The best way to fight a bad idea is to propose a better alternative, and the SEIU California State Council has delivered. Today they proposed their own budget solution which would raise $14 billion in new revenue and seek $15 billion in federal assistance. Some details:
SEIU's budget proposal includes a limited expansion of the state's Vehicle License Fee (VLF), which would protect middle-class families by exempting the first $20,000 in vehicle value; restoration of the upper income tax brackets enacted by Governors Reagan and Wilson, adoption of Governor Schwarzenegger's oil severance and alcohol tax proposals and the Governor's proposal to broaden the sales tax to include discretionary services such as entertainment.
SEIU's proposed federal stimulus package would get our people back to work now and invest in long-term economic success for California families by:
• Increasing the federal match for California healthcare dollars
• Kick-starting hospital retrofits and local government infrastructure projects
• Funding federal special education obligations
• Investing in workforce development and a competitive resurgence by restoring worker training and opening more seats in our public colleges and universities.
This is exactly the kind of budget solution that a state facing a severe recession needs. Republicans are hell-bent on implementing Herbert Hoover's reckless policies of austerity and deflation, wanting to destroy government services and throw tens of thousands of people out of work.
SEIU's more progressive plan recognizes that California can't do it alone - that as in the 1930s, federal assistance is necessary to help the states stabilize and grow the economy. Health care and education in particular are vital to preserve during these hard times.
I call this a "realistic" budget partly because it makes perfect sense - but also because some in the media are too quick to dismiss this plan. Witness Kevin Yamamura at the Capitol Alert:
The unions' dream budget
With lawmakers at an impasse over the state budget, the SEIU State Council, which represents state workers, took it upon itself to propose its own dream plan Tuesday.
And we mean dream in the politest of terms, as in it might happen in a parallel universe where Democrats don't need any Republican votes and federal dollars pour from the sky.
Here we see how the media acts to reinforce center-right ideologies - a perfectly sensible plan is derided as a "dream" but the Republicans' insane plan to close the deficit by cuts alone and throw the state into a Depression gets treated as if it's somehow serious policy.
Democrats and progressives would do well to support this plan, or something close to it, as the only hope of fixing the budget deficit without destroying our public services and making our economic crisis far worse. |
