Government and governing: October 2009 Archives

Is the private sector more efficient than government?  Do they do better work?  Here is a letter to the editor in the San Jose News this morning:

Private contractors' work often shoddy

Be careful what you wish for. As a municipal employee, I spent 20 years redoing and fixing work done by private contractors. They cut corners everywhere the contract allows. When inspectors aren't looking, they do whatever they think they can get away with. The end result is frequent and early failures that cost more to fix than it would have cost to do it correctly with quality parts when it was built. The municipal employee has to live with the work he does, so he tries to make it maintainable and reliable.

When you lay off government employees and contract out you are dealing with companies that wants to make a profit.  This can lead to cutting corners, cutting quality, cutting worker pay and benefits, trying to get around environmental rules, etc.  So privatizing can cut both ways.  Maybe you can save some money, maybe not.  But this idea that the private sector always does things better than We, the People just ain't necessarily so.

This is a guest post by Senator Loni Hancock. 

Editor's note:  Senator Loni Hancock, who represents the 9th State Senate District, has long been an advocate for good government and transparency. As chair of the Senate Committee on Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments, she has worked tirelessly to bring accountability and governance reform to assure California meets the challenges of the 21st century.

She is passionate about campaign finance reform and getting corporate money out of the electoral process to ensure candidates and legislative leaders represent their constituents and not the big campaign contributors who buy far too much of their own self-interest at the expense of the public.

So it was a natural for Senator Hancock to be selected to serve on this newly established Assembly and Senate "Select Committee on Improving State Government" and she's a natural to comment on her thoughts, priorities and observations about the need to fix and reform several critical aspects of how state government should be operating to meet the needs of the people of California:

These days, just about everyone agrees that change is needed in Sacramento.

This year's state budget set the record for being the latest, and probably the worst, in California's history.  It has created severe strains on local governments and school districts, and threatens to cut the heart out of education and undermine programs that help  those most in need.  It's time for change and that change needs to happen now.

The good news is that we are finally seeing movement for change in Sacramento.  Today, the newly-created "Assembly and Senate Select Committee on Improving State Government," will hold the first in a series of open, public hearings throughout the state. The Committee is charged with developing specific proposals to reform state government.  It will investigate obstacles that stand in the way of government that meets the needs of the people of California, and recommend action to remove those obstacles.

I believe there are three major reforms needed to get California back on track:

(1) We must remove the 2/3rds requirement to pass a state budget. California is one of only three states with a 2/3 budget rule requirement.  This has allowed a few legislators to hold the entire state budget hostage.  The U.S. Congress and 47 states require a simple majority to pass a budget.  We need to give the majority party, Republican or Democratic, the ability to do its job and then hold them accountable.  That's what democracy is all about.

(2) We need to reform term limits. Legislators with a lack of experience or institutional memory are dealing with increasingly complex challenges and a dysfunctional governance system.  More than one-third of the Assembly is brand-new every two years,

(3)  We need to reduce the influence of money in politics.  Public financing of campaigns in California would change the playing field considerably.  Candidates would no longer have to raise campaign funds from special interests with legislation pending before the Legislature; they would owe their election only to the people they represent.

The Joint Committee on Improving State Government will hold four hearings throughout the state.  In addition to today's hearing in Sacramento, the Committee will hold open, pubic hearings in the Bay Area on November 12^th; in Los Angeles on December 3^rd; and in the Central Valley on December 15^th.  Specific details of time and location are still being worked out.

I highly encourage you to attend one of these hearings - your voices and your concerns must be part of the process if we are to truly restore democracy and ensure a brighter future for our state.

Dan Walters asks, When U.S. economy recovers, will California be left behind?  Walters talks about "the business climate" which usually is interpreted to mean do we tax and regulate  businesses.

Well here is a business problem: many businesses say that recovery will be delayed in California because there just are not enough trained workers ready to compete in a 21st-century economy.  And the infrastructure is in terrible shape, and courts take too long to hear cases, etc.

These problems are not because of high taxes. Instead they are problems because we have cut taxes and government and now there is not enough government to educate workers, fix roads and bridges, hear court cares, etc.

We need to get our priorities back where they belong and get our government back to educating our kids and workforce and fixing roads and hearing court cases, etc., so businesses want to come here and stay here and thrive and provide the 21st century jobs that we need.

What does it mean to be a "governor?"  What does it mean to "govern?"

In the news, the Governor has threatened to veto 700 bills in an attempt to force the legislature to do his bidding on water policy.

700 important items all held hostage, trying to stampede and scare the legislature to do something in a hurry, while terrible scare stories circulate on talk radio and throughout corporate media.  Does this sound like a familiar tactic?

Water policy is complicated because over many decades wealthy real estate developers bought permission to build huge swaths of housing in dry area, so water needed and needs to be piped in from  ... somewhere else.  And huge agricultural interests make a lot of money using water that used to be heavily subsidized, meaning the people paid for the water and a few wealthy corporate interests pocketed the profits.

At the same time there is less water to go around.  We have had three years of below-average rainfall, which is possibly a permanent condition because of climate change (which Republicans deny is happening).  And the destruction of the environment and fisheries and groundwater caused by past bad practices is catching up, so hard choices must be made.  Does our government protect the people, the environment, corporate profits?

So on one side of this we have giant corporations and the short-term profits they suck out of our communities and state, and of people who are where they are after being lured there for the sake of those short-term profits, and who eat the way they do because government had been "persuaded" (paid) to subsidize the water for the sake of those short-term profits.  People need water to drink even if they do live in a desert and need to eat and have gotten used to food that costs less because the water has been subsidized.  (But maybe they don't need to water their driveways and nice lawns.) 

On the other side we have the long-term interests of most of the people and of the environment.  See if you can guess which side the Republicans and the Governor are on?