Far Right's Hypocrisy Spotlighted In California Budget Fiasco
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in this New West Notes video, during happier days with fellow Republicans at the 2007 California Republican Party convention.
A remarkable political debacle here in California points up the intransigence and hypocrisy not infrequently demonstrated by the far right wing of the Republican Party. This anti-government faction, empowered by a quirk in California's constitution, after months of insisting on closing the state's chronic budget deficit with cuts alone -- without any borrowing or, gasp, taxes -- succeeded in blocking honest tax increases proposed by Democrats and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. But failed in their cuts-only approach, resorting to borrowing by accounting gimmick and, literally, by lifting money from the pockets of Californians through accelerating tax withholdings from salaries.
And so Schwarzenegger, as I reported he would early today on New West Notes, has just issued the first gubernatorial veto of a state budget in California history. And these supposedly fiscally conservative Republicans are vowing to join with Democrats to override his veto.
The right has this power in California, if it hangs together, through the state's unusual requirement of a two-thirds legislative vote to pass a budget. Only two other very small states have the same requirement. And with gerrymandered districts, most Republican legislators are very conservative. Meaning that the big blue state on the blue Pacific is having a hard time funding its Democratic programs.
The latest Field Poll shows how unpopular and unrealistic the far right stance was with the big majority of California voters. Only 19% of the state electorate agreed with their cuts-only approach. Two-thirds agreed with the Democrats and Schwarzenegger that some combination of new taxes and cuts would be best. Virtually no one thought that more borrowing would be best. This, of course, is the approach that has been employed in Washington for the past seven-plus years by the Bush/Cheney administration.
And it has similarities to the fiscal policies promoted by John McCain. He says he wants big tax cuts for the wealthy, and for corporations, as well as some targeted industrial policies to stimulate the economy. Where would that money come from? More borrowing.
In reality, even the far right didn't have the stomach to try to impose what would be made necessary by their long expressed rhetorical insistence on a cuts-only budget. Though they are forcing big cuts in health and welfare programs. And what California's Republican holdouts dictated on their majority Democratic colleagues is a very thinly veiled form of massive borrowing.
This budget, as a Los Angeles Times editorial points out, "borrows in spades, even though lawmakers would rather use words like "revenue acceleration."
What does that mean? Well, what it means is that these fiscally conservative members of the Republican far right are insisting on increasing income tax withholding. That means that Californians will get a bigger chunk of their paychecks taken away by the government. They'll get the money back in the future, in the form of tax refunds. Or so the Republicans say. In any event, it's an interest-free loan, taken by force by the state government. At the insistence of supposed free marketeers.
It's not a lasting solution, of course, as the revenue is ultimately evanescent.
There's more such hypocritical gimmickry, but you get the gist.
So Schwarzenegger has issued the first budget veto in California history. And his fellow Republican legislative leaders, almost of whom are much conservative, elected from districts crowded with voters who don't blanch at Young Americans for Freedom backgrounds, are vowing to supply the votes to override his veto. Along, seemingly, with the Democrats, who after a record 76-day budget impasse, mainly want to get out of town without losing any more for their constituents.
Of course, Schwarzenegger is hardly blameless. California's chronic budget crisis was fed in part by his first act as governor: The extraordinarily popular decision to cut the car tax, which, nevertheless, could and should have been more than offset by a combination of revenues and reforms.
The offsetting things haven't happened.
Which, if nothing else, has allowed the hypocrisy and intransigence of California's far right to bloom in full public view.
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I didn't vote for Arnold.
Arnold could have handled the budget various ways.
Incrementing a gradual raise in the car registration was one way.
Eliminating the luxury tax loophole allowing the rich to buy yachts and planes out of state, wait a few weeks and then bring them into California without paying sales tax was another.
And then there is the tax on the oil that is pumped in California. He missed that one two.
Any, all or a combination of the above would have gone a long way towards solving the budget crisis Pete Wilson inaugurated when he deregulated energy and Enron siphoned our money away with a faux crisis.
Instead he's proposed the same old Republican drivel. Cuts in services.
Perhaps we need to get rid of the celebrity actor elite we keep voting for (did no one learn their lesson with Reagan?) and put some grandmothers in the Governor's mansion. They know how to run a household. A State is the same thing on a grander scale.
Thank goodness the legislature is standing up to him. He wants to eliminate the checks and balances of our state constitution and make it a dictatorship.
See William Bradley's Profile
Er, he has gotten rid of the yacht tax loophole. Which is only worth about $35 to $45 million. You're assuming that Californians are too dumb to notice that the car tax was going back up. And the oil severance tax wouldn't have done much in this area.
Take Heart!
Do you see all of the anger in here? The hate? The lies? The doublethink? They claim that we are desperate. And they are right. Desperate for CHANGE!
The opposition has been fed a steady diet of fear for 8 long years...they will fight back the only way they know how. They will call you a liar. They will say that you are desperate. DO NOT LISTEN!
They will use the Rovian tactics of distortion and manipulation and attacking strength from weakness. DO NOT LISTEN!
Remember that they are doublethinkers (I implore you to re-read 1984, at least Chapter IX, so that you can truly understand what they are doing). DO NOT LISTEN!
When they say you are a liar it is because they are lying. When they claim that you are desperate it is because they are desperate. When they assert that Obama CAN'T win it is because they know that he WILL.
The increase in their numbers and volume is a GOOD thing. Their anger is illustrative of their fear. They have no issues to discuss. So, instead, they rant and rave in a constant diatribe of fear and hate.
NOW is the time to display the true courage of our convictions. NOW is the time to show those who mindlessly chant of honor and freedom and patriotism what these words really mean. NOW is the time to stand strong...to be the better man. NOW is the time to take our country back!
See William Bradley's Profile
That's a bit on the heartfelt side.
See William Bradley's Profile
Or something, I suppose.
California is one of the highest taxed states. We have already given the money we need to ,now cut programs that don't work and make sure the money we do give out goes to the right people. We waste millions of dollars each year on programs that don't work and in burecratic waste. We need to deport all ILLEGAL ALIENS in our state. ILLEGAL ALIENS are a big burden on our tax money. We need to use the BILLLIONS we are now paying to educate and provide health care for ILLEGALS on our own citizens. Compaines are moving out of California because of the high taxes. We need to do something about that. The answer isn't to throw more money after these problems - we have to actually solve the problems.
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Actually, California is not one of the highest taxed states.
California is ranked 6th in tax burden. Are you saying 6 out of 50 isn't high?
Actually you are wrong.
See Jon Raymond's Profile
Ironic, is it not, that Schwarzenegger with his pitiful 19% approval rating can't be recalled. Yet Gray Davis with a 65% approval rating was recalled by a mere 600,000 some voters to install Schwarzenegger, who has now made more of a mess of the state's economy than Davis could possibly have. What's wrong with this picture? Is this corruption out the wazoo or what?
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Actually, you are incorrect.
Schwarzenegger has 43% job approval rating from PPIC, 38% from Field. His job approval at the beginning of this year, before the economy went in the tank and the state budget impasse, was 60%.
Davis had a 24% job approval rating.
And the turnout in the 2003 California recall election was actually near record levels -- with many more people voting than voted in the 2002 general election in which Davis was re-elected -- with Schwarzenegger winning in a landslide, 49% to 32% over the Democratic lieutenant governor who was the party's replacement nominee.
Well, those are sure different polling numbers! I thought so.
Dude!@ I don't think anything you wrote is right! Except some of the words are spelled right ...
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Or a bad marriage.
There's one main problem in California. Anyone who is honest knows what it is. Fix it and your problems are almost all solved:
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/immigrationnaturalizatio/a/caillegals.htm
See William Bradley's Profile
An oldie but a goodie.
If only that were true. Even California's far right doesn't claim that any more.
So William you are saying that ILLEGAL ALIENS aren't costing California BILLIONS of tax payer dollars? Where do you get your facts?
Hey, I watched your Arnold Schwarzenegger video. It looks good!
See William Bradley's Profile
Thanks.
It's totally wild that politicians with 19 percent statewide support for their ideology call the shots.
>> The latest Field Poll shows how unpopular and unrealistic the far right stance was with the big majority of California voters. Only 19% of the state electorate agreed with their cuts-only approach. Two-thirds agreed with the Democrats and Schwarzenegger that some combination of new taxes and cuts would be best. Virtually no one thought that more borrowing would be best. This, of course, is the approach that has been employed in Washington for the past seven-plus years by the Bush/Cheney administration.
See William Bradley's Profile
Well, there's nothing like a combination of a legal quirk, stubbornness, and weak opposition leadership.
Nobody else has ever vetoed a budget before Arnold S? That's wild.
>> And so Schwarzenegger, as I reported he would early today on New West Notes, has just issued the first gubernatorial veto of a state budget in California history. And these supposedly fiscally conservative Republicans are vowing to join with Democrats to override his veto.
See William Bradley's Profile
Oddly enough, it's true.
That's really weird. Maybe that's why the budget is in such trouble. Nobody said it was just all frakked up.
"Accelerated withholding?' That sounds like theft.
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