The Budget: 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.