The Shame of the Democrats (In California)

[Better Believe It]

The Shame of the Democrats
By Peter Schrag
California Progress Report
July 22, 2009

Just as we all thought that Sacramento had maxed out on budget venality, the governor and the leaders of the legislature came up with enough ugly gimmicks and even uglier slashes into California’s most vital services. Together they take the state still further down the road to Alabama and Mississippi and closer to the next fiscal crisis.

The real shame here belongs to the Democrats who at this critical moment seem to have left their progressive traditions in some Orwellian time machine. The smiles with the governor and the hopeful declarations of their leaders accompanied what can only be regarded as capitulation to the anti-tax fanatics of the legislature’s Republican minority.

In the process, they reinforced the illusion that you can cut megabucks out of the budget without hurting anyone very much. So the CalWorks welfare program was only decimated but not shut down altogether. So the state will grab two billion in property taxes from local governments, but they’ll muddle through. So the University of California and the California State University will be shorted by some $3 billion. But their doors are still (sort of) open.

The schools and community colleges will be hit for another $4.3 billion on top of the billions they lost in the deciduous budget deals cooked last September and February. The majority of voters, few of whom have kids in school, may hardly notice. And then there are cuts of a billion in social services, two billion in health, 2.1 billion in transportation and one billion in corrections.

Once again, the state’s Republicans, though a shrinking minority, are the big winners. Using the constitution’s unique combination of provisions requiring a two-thirds vote to approve a budget and/or raise taxes, they again vetoed the will of the legislative majority. The other big winner is Grover “Starve the Beast” Norquist, probably America’s most hyperactive tax basher, who got them all to take the pledge.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in-the-news/2009/july/the-shame-of-the-democrats.html

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Peter Schrag, whose exclusive weekly column appears every Wednesday for the California Progress Report, is the former editorial page editor and columnist of the Sacramento Bee. He is the author of Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future and California: America’s High Stakes Experiment. His new book, Not Fit for Our Society: Nativism, Eugenics, Immigration will be published early in 2010.

[slackmaster]

1. The real shame is that the party can command only 44.6% of California voters as of 5/4/2009

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ror/ror-pages/15day-stwdsp-09/hist-reg-stats.pdf

There is something very wrong here.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Too bad the CA electorate has had no say in any of this at any point...

I'm sure they would not have allowed this to happen.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. The same populace that refuses to repeal Prop 13?

If anything they want lower taxes, regardless of impact

[BlooInBloo]

7. The very same.

[mike_c]

3. two words....

Constitutional convention.

Unfortunately, all the forces lining up to make it happen are just as adamant that the "divisive" issues be kept off the table. That just means that they'll continue to make this state ungovernable.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. No politician will support that...it would endanger too many rice bowls

[Blackhatjack]

6. Repub Legislators in the minority in NC are using the same playbook....

Say no and refuse to agree to any revenue raising measure that does not come attached to increased taxes on the poor and middle classes and huge cuts in medical care for children and education and other important programs that make up a very fragile safety net.

What happen in Calif sure seems to play out everywhere else....