What Journalists See
Where do reporters who cover California politics think the state is heading post election 2008? That was the area under discussion behind the Friday lunch time panel at a post election conference held at the University of Southern California sponsored by USC’s Jesse Unruh Institute and Politico.
Unruh Institute Director Dan Schnur and USC Daily Trojan political reporter Catherine Lyons fired questions at a panel of California reporters and editors who combined have been watching Golden State politics for well over a century.
To the question, can President-elect Barack Obama look to California as a model for bi-partisanship or, as Governor Schwarzenegger frequently trumpets in his speeches away from the capitol, a post-partisan world? The answer was a decided No. Amy Chance of the Sacramento Bee noted that in the eyes of Republican elected officials post partisanship means one Republican, the governor, and the Democrats. Capitol Weekly’s Anthony York said the lesson for Obama out of California is to beware of your friends, they are more dangerous than your enemies.
Where Does Arnold Go Next?
During a panel of California journalists at a post-election forum last week put together by the Unruh Institute at USC, there was lots of discussion about what Gov. Schwarzenegger might do next. Many theories were advanced, but no conclusions reached.
The immediate question is whether Schwarzenegger will leave California before his term is up and join the Obama administration. The governor himself has appeared to rule this out with several statements saying he intends to serve out his term. As someone who spent three years of my life researching the life and politics of this man, I would advise against taking these statements at face value.
While Schwarzenegger has been more consistent in his policy positions than he’s given credit for (most — but not all — of his flip flops are cases of other people hearing what they want to hear), the governor is always inconsistent when it comes to matters of personal strategy and his own career.
For What Are Taxpayers Thankful?
In this season of thanksgiving, please don’t blame taxpayers if they
are distracted by the injuries being perpetrated against them by our
political class.
California ranks 6th nationally in tax burden, but taxpayers are
being assaulted by brain dead state and local politicians, who won’t
be happy until we are number one. Unemployment is at 8.2 percent and
rising, housing foreclosures are at a record level, and the economy,
which is bad for most of the rest of the country, is even worse in
our state.
Our government officials seem to be living in a fantasy world.
Facing a potential $28 billion shortfall over the next two years,
the response by the governor and most in the Legislature is to seek
to raise taxes while begging Washington for a bailout. Don’t be
surprised if their next plan is to have the state invest tax
proceeds in lottery tickets in the hope of striking it rich.
Obama’s Economic Plan: The Whole Nine Yards
“History is written by the victors.” –Winston Churchill
It is still too early to say who will be the “victors” or “winners,” if any, in the current economic crises that threaten to engulf the US and much of the developed world. Economic troubles are not strictly war and it was war that Churchill was talking about in his famous quote; but, it sure has felt like an economic war raging over the past months as we watched some venerable Humpty Dumpty’s of the financial world shatter, collapse and cease to exist, right there on the pages of the morning newspaper. If, as current predictions have it, we are in for deep, deep Recession, or even Depression, through all of 2009, it may be until 2010 or beyond before we emerge from this devastation.
What flavor of Capitalism will emerge? Free Market Capitalism is where mutually consenting sellers and buyers without coercion exchange property rights at prices reached by mutual consent without government interference. If you want to buy and I want to sell and we have a meeting of the minds as to price and other terms, we do the deal or we don’t do the deal – let the forces of nature rule.