California's Death Throes: One View From Sacramento

[WI_DEM]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Republican colleagues are using the trauma of the economic collapse and the record state budget deficit to implement policies they've been advocating for years. "This budget ought to be solved in one chunk, at one time," the governor says, "and let's do it quickly." As usual, the working poor are going to suffer the brunt of the Republicans' slash-and-burn fiscal policies aimed at decimating the state's social safety net. Arnold and his rich friends propose throwing one million children off CalWORKS, the state's primary welfare program, and they want to strip away health care for 900,000 children by ending the "Healthy Families" program. They'd rather destroy the state's services, including the higher education system, instead of raising taxes on big corporations and rich individuals.

The "supermajorities" needed to pass state budgets means that six Republicans (two Senators and four Assembly members) can hold hostage the nation's most populated state. "Cal-EE-Forn-Ya's day of reckoning is approaching," Schwarzenegger intones, (as if he's starring in another Terminator movie). No wonder voters rejected his and the Democrats' ballot propositions last month. The Governor says the vote means he has a mandate to gut the government, while the Democrats say it means that voters didn't understand the gravity of the situation. I think a lot of people were sending the message to these politicians that they should do their damn jobs instead of expecting voters to give them political cover.

With all the fiscal carnage you would never think that California's registered Democratic voters outnumber the Republicans by about 1.3 million and hold substantial majorities in both chambers of the legislature. California never gave a single electoral vote to George W. Bush and the trend lines show it is becoming more Democratic each election cycle. Yet for years now the Democrats' key constituencies have been taking it on the chin.

The origins of the current crisis go back to early 2001 when Dick Cheney and "Kenny Boy" Lay conspired with Cheney's "energy task force" to allow Enron and other renegade companies to plunder California's energy markets. Bush and Cheney blocked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from stepping in to stop the hemorrhaging and California Republicans slammed Governor Gray Davis for causing the whole mess. They then tapped "The Terminator" to lead their charisma-challenged party. Arnold offered up his celebrity in a bid to topple Governor Davis by abusing the recall provision in the state's constitution.

Soon Arnold was out on the stump promising to "terminate" all new taxes. He even staged an event where his supporters dropped a car from a crane symbolizing their opposition to a vehicle tax that Davis had proposed to deal with the then relatively small (but growing) budget deficit. In 2005, Scharzenegger supported Bush's Social Security privatization scheme and tried to do the same thing to the state's pension plan CalPIRS, the biggest in the country, by pushing a set of failed propositions that were a frontal assault on California's working middle class. And throughout this entire spectacle the Democrats allowed Arnold to make them jump through hoops like trained circus dogs. And they continue to do so today.

The Democratic "leaders" in the state legislature have over and over again betrayed their most important constituencies -- working people, educators, public employees, etc. -- leaving millions of California Democrats to wonder why they were thrown under the bus only so their representatives can reach terrible "compromises" with a recalcitrant and retrograde Republican minority.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/californias-death-throes_b_215618.html

[MadHound]

1. Sorry, but this problem goes back further than Arnie,

And the voters of California are the ones who are most responsible.

With the passage of Prop. 13 California voters set the course that ultimately led to this disaster. At the time, Jerry Brown, Pete Wilson, and Big Business across the state were yelling about how Prop. 13 would be a huge mistake, that it would drag down and eventually destroy the state, but instead Californians decided to follow the pied piper of Howard Jarvis and his anti-tax minions.

Even when it became obvious that Prop. 13 was destroying the state, Californians didn't act. In fact when Grey Davis was screaming about how the state was bankrupt, instead of mounting a campaign to repeal Prop. 13 the voters in California recalled Davis.

So really now, all this whoo-ha about Arnie is, for the most part a smoke screen, hiding the fact that the blame for this disaster lies, for the most part, with the California voter.

The sad thing is that the rest of the country is going to pay for California's stupidity. Either we, the American taxpayer, is going to be forced to bail the state out, or the state will go under and drag the rest of the country with it. Either way, we get to pay for Californians' stupidity. Gee, thanks:eyes:

[bridgit]

2. Make that Howard Jarvis & Grover Norquist's stupidity and you got a deal

[anigbrowl]

5. Very true. Indeed, RWers now refer to Arnold as 'the Taxinator'

This ought to give people pause to consider the situation is nowhere near as simple as it may seem. Personally, i'm in the 'constitutional convention' camp.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Huffington ran against Arnie. He made an ass of himself talking trash to her.

Total arrogant sexist pig who has not given up dreams of being President, as soon as he can maneuver
around the Contitutional requirements he does not meet.
As tot he Democrats in the state rolling over, is that not true across the country and in Congress?
Either they are being blackmailed or they are bought off. but they do not act like Dems.

[nichomachus]

4. California is just the canary in the coal mine

It was the first to implement the "starve the beast" policies, but other states followed suit. So, California will be the first to fall, but other states are teetering on the brink too.

This is all just part of the plan to turn the US into a feudal state -- with a small ultra-wealthy ruling class and a broad mass of poor people begging for crumbs.