesn't stop him for opposing Obama's call to save billions by paring the wasteful subsidies that go to agribusiness, leading contributors to Conrad's campaign coffers"

Meanwhile his organization has launched an effort to counter this, called Dog the (Blue) Dogs.

"It is time for progressives to "dog the dogs" -- to call conservative Democrats in the House and Senate and tell them to not be lapdogs for the "Dr. No's" on the right who want to obstruct the administration's common-sense agenda."

Their list includes the following California members:  Joe Baca (43), Dennis Cardoza (18), Jim Costa (20), Jane Harman (36), Loretta Sanchez (47), Adam Schiff (29), Mike Thompson (1).

Note that in the California legislature we have the same problem in the Senate (in particular), with the self-identified "business Dems." At the blog Down With Tyranny! Joshua Grossman wrote a while back,

"Meanwhile, the so-called "Business Dems" number almost half the Democrats in the state legislature and constantly force the watering down of progressive legislation if not ensuring its outright defeat."

 

I was in Sacramento for some meetings this week, and have a few thoughts and observations.

The first is the most important. The people in and around our government are good, dedicated people who are doing those jobs because they care and want to do the right thing.  You don't make big money in public service.  In the last few decades a government job meant less pay than a comparable "private" sector job and a number of working-environment hassles, like the extra procedures (paperwork and bureaucracy) that are required in public positions to involve transparency and accountability.  And, of course, they have to put up with the Republican-inspired abuse of people who work for the government.  So give these people a break and assume good faith.

After decades of budget cutting our government is universally strapped for resources and it makes for a difficult workday.  The things people went into public service to accomplish are being stripped out from under them by the state's structured-to-fail system (see below).  I hope the Bush years trigger some serious thinking about what things would be like without a government, because we are getting close to that possibility.

The state government is now structurally designed to fail -- and this latest budget deal compounds the problem.  This situation was created on purpose by anti-government ideologues, usually corporate-funded.  Thus really is a choice between government by the people or government by a wealthy few who happen to be in control of large corporations.  To them government is "in the way" of making money.  Government means food and safety inspectors so people don't get sick and workers don't get hurt, and protecting workers and the public costs them profits.  Government means regulations stopping them from dumping stuff in the water or air and properly disposing of waste costs them money.  Government means regulations that make them pay back customers who are overcharges.  Government means regulations requiring delivering goods and services that were promised.  SO you can see why the hate government and regulation -- they keep them from just taking your money and giving nothing back! 

So they have used the power that comes from their access to corporate resources to set up a state system that is giving them what they want.  They pay petition-gatherers to get anti-government initiatives on the ballot, and then they flood the TV and radio with lying ads that trick people into voting against their own interests -- and here we are.

Here are just a few of our designed-to-fail structural problems: 

• Term limits mean that thinking must be short term, and encourages passing problems along instead of solving them, because then the problems will be "not on my watch." People who are effective in their jobs are forced out, and voters who want to keep them there are prevented from doing so.
• The campaign-finance system puts corporate-backed candidates in office by necessitating big money to win elections.  And corporations, designed to amass resources, are perfect vehicles for pushing the interests of the few who control them. 
• The two-thirds budget requirement means that a few anti-government extremists are able to sabotage the process, keeping any budget from passing and shutting down the state.
• The disappearance of political reporting in California media means the state's citizens are uninformed about what is going on.  The corporate-owned media concentrates on sitcoms and what Britney is wearing, and does not let the people find out what government is about.

These are just some of the structural problems, and the system is. of course, structurally designed to keep us from fixing them.  The only way we are going to address this is to get lots and lots of people involved.  The election of Barack Obama tells us this is possible but I despair at amount of work that will have to be done to accomplish it.