Reading Arnold’s Mind Again
After months of waiting for another chance to use the New America Foundation’s mind-reading machine (the boys back at DC headquarters have been hogging it for use on Ahmadinejad), I finally got some time with it last week, and pointed it in the direction of the governor’s head.
Here’s what the machine spit out:
“It’s kind of nice being a Republican again.
I almost left the party, you know. Some of my genius advisors wanted me to do that before the special election—they thought it’d be easier to sell the measures if I were a decline to state. Maybe they were right. The GOP is in a bad place. But what I’ve learned in my second term is that the only thing worse than being a Republican these days is being a Democrat.
My personality and celebrity is so big that the media, or what’s left of it, is missing the real story.
Here’s the tale in a nutshell: I tried to give Democrats what they say they want– universal health care and higher taxes. I did this at huge political cost to myself.
And they said no.
Governor Rewriting the Budget Script
With the vacationing Legislature playing “drop it and run” with the new budget, that leaves Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as about the only politician left in Sacramento this week and he’s trying to make the most of it.
The governor warned that he is looking for cuts to make up for the $1.1 billion of revenue that disappeared when the Assembly refused to take transportation money from cities and counties and turned thumbs down on a plan to allow new drilling off the Santa Barbara coast.
The only question that will come up when, as expected, he signs the budget Tuesday is whether he’s going to play nice with the legislators and fiddle around the edges of the budget or take an ax to programs Democrats tried to save, such as welfare and health services. It depends on how interested Schwarzenegger is in picking a fight after the long and acrimonious budget battle.
Schwarzenegger already is rewriting the script of the budget dispute, making sure he comes out as the hero in the final reel.
Aloha, Senator Steinberg!
Senator Steinberg, I realize that you are not inclined to listen to
the concerns of ordinary taxpayers so you will probably ignore this
message — hmmm, perhaps if we called ourselves a taxpayers “union”
that would get your attention. Also, if you do read this, it will
probably not be for several weeks as, immediately after the
California Senate voted on the budget amendments, you jetted off to
Hawaii.
In the political arena, citizens have come to expect a certain
amount of dissembling from their elected officials. But even
expecting a “normal” level of nonsense from politicians, there are
certain moments when we hear something so profoundly inane from
elected representatives that our jaws drop.
On Thursday, you addressed reporters in the hallway of the Capitol
to discuss the schedule of taking the vote on the negotiated budget
amendments. One of your observations, unprompted by any reporter’s
question, was as follows:
Does Saving NUMMI Mean a New Attitude Will Prevail in Sacramento?
In the wee hours of Friday morning, as our elected leaders were dealing with the state’s massive budget deficit, they took time to pass a resolution supporting the only automotive manufacturing plant west of the Mississippi River. The NUMMI plant in Fremont, California represents nearly 5,000 Bay Area jobs and more than 20,000 jobs around the state. This display of bipartisanship and support for California jobs is just what California needs from those elected to lead out state.
However, while the Legislature will join in harmonious action for this one significant business, they generally fail to show the same level of support for the businesses that employ more than half of California’s workforce and create nearly 75 percent of new jobs. Oh, and small businesses generate more than 15 times the numbers of patents per employee as compared with larger businesses, so we know where the future of biotech, greeentech, nanotech, and any other technology can be found. Where is the desperate support for the hundreds of thousands of small employers and millions of solo entrepreneurs who struggle under near Depression-level economic conditions, a credit market unwilling to lend, and government-imposed regulatory costs and taxes?
What’s Going on With Job Creation/Job Destruction in California?
One of the least recognized employment dynamics in California is the enormous job creation and destruction that occurs reach month, in good times and bad. The monthly unemployment rate states the net number of job gains or losses, which usually number in the tens of thousands. But beneath the surface, each month hundreds of thousands of jobs are being added or subtracted.
For example. for the three months of January-March 2008, the state lost 86,698 jobs according to the net monthly employment numbers. In fact, during this three-month period, 883,486 jobs were added and 970,184 were destroyed, for a net of -86.698.
What has been happening to job creation/destruction during the current recession?
The job creation/destruction numbers are generated by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the most recent numbers are for the third quarter of 2008, the months of July, August and September. This was a period when job layoffs were starting to pick up force, but before the enormous job shedding of the period October 2008-February 2009.