A Telling Sign on the Road to an Initiative War
Here’s a telling sentence by Michael Mishak and Anthony York
from an LA
Times recap of the last minute budget dealings:
"In his cabinet room,
Brown was negotiating with Democratic leaders and members of the state teachers
union…"
What do we make of this? That the teachers union just
happened to be taking their turn discussing the budget at that moment, or that
members of the most powerful public union in the state were in with the
governor and Democratic leaders when final budget decisions were being made?
I suspect the latter.
The Times’ account gives even more credence to the argument
that unions played a decisive role in budget negotiations. In the end, tax
extensions and spending and pension reforms did not end up on a ballot. It was
clear that the unions did not want the reforms on the ballot, and, watching the
poll numbers for taxes slip, they were not eager about a tax vote, either.
The Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Solution
Before the champagne turns flat, while the legislators’
backs are still red from all the back slapping and before the newspaper
headlines declaring success are placed in the bottom of bird cages, where they
more appropriately belong, let’s take a hard look at what actually happened the
last two weeks:
Nothing.
Do Elections Matter? (Gubernatorial Edition)
Does the budget signed Thursday by Gov. Jerry Brown differ in any meaningful way from the hypothetical budget the Gov. Meg Whitman might have signed, had her $177 million campaign convinced voters to elect her instead? In a Fox & Hounds post that asked “Do Elections Matter?” Joel Fox argued persuasively that the budget deal violates the spirit and perhaps the letter of a pair of initiatives (Prop. 22 and Prop. 26). But it’s also important to ask whether or not the governor’s race mattered either, whether Jerry Brown’s double-digit win significantly changed the eventual outcome of the key policy debate in that campaign — how to solve California’s budget crisis.
Ask yourself what the budget would have looked like under a Gov. Whitman. My guess is that we would have seen another all-cuts budget, with Republican legislators standing even firmer in their no tax pledge and Democratic legislators bowing to the inevitable (perhaps by June 15, but certainly before the start of the fiscal year). The cuts might have been spread around differently — with public employees taking a big hit and universities being spared — to allow Gov. Whitman to keep her campaign pledges, but the basic outlines would be the same as we saw with Gov. Brown. Would an electoral mandate have given Whitman the power to win major pension changes or a tight spending cap, victories that eluded Republicans ? Not likely. Democrats would use their legislative power to block such proposals, leading us right to where we ended up.
Attack on the Initiative Process
Originally published in the Orange County Register
California legislators – who seem unable to come up with an honest balanced budget, who always pursue tax increases and who won’t pass even modest reforms to the state’s unfunded pension system or to anything else, for that matter – want to blame the government’s problems on voters, rather than themselves.
Several bills, some of which are likely to pass, would gut the initiative and referendum process, or at least make that process far more burdensome. The ultimate goal: eliminating the main vehicle Californians have to reform a government that will not be reformed by elected officials, thus leaving us completely at the mercy of legislators and the liberal interest groups that control them.
In this June 10, 2010 file photo, Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D- Los Angeles, center, receives congratulations from Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, left, after he was sworn-in to the state Assembly at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif. Gatto was critical of Controller John Chiang’s decision to not pay members of the Legislature for not approving a balanced budget by the June 15 deadline.
Celebrating the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs
As the month of June comes to a
close and thousands of highs school seniors move on to the next chapter of
their lives, NFIB wants to salute those who have stepped up and taken the baton
as the next generation of young entrepreneurs.
This is the ninth year that NFIB has awarded scholarships to high school
seniors through the NFIB Young Entrepreneur Foundation, a scholarship
program designed to reward and encourage entrepreneurial talents among high
school students.
Owning and operating a small business is one of the most
profound ways for people to make a difference in their communities. By starting a small
business, young people can look forward to the rewards that come with being
your own boss and creating jobs for others.
The benefits of entrepreneurship are endless. The statistics about small business owners
are impressive:
-
Fifty-two (52) percent
of small employers have a college degree. -
Thirteen (13) percent
of small employers hold at least one copyright. -
Forty-six (46) percent of small-business owners
obtain 95 percent or more of their entire household income from a business. The
median income of a household headed by a small-business owner is about
$100,000.
(Source is the NFIB National
Small Business Poll Series.)