Movies as the Messenger
The Oscars are over. I actually went to the movies instead of watching the award show. I like movies but I’m not a fan of the celebrity-fest. But then I know I’m out of touch with this celebrity stuff. I’m still surprised that a short court hearing for actress Lindsay Lohan gets two or three times the number of TV cameras than come out to cover Governor Jerry Brown’s first visit to Southern California to discuss the budget mess, as happened a couple of weeks ago.
Movies can and do play a role in political debates.
The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon visited with Hollywood bigwigs asking them to take up the fight against global warming. Specifically, the Secretary General wants movie and television writers and producers to educate the public on the issue by putting messages in their work or dramatizing the issue.
A Path to Put Taxes on Ballot if Gov Takes Calculated Risk: Listen to Reps
The Republicans have lighted a path for the governor to put
the tax extensions on the ballot if the governor is willing to take a
calculated risk – put tax cuts on the ballot as well.
The governor insists the people should vote on his tax
extension plan. Many Republicans say they will only put those tax extensions on
the ballot if equivalent tax cuts are also placed on the ballot.
It’s a risk to the governor and Democrats agenda, but how
big a risk? There really hasn’t been much call for a tax cut recently and there
doesn’t seem to be a demand for new tax cuts from the voters.
The tax extensions are a different matter. Defeating the tax
extensions might be considered the same as approving a tax cut because it would
affirm the current temporary tax levels expire. Governor Brown said he is willing
to take on that fight.
Arab World Protests and a California Special Election
Can Col. Gaddafi and/or the oil-rich countries of the Middle East sway a California special election? Okay, let’s agree that the scenario I am about to examine is way down the road and things will change in a few months. But it is possible that the revolutionary actions in the countries along the rim of Africa and the Middle East could play a role if California holds a special election in June.
How so? You already know the answer: the price of gasoline. The price is already affected by the uncertainty in the region and if the unrest ever hits Saudi Arabia the price would blow through the roof like a gusher on an old-fashioned oil derrick.
Increased prices for crude oil translate to increased prices for gasoline at the pump. CNBC Executive Editor, Patti Domm, said clues to whether the United States hits $4-a-gallon gasoline would first show right here in the Golden State. “Let’s watch California. California is the first state that will see prices go up to the point that will really impact consumers.”
Is Wisconsin Battle Headed for California?
Pension reform was already on the table here in California
before the Wisconsin public employee union protests, but now in the glare of
the national spotlight pension reform could become a major focus of the budget
debate. Governor Jerry Brown said he wants to look at public pension reform, but
he does not want to tie it to the tax extensions and weigh down the ballot. He
may no longer have a choice.
The Wisconsin standoff – with minority Democratic
legislators refusing to step inside state borders and create a quorum so that
the majority Republicans can pass the reform bill – represents a budget battle over
public employee benefits that will occur in many states across the country.
State budgets are being squeezed, unemployment is steady, services provided by
government are being slashed, and reductions in government employee benefits
will have to be part of the solution.
“Boot Camp” Examines Pension Cloud over Government Budgets
Under the shadow of the public employee protests roiling Wisconsin, the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility and other non-profit groups held a one-day "Boot Camp" tackling the issues of benefits to public employees in California.
While the major Wisconsin issue of repealing collective bargaining for public workers was not on the Boot Camp agenda, the meeting dealt with the costs of public employee benefits and the burden they will impose on local and state government budgets.
The Boot Camp was a working session for the 200 attendees in Irvine and 350 following online made up of local government public officials and others interested in the issue, not a rally against public employees. "This is not partisan and not ideological, this is based on numbers," said Jack Dean, the publisher of the website Pension Tsunami, which gathers information around the country on the public pension issue.
Dean said the system has to be fixed for both the worker and the taxpayers. Current employees will lose benefits if nothing is fixed, he said, and it is unfair to taxpayers because they have to guarantee the benefits.
Low Voter Turnouts Mar Elections to Fill Vacant Seats
At the request of Governor Jerry Brown, Congresswoman Jane
Harman has postponed her resignation from the House of Representatives for two
weeks to allow the governor to consolidate the election for her replacement with
the statewide special election Brown hopes to call. The move makes sense given
the low turnouts in special elections.
On Tuesday, two special elections occurred in the state with
Republican Sharon Runner winning the 17th State Senate seat and Democrat
Ted Lieu capturing the 28th State Senate seat. But the turnout in
both elections was miserable.
Quick calculations based on the reported vote counts (so
far) and the number of registered voters in each district shows about an
11-percent turnout in the Lieu race to fill the seat of the late Senator Jenny
Oropeza; and close to a 13-percent turnout in the Runner election in which she
took over the seat previously held by her husband, George, who moved on to the
State Board of Equalization.
The Threat of Oil Severance Tax and Split Roll Ignores Reality
Threats to major businesses are becoming a key strategy for those who support Jerry Brown’s budget solution. Businesses have been warned quietly that if a June special election does not occur, or if it comes off but the tax extensions fail, there will be renewed efforts to pass an oil severance tax and/or a split roll property tax on commercial property. As reported on the website Educated Guess, under the headline “Watch out, biz, if taxes lose in June,” Senator Joe Simitian more publically suggested oil severance tax or split roll initiatives if the June taxes fail.
Frankly, certain spending interests may proceed with an oil severance tax or split roll whether taxes are passed in June or not. Putting aside the merits of Brown’s tax extension policy for a moment, however, let’s question this strategy of pursuing an oil severance tax or split roll.
What makes the supporters of such taxes so confident that voters will rally around these tax increases?
Dragging California’s Government into the 21st Century
As California and states across the nation struggle with gaping budget deficits, it’s probably a good time to return to basics and ask some essential questions. One I’ve been contemplating: How much does it cost us to maintain a creaking, outmoded mid-twentieth century Industrial Age governmental structure well into the second decade of the twenty-first century Information Age?
The eight-hundred pound gorilla of this question is civil service, an antique way of paying government professionals that, like our pension system, is completely out of alignment with the rest of our economy. If we want our government to perform economically, then we need to pay its employees for how well they perform—like we do in the rest of our highly competitive global economy.
That is grist for a longer discussion; today I want to consider a more modest idea that I heard suggested that will be linked to setting performance standards and pay: internet government services ratings.
Convincing Business on the Budget Plan
Describing himself as the Rip Van Winkle of California politics, Governor Jerry Brown, now back in the governorship after a long absence, was aggressively selling his budget plan to 1500 members and guests of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce last night.
Brown was looking for business support to help convince Republicans to get tax measures – he called them “revenue extensions” – on the ballot and to help get the tax extensions passed. He said earlier in the day, “It’s absolutely crucial that the people in business … get behind the effort to fix the mess in Sacramento.”
When asked at an airport news conference earlier in the day how he would convince the businesses of the need to pass the tax measures, Brown responded he would argue “stability,” adding that Californians should not “create undue turbulence” by defeating the tax measures thus requiring more budget cuts.
Brown insisted business would go along with his plan because what he was proposing was reasonable and that the chamber was reasonable.
Unions at End of Brown’s “Big Pipe”
Here’s what I got out of Jerry’s Brown press conference
yesterday: the public employee union position is currently prevailing in the
Horseshoe (the governor’s suite of offices.)
Governor Brown believes his spending cut and tax extension
plan should go on the ballot pretty much as is. Adding long-term budget fixes
like pension reform and spending limits would weigh down the ballot too much so
that all the measures, including taxes, might fall of their own weight.
The unions, of course, don’t want spending limits or pension
reforms and Brown doesn’t appear to want them on the ballot, either.