Government and governing: July 2009 Archives

Well, the Republicans got their way. The state's budget (read: services provided to the state's people) has been cut and cut again.  Services to the disabled are cut again.  State workers suffer a huge pay cut through furloughs.  The state's universities and colleges are cut dramatically.

Corporations got a big tax cut. 

All of this, of course, is for today.  In a few weeks we will get another reduced estimate of revenue and the process starts again.  And because so many things were just kicked into next year - including interest owed in borrowing - it will be even worse.  Citizens will see a 10% increase in withholding, which will all come back, but which reduces their ability to pay mortgages, etc.

All so that oil companies won't be asked to pay for the oil they take and sell back to us.  All so people making $600,000 will not be asked to pay $38.42 more per week in taxes (which can then be deducted from federal taxes).  All so businesses will not be asked to pay property taxes at current rates.

The LA Times on Sunday, Pat Brown's California takes a beating in Sacramento,

The visionary governor swept into office in 1959, and by the time he was swept out eight years later, he had created the 16-dam, multiple-aqueduct state water project, devised the three-tier college and university system, constructed nine major campuses and built more than 1,000 miles of freeways to connect regions of his burgeoning state. To this day, much of what gets us where we are going -- literally and figuratively -- stems from what he did in his two terms.

[. . .] In Brown's California, there was a broad consensus that government was a competent force for good. Now, among Californians of all political ideologies, there is the opposite: a repudiation of government and, even more, of any confidence in the governor and the Legislature to act competently. On that matter, at least, California as a whole has shifted to the right.

[. . .] "The whole spectrum has shifted so far to the right that today's Democrats are yesterday's Republicans. Yes, the state is more Democratic, but it is by no means liberal."

I'm not sure I agree that the people of the state are behind this at all.  The Republicans depended on that infrastructure that was built up in the years of good government, before the conservatives tore government down.  Now the public will start to see what it means to not have the government there for them.

So they reached a budget deal.  The gap was closed entirely with cuts to essential service, schools, health care, etc.  Democrats had to cave out of fear that elderly people literally would not have oxygen tanks.

And to add insult to injury, instead of paying for the oil they take from the state the oil companies receive waivers to allow them to drill offshore!  In the last deficit-fix deal big corporations got a huge tax cut and now oil companies get more of our oil for free.  And we will suffer more pollution of our coasts.  (It's pretty clear from deals like these who is in control of the Republican caucus.  The citizens get services taken away, the big corporations get perks that increase the deficits.)

This is a Republican budget deal, entirely on their terms.  Make them own it.

Here is how you make them own it: Make them vote for it.

Before any Democrat votes for this deal, every single Republican has to vote yes.  When the voting start, just sit there.  Wait.  And then when the Republicans have all voted, ONLY THEN should Democrats start voting, but not before. 

If we are going to have to live with a budget forced on us by Republicans and oil companies, then the Republicans have to show up and vote for it.

During my first term in the California Legislature back in 1998, I was reminded regularly that the state budget is a moral document, setting forth the priorities and values of its people. If what we are seeing today is such a set of priorities, we have clearly lost our moral compass.

Passing out pink slips to our teachers while giving tax-breaks to multi-national corporations sets a sad standard in the annals of decency and short-sightedness. What is more important than our children and their future? Apparently to the right-wing Republicans who have taken a pledge against balancing the budget thoughtfully and fairly and who forced yet another such  boondoggle before agreeing to the February, 2009 budget,it is seeing to it that their big corporate donors (the real special interests in our state) get even more from California while giving nothing in return.

At the same time our governor boasts that he's so cool with what's happening that he is spending his evenings in his jacuzzi with his 8 inch stogie while people in wheel chairs are being arrested outside his office because they're asking  for simply enough to maintain a level of human dignity while they fight to survive each day.  Yet, this apparently doesn't offend enough that the media has barely mentioned the Governor's directive to arrest these folks while he embarasses us all with his cigars and indulgences. It is shameful. Our lack of indignation is shameful, too. Where is our moral compass?

While in Washington D.C. recently, I went to the wonderful FDR Memorial, located within a stone's throw of the Jefferson Memorial. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a man who set this country on a path of compassion and greatness with his effort to give every American the opportunity to live with dignity. One is reminded of this throughout his Memorial.

During a time not too different from today, he gave us hope and challenged us not to succumb to fear.His was a vision of possibility, dignity and kindness combined with the greatness to see that vision become a reality. His moral compass should have set the tone not just for several generations of Americans,  but for all generations when he said,

                            The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the

                            abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide

                            enough for those who have too little

 

Today, all we hear about is how we are taxed too much; that we have to do without; that we have to give big corporations more so they create jobs (a totally false premise since so much of their profit goes to greedy executives or to create jobs in other countries); that we should cut education, healthcare, close our parks, reduce services that protect our natural resources and protect our environment and public health, etc. The list goes on and on, but for those who have either forgotten the admonition of Franklin Roosevelt or the role of government to provide for the common good, it's simply and ONLY about the money and shrinking government so it can no longer function.

While there is certainly a good argument that government cannot be all things to all people and that it must respond to the economic circumstances of the times, the Governor and the anti-government right-wing that has far too much influence in California (because of the 2/3 vote requirement for a budget) have taken this too far. To be OK with giving to those who have the most at the expense of those who have the least and even to the middle-class struggling to stay afloat means we have forgotten who we are as a people.

It is time to start talking about investing in our people and our future and regain our moral compass. And it should start with the Governor getting out of his jacuzzi and listening to those in steel chairs who are asking for simple dignity. Or better yet, he should remember the words of the man who governed from a steel-chair and did so with great compassion and success. That's real leadership.

Today's San Jose Mercury News has a front-page story, California leaders in no hurry to break budget impasse. From the story,

"Despite plunging tax revenues, Wall Street's unwillingness to loan the state money and billions of dollars worth of IOUs hitting mailboxes, California's leaders are displaying a seeming lack of urgency to close the state's $26.3 billion deficit.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders blew past a supposedly ironclad June 30 deadline to pass a new budget..."

Blew past?  The legislature did pass a budget fix last week, but the Governor vetoed it!  This choice by the Governor led to the state needing to issue IOUs.

But readers who depend on this newspaper for information about the state budget process have no way to know this.  In fact, I have had difficulty locating any news source in the state that informed citizens that a budget fix passed and was vetoed.  (The papers did write that the Governor had threatened a veto, but -- and I may be wrong - I can not find a single story explaining that he did it.)

To their credit (I guess) the San Jose paper hinted at the veto in an editorial a week ago, Governor didn't need to push state over the edge, writing,
 

"In rejecting a stopgap fix for the budget on Tuesday, the governor and GOP leaders have accelerated a budget meltdown that pushes the state deeper into debt."

Talking to people involved, I pick up a sense that passing a budget fix after the Governor said he would veto it was pointless, so not worth mentioning.  But isn't that for the voters to decide?  Many would say that passing the fix, especially at the last minute after all negotiations had failed and the state was going over the cliff was the responsible thing to do, also known as governing.  This put a budget fix on the table and available for use to avoid the calamity and cost of IOUs, rating downgrades, etc.  The Governor had a clear choice at that point, and chose to take the state over the cliff.  The voters should have been told, not kept in the dark that the Governor made that choice.  

Meanwhile, the other side still refuses to offer up any plan of their own, still insisting that the Democrats fix the budget entirely with cuts to services that the public needs and take the blame for that.  They refuse to allow any plan that asks oil or tobacco companies to pitch in.  They claim the wealthy will "leave the state" if asked to pitch in an additional $40 a week.  They make up stories about companies leaving the state (but can't name any).  But it is not reported that the Republicans refuse to offer a plan or engage in serious negotiations.  It is as if the Republicans are expected to not be serious, so it's not worth reporting that they aren't serious.  The voters should have been told.  

The system of democracy depends on the voters being informed so they can apply pressure as needed and remove officeholders who are not doing what the voters want them to do.  But none of this works if the citizens have no way of learning simple facts, like that the legislature did govern responsibly and pass a budget fix, which the Governor vetoed.  The voters should have been told.

The resignation of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin provides an opportunity to understand what is happening to us in California.  There are people who have so little respect for government and governing that they think Palin's resignation is a good thing.  In California there are also people who have so little respect for government and governing that they think it is a good idea to let the state fall off of a financial cliff.

Sarah Palin is said to be resigning so she can climb the ladder of Republican politics -- possibly even to run for the Republican nomination for President in 2012.  One would think that abandoning office in the middle of her term would disqualify her from having a future in seeking elected office.  But this is not the case -- just the opposite.  In fact this is so much not the case that the resignation is seen as a "brilliant" strategic move to increase her chances of obtaining that Presidential nomination prize.

The lesson to take away from Palin's resignation is that actually governing once elected to office is not the point.  Modern-day Republican Party politics is not about governing, not even a little bit. It is about being against governing.

This is how they can get away with being against government:  Good government was put in place in this country in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s (with 90% tax rates at the top, by the way) and has been taken for granted since.  The infrastructure of roads, laws, trash collection, etc. has been in place and functioning for so long that it is taken for granted.  And so it all provides a safe platform for anti-government ideologues to pretend that government is not needed.

This brings us to California.  We have a minority of elected officials who also do not care about governing.  So far they have been able to get away with it, because of the work that We, the People did for several decades to build this state and make it governable. 

California enjoyed massive government infrastructure investment from the 1930s through the 1960s.  We built the best roads, water systems, schools, courts, etc.  As a result we had the most prosperous industries, most well-educated people and best-functioning government. 

And so the anti-government tax-cutting ideologues were able to defer maintenance of that wonderful system, handing the maintenance money out as tax cuts, and no one saw the foundations of that prosperity slowly begin to erode.  They were able to complain about government and ignore governing because government was there for them and all of us anyway.

Well now we have coasted along on the infrastructure built decades ago, but it has eroded, and we are coming to the end of the time when the ideologues can enjoy the luxury of deferring maintenance.  But our Republican leadership is firmly entrenched in their anti-governing ideology.  They are willing to let the state fall off a cliff rather than actually pay to maintain the governing structure they depend on -- because they believe it will just operate as it seemingly always has, for free.

But governing is about about the people of the state and their needs.  It takes skill, wisdom, an understanding of government and governing to be an elected leader.  Sarah Palin obviously has none of these qualities, nor does Ahnold, for that matter.  While our most vulnerable people are begging for their services and programs not to be dismantled so that they can actually have food and help in their most basic needs, our Governator boasts about sitting in his jacuzzi smoking a stogie.Would FDR ever suggest that? Would Dwight Eisenhower?   What kind of leadership, compassion, understanding is reflected in these kind of "leaders."  The answer is obvious and dramatic: NONE.