Marc Antony at the Grave of the California Dream
Friends, Californians,
countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury the California dream, not to praise it
The nasty debts and obligations that the
state incurred funding the dream of a better opportunity for the next
generation persists long after the money is spent,
The good done, by say, a good public
education is interred with the loser who got the education,
So let it be with the dream … The noble
Brown
Hath told you the old dream was too ambitious for these times;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath the dream answered it
Here, under leave of Brown and the wise men of California,
(For Brown’s budget is honest;
So are its provisions all; all honest and realistic)
Come I to speak at the funeral for the dream
A well-funded California was a friend to our ancestors, and seemed like a
promise to my generation,
Is Walker a Wimp?
Unions are portraying Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker as some
sort of dictator for his proposals to demand more pension contributions from
public workers and to roll back collective bargaining. Conservatives are
hailing him as brave.
But, judging
by the details of his proposal, Walker may be a wimp.
Walker’s
pension rollback is particularly hollow because it exempts the group most
responsible for the mounting pension obligations in his state and around the
country: law enforcement. Cops and firefighters are specifically exempt.
If that
sounds familiar to Californians, it should. Meg Whitman talked tough on
pensions, but also didn’t apply her proposals for pension reforms to law
enforcement. The difference: her opponent and the media called her on it.
Walker has gotten a free pass, at least on this point.
Stop Blaming the Republicans
The emerging media and political narrative around the Brown
budget plan puts the blame on legislative Republicans. Why won’t they play
ball? Why won’t they fall in line? Why don’t they support tax hikes – or at
least putting tax extensions on the ballot?
The answer
is: they don’t have any reason to do so.
Republicans, in opposing taxes in
any form, are doing what they were elected to do.
Yes,
Republicans represent regions with broad interests. But the people who show up,
vote and determine the results of legislative elections in Republican districts
abhor taxes above all else. These people may be irresponsible or even insane.
They may be relatively small in number. But they are well represented by
Republican lawmakers.
The Punishment Consensus: Can Budget Torture Save Us?
Who says Democrats and Republicans are divided over how to fix California and its state budget? The recent rhetoric from right and left suggests we have a consensus on a way forward:
The people of California need to be punished more.
That is, the public needs to feel much more budget pain, firsthand, before they’re willing to make and accept the tough choices necessary for budget balance.
On the left, Treasurer Bill Lockyer leads the pain caucus, having suggested all manner of ways to inflict pain (from the psychic pain of offering provisional cuts in the event of the failure of Gov. Brown’s plan, to the targeted pain of cuts in Republican districts) so that the public makes the hard choices of cuts and tax extensions. On the right, Steven Greenhut is suggesting that Californians need to be hurt more by government cuts before they come to understand the price they’re paying for the power of public employee unions – and agree to back reductions in labor power.
The theory is that difficult decisions will come only through pain. But is that true?
Let’s Caucus
The legislature now seems inclined to consolidate the 2012
presidential primary with the state primaries. In tough fiscal times, the money
saved by consolidation seems to outweigh the attention that the state might
gain from having a separate presidential primary. And the low turnout in the
2008 state primaries, which were separate from that year’s presidential
primary, was embarrassing.
For those
reasons, one primary is probably better than two. But consolidation isn’t the
only option. In fact, there is a proven election format that would spare the
state a separate presidential primary while still providing us a boost of
public attention from the national media and candidates.
The caucus.
Yes, I’m talking about the same
sort of presidential caucus used by Iowa. Voters gather in one place for a
couple of hours to decide, face to face, how to divide up presidential
delegates in their area. Such caucuses are usually associated with smaller
states, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen in California.
What Egypt Protests Say About California
Gov. Jerry Brown’s state-of-the-state effort to link the
Egyptian protests to his budget plan fell flat. But the Egypt protests do hold
one important lesson for California: politics is a family thing.
Just look
closely at the crowds on TV. Or read the news stories in which participants are
described or interviewed. I was struck again and again by one thing: that so
many of the people who took the streets came not by themselves but with friends
and especially family.
Those streets are full of mothers
and daughters, sisters, brothers, fathers and sons. Families clearly had made
decisions together to participate in overthrowing a dictatorship.
Is AG Any Better Than Legislature As Author of Title And Summary?
Last week’s appeals court decision barring the legislature
from writing titles and summaries for its own measures has sparked predictable
commentary that the court did the right thing. After all, lawmakers have
routinely used this power to write titles and summaries that are favorable to
their views – but not scrupulously accurate (or event all that useful) to
voters.
But does the decision leave us any
better off? Probably not. Because the court’s decision puts the power to write
such measures in the hands of the attorney general. Politics presumably will
continue to play a role. If anything, giving power to one person and one office
may make political gamesmanship with titles and summaries more common. One a.g.
playing politics can draft such labels alone (and there’s plenty of recent
history of this). In the legislature, any such label had to be a compromise.
Despite this, the decision offers a
bit of good news – or at least an opportunity to design a better system for
drafting titles, summaries and other public information on ballot measures.
There are many good models. Here are 3.
I Got Your Budget Alternatives Right Here
Why was Gov. Jerry Brown’s state of the state speech so
short? I don’t know. Perhaps he didn’t feel California deserved anything more.
The address felt like a slap in the face. Republicans got the open hand for refusing
to consider tax increases (or even give the public a chance to vote on tax
increases). Democrats and interest
groups got hit for refusing to identify alternatives to cuts they oppose.
Those shots were plenty fair.
Brown’s targets are guilty as charged. But Brown might consider finding a lower
horse to ride, for he is not without sin in this budget business himself.
Brown’s
budget is more honest than recent documents, but it’s not a panacea. Its tax
increases are temporary, not permanent. There’s plenty of one-time money and
even a few gimmicks. And with California’s dysfunctional system constantly
working to reduce revenues and add new spending mandates, Brown’s plan
certainly won’t fix the budget problem once and for all. It kicks the can down the
road, albeit further down the road than recent budgets.
They Don’t Have Much Time Left to Think Long
Pop quiz: What is the meaning of the following set of
numbers?
63, 62, 58, 56, 76, 68, 56, 90, 57, 67, 55, 67, 68, 77
Those are the ages of the members of the Think Long
Committee,
the group convened by famously homeless billionaire Nicolas Berggruen to come
up with systemic fixes for California’s governmental dysfunction.
For those who haven’t been
following it, the Think Long Committee – let’s call it the TLC — is the most
promising entity in the reform movement. Berggruen is an expert in
constitutions with a global outlook and a strong sense that California’s system
is broken and needs to be redesigned.
Reading Jerry’s Mind
The folks at DC headquarters have
been hogging the think tank’s mind-reading machine (for use on Bill Daley and
John Boehner), but I finally got a little time with the contraption.
Previously, I’d used it on Gov. Schwarzenegger,
but decided this time to probe the mind of new Gov. Jerry Brown, for a change.
Or at least I thought it was a
change.
Here’s what the machine spit out
when it was aimed at Brown’s mind.
"It’s amazing that no one has
figured this out yet. The ‘Gov. Brown’ in the governor’s office is peddling all
the same stuff from the last 7 years, about bringing the two parties together.
I mean, who does that sound like?
"Yes, it’s Arnold in here."