Public Union Issues Hit Prime Time
The debate over public union pensions, benefits, and influence is gaining more and more attention with the mainstream media and the public at large. This couldn’t be more evident than the release of a new documentary skewering teachers unions and a skit making fun of the public unions on this past weekend’s Saturday Night Live.
In the SNL satirical skit, Kenan Thompson played the host of the "2010 Public Employee of the Year Awards." As he tells his audience at the mock award show, "people with government jobs are like workers everywhere except for lifetime job security, guaranteed annual raises, early retirement on generous pensions and full medical coverage with no deductibles and office visit fees or co-payments."
Have a laugh when you take a look at the skit for yourselves here.
A new documentary on teachers’ unions called "The Cartel" was produced and reported by former Bloomberg television reporter, Bob Bowden. He argues in his 90-minute documentary that the state of the public schools are the greatest threat to the nation and that powerful teachers unions are the cause of failed public education.
An Attempt to Stymie Pension Reform
One major battle to reform the public pension system is being played out over an assembly bill that would restrict the power of local governments to declare bankruptcy. Assembly Bill 155 by Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, came out of the Senate Local Government Committee this week after Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg dumped an opponent of the bill from the committee allowing the union backed bill to move along its way.
The bill is a power play by the public employee unions to stymie the use of bankruptcy as a device to reconsider public employee contracts. The bill surfaced after the City of Vallejo declared bankruptcy and used the bankruptcy laws to reconfigure pension provisions for new city employees and demand higher contributions in the retirement fund from current employees.
In an environment in which city and state officials are looking for ways to maneuver past fiscal crises, public employee pensions and benefits have become a hot issue. Suggestions on revamping pensions and benefits have popped up from the governor’s office to non-profit foundations. Much attention has been focused on Steven Malanga’s essay in the City Journal laying California’s deficit problem at the feet of public employee unions.
Strategy in Gov Race Could Assist Campbell in Senate Race
President Barack Obama’s visit to Los Angeles yesterday in support of Senator Barbara Boxer’s re-election bid is another sign that Boxer is in trouble – or that Obama has learned a lesson not to take an election for granted. His last minute attempt to rescue Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts senate race to replace Ted Kennedy was too little, too late.
Will California be a replay of the Massachusetts election?
California politics has come to resemble Massachusetts politics over the years. The two states are not exactly mirror images of one another, granted; yet the similarities are noticeable. Both states have overwhelming Democratic legislatures and solid Democratic voter majorities. Both find themselves with growing independent voting blocks that often determine elections. California Republicans, as a whole, tend to be more conservative that Massachusetts Republicans.
However, let’s also note that the Proposition 13 tax revolt, which spread across the country, was almost immediately adopted in Massachusetts. The Bay State version, Proposition 2 ½, also limited property taxes. Like Proposition 13, despite constant attacks, the public in the blue state of Massachusetts holds the property tax limitation favorably even after three decades.
Brown Debate Idea May be Ahead of it’s Time; But Not This Year
Jerry Brown’s weekend suggestion at the state Democratic convention that a pre-primary debate take place between him and his main Republican rivals is a way for Brown to insert himself into the Republican primary. He is following the example of his one time chief-of-staff and later governor, Gray Davis, who jumped into the 2002 Republican gubernatorial primary. Davis ran ads to undercut his most feared opponent, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
Davis was sitting on enough campaign cash in those pre-billionaire candidate days to afford to spend some campaign funds and weaken his rival. Brown needs to husband all the money he has for a November election battle so his plan is to disrupt leading Republican candidate, Meg Whitman, by drawing her into a three-way debate.
As Riordan rival Bill Simon welcomed Davis’s ads nearly a decade ago, Steve Poizner saw Brown’s move as an advantage to his tough uphill campaign and eagerly agreed to the debate.
California a Poor Model for Federal Tax Plan
The United States income tax structure is starting to look like the California income tax structure and that is not a good thing. California should be a lesson for federal tax planners. Relying more and more on the “rich” to carry the tax burden subjects the treasury to wild swings in revenue. That is something we experienced too often in the Golden State, as the economy goes through ups and downs.
There is also a question of fairness in who pays the bills for government services. Everyone should pay something to provide for government. People should not be dropped completely off the tax rolls, nor should there be loopholes for the wealthy taxpayers to escape all tax obligations.
On this tax day, state officials will be hoping for a rush of income tax returns to help pull California out of its deficit hole. But when approximately 144,000 income tax filers pay 50% of the state income tax, the tax structure is built on a rickety foundation.
The Cooley Effect on Editorials
An interesting editorial in the Los
Angeles Times yesterday in which the Times editorial board charged that the
Steve Cooley for Attorney General campaign boasted about an earlier negative
Times editorial on Cooley under the assumption that if the Times says Cooley is
bad, he must be okay.
All the hammering the mainstream media has received over the
last couple of decades, certainly some justified, has set up a scenario for
many readers that if a newspaper says one thing, believe the opposite.
Yesterday’s Times editorial recognized the inherent
contradiction in trying to analyze the motives of this reverse psychology:
McClintock Should Not be Judged By Election Tally
Tony Quinn argued here yesterday that Steve Poizner‘s campaign was wrong in tying itself to Congressman Tom McClintock because McClintock’s philosophy has failed to win him a statewide race in four attempts.
The Steve Poizner of today is not the same Steve Poizner of yesterday. That may not necessarily be a bad thing depending on why Poizner changed directions. As Benjamin Franklin said after the Constitutional Convention, he changed opinions even on important subjects with “better information and fuller consideration.” However, the Tom McClintock of today is the Tom McClintock of yesterday and that consistency throughout his public life and has set him up as a measuring stick for others to stand by.
McClintock’s conservative line may not move the majority or be enough to capture statewide elections from an electorate that may not want to take bitter medicine, but his analysis of fiscal issues very often has been right on the mark. Remember too, that a couple of his statewide electoral efforts went into overtime, with the final count declaring his opponent victorious coming days after all the other elections on the ballot were decided.
The Endless Political Debate
Here’s something beer and politics have in common — an endless debate over what’s most important in their product. For those of you who remember the two decade long advertising campaign for Miller Lite beer, the question argued was the beer was good because of “Great Taste” or because the brew was “Less Filling!” In politics you hear the debate centered around whether a candidate must be faithful to a party’s perceived principles or be centrist enough to get elected.
What brings this to mind was a couple of questions from the recent USC/L.A. Times poll that caught my attention. The questions dealt with which kind of candidate the Republican Party should put forward. Should the standard bearer be a conservative who can rally the base? Or should he or she be more centrist to capture crossover voters from the Democrats and Independents?
The pollsters found that registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters who said they would vote Republican were fairly evenly divided on the question. These voters were asked whether it was important that the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator or Governor be a “true conservative.”
Friday Snippets: Issue Ads, Reagan Day & the Anti-Meg, Anti-Steve Websites
While the Jerry Brown campaign was successful in pressuring the California Chamber of Commerce to pull the Issue Advocacy ad off the air, one thing the campaign won’t be able to do is have the issues raised by the Chamber go away.
A Brown campaign spokesman called the ad “misleading,” but the facts are clear that Jerry Brown campaigned against Proposition 13 and left the state in deficit. Those issues will come back via other vehicles.
Brown’s position on Prop 13 now is: I was against it before I was for it and now I don’t want to talk about it.
Can he maintain that position through Election Day in November?
CalChamber Rightly Voices Business Concerns in Advocacy Ad
Business must be heard on the important issues in this upcoming crucial gubernatorial election. The public employee unions rushed into the fray months ago creating Independent Expenditures, eagerly responding to Democratic candidate Jerry Brown’s request that the unions attack his opponent on issues. The California Chamber of Commerce was right to begin laying the framework for a debate on important issues by advocating on one of the chief concerns business will face under a Brown administration: Taxes and spending.
The Chamber’s issue advocacy television ad campaign comes months after public employee unions established their efforts to badger Republican frontrunner Meg Whitman. Brown has urged them to do more.
Jobs and the economy are major concerns for the voters in this election cycle and the business community has an obligation to step into the hurly-burly of politics and inform the voters on issues such as taxes and spending that will endanger economic recovery and job growth.