Excerpts from Governor Schwarzenegger’s State of the State Address
I will not give the traditional State of the State address today, because the reality is that our state is incapacitated until we resolve the budget crisis. The truth is that California is in a state of emergency. Addressing this emergency is the first and greatest thing we must do for the people. The 42 billion dollar deficit is a rock upon our chest and we cannot breathe until we get it off.
It doesn’t make any sense to talk about education, infrastructure, water, health care reform and all these things when we have this huge budget deficit. I will talk about my vision for all of these things… and more… as soon as we get the budget done.
The legislature is currently in the midst of serious and good faith negotiations to resolve the crisis, negotiations that are being conducted in the knowledge we have no alternative but to find agreement.
The Anti-Stimulus
The state budget abyss draws closer, and the first victims – surprisingly – are not public employees or school children or poor people, but instead are working men and women, many with union cards.
State construction projects are grinding to a halt, triggered by a decision last month by a crucial state finance agency to halt working capital for state-financed projects. This has led to a cascading effect on state construction projects, placing at risk more than 5,700 projects valued at $22.5 billion.
Card check effort a serious threat to free enterprise
Imagine if last November when you walked into your voting booth, the curtain was open and people were watching you vote. Now visualize these spectators are telling you how to vote.
Is that wrong? If you think so, then you would agree that attempts by organized labor to take away an employee’s long-standing right to privacy when voting on the critical issue of whether or not to be represented by an organized labor group.
In 2007, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 800, the sadistically-named “Employee Free Choice Act.” It should really be called the “Employee NO Choice Act,” because it rips away the curtain or privacy and may result in employees being forced to accept a government-negotiated wage and benefit contract.
Organizing by card check would be a radical change in union organizing. It initiates the union drive from outside the business, not by the employees themselves, and means that small business owners would be uninformed about organizing drives.
Who Needs Representative Democracy Anyway?
To put it politely, Sacramento is dysfunctional. It is something that everyone agrees upon. For over a decade the State has enacted budgets that didn’t make any sense. But since we are a State that is governed by media events as opposed to policy, everyone declared victory. This self induced euphoria usually faded by late summer. And now, with a worldwide recession in full force, the penalty for avoiding their responsibilities as elected officials is coming due – and our elected leaders are paralyzed, impotent and afraid to act (some would say govern).
So how do we change things?
Lots of ideas have been thrown out for discussion recently. Some folks want to eliminate our bicameral system of government and narrow it down to a unicameral system. I would argue that despite having two legislative houses, the operational and political reality is that we already have a unicameral system – but unlike a unicameral system it just takes a bit longer for bills to move through our current system. Given the gracious and courteous practice of not killing bad bills (or any bills for that matter unless you are a Republican), we have in effect a unicameral system in place today. Why mess with perfection?
Positive, Negative in ’80s Revival
If you read the January 12 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal, you may think we accidentally republished some articles from the 1980s.
Privatization and poison pills – common terms from 20 years ago – are the subjects of two articles in the issue. Both seem to be making a bit of a comeback.
It would be heartening to see a true revival of privatization. Outgoing Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick floated the notion of leasing out or contracting out some city functions.
Think about it: Is there really any philosophical justification for the city of Los Angeles, or any city or any county or state for that matter, to operate golf courses and parking lots?
Stimulus is as Stimulus Does
Insanity is defined as doing the same things and expecting different results. This is also an apt description for what is being proposed in our nation’s capitol, with respect to how to stimulate the American economy.
President-elect Barack Obama, once he takes office, should re-direct the hundreds of billions of recycled stimulus dollars into our nation’s military industrial infrastructure. The jobs created in our nation’s defense industries are the type of jobs that pay annual wages a family can actually live on.
Plus, these jobs are value-added. New public investment in cutting edge defense technologies will also have civilian applications and this will help drive entire new private industries into existence. It would also make America and our allies safer and that ain’t no small thing.