The President and the Governor
Okay, help me understand the political happenings in Los Angeles yesterday when the president came to town and was greeted by the governor at a town hall meeting.
President Obama spoke positively about the initiatives supported by Governor Schwarzenegger in California’s May special election. The main initiative creates a spending limit. So the president is praising the idea of a spending limit at the time he is offering record setting trillion dollar budgets and enormous spending packages through his stimulus program.
At the same time, Governor Schwarzenegger heaped warm praise on the president and his handling of the economy. Part of the president’s economic package includes tax cuts for many Americans. Governor Schwarzenegger’s recently passed budget included tax increases for all Californians.
I guess that’s why they call it political science. You need some scientific formula to figure all this out.
When you sign, get a receipt
During every cycle of ballot signature qualification in California, there are complaints about signature gatherers and questions about signature fraud. Voters often say they were misled about the nature of what they were signing. Some have claimed circulators duped them into signing a different petition than the one they intended to sign.
I spend time with petition circulators and have found most to be honest, but there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of them. These days, a good validity rate – the rate of signatures obtained that turn out to be good – is 70 percent. That means there’s something disqualifying about 30 percent of signatures. Last year in Arizona, widespread fraud pushed validity rates for some initiative petitions below 50 percent.
Recently, a signature gatherer who posts frequently on my blog about direct democracy offered a simple, elegant way to address some complaints: give voters who sign petitions a receipt. That is, require petition circulators to give voters a carbon copy of the initiative they sign.
Ports in Peril
The situation at California’s ports remains grim. Cargo volumes continue to drop at alarming rates. The Port of Long Beach reported the other day a 43% decline of imported cargo for February when compared to the same time period last year. The Port of Los Angeles experienced a similar decrease, continuing their downward spiral with a reported decline for imports of 36%.
The declines in volume translate into a massive drop off in work for longshoremen, truckers, railroads, warehouse workers and others in the supply chain. With close to 500 container ships now idle and not in use, predictions for cargo volumes for the rest of 2009 remain extremely pessimistic.
In addition to the negative impacts of the worldwide recession, Southern California ports have been experiencing a backlash from cargo owners for the development of container fee proposals along with attempts at re-regulating the port trucking industry. This rejection has manifested itself in the diversion of cargo from California ports prior to the economic collapse – something which continues to this day.
Energy Sector a Bright Spot for California
The Milken Institute’s California Center reports that one bright spot in a dismal business climate is the energy sector both with research and production of alternative and renewable energy along with production and refinement of oil and natural gas. To understand the effect the energy business has on the California economy, the Institute reported on the Chevron Corporation, California’s largest Fortune 500 company.
Chevron is the largest firm in the state as measured by revenue and is the only major energy producer headquartered in California.
Chevron’s impact on the economy is revealed in some numbers highlighted by the Milken report.
- In 2007, Chevron directly employed 10,000 workers in California. These workers contributed earnings of $1.2 billion and an output of $4.5 billion to the state’s economy.