| When John Burton took the podium at the California Democratic Convention last weekend he reminded the delegates that no matter their positions on the May 19 propositions, we all needed to remember our shared party and political identity and not let the May 19 election unnecessarily divide us.
That's the attitude I've tried to take in my writing on the election. No matter what happens on May 19, on May 20 progressives and Democrats are going to have to unite to save California from a Zombie Death Cult salivating at the prospect of privatizing public education, destroying unions, and eviscerating environmental protections.
Unfortunately, some in the dying print media see fit to try and marginalize progressives in order to make the May 19 propositions seem inevitable and necessary. (Steve Maviglio has been pursuing this strategy as well, to little apparent effect.)
Take the San Francisco Chronicle's opinion page, which today apparently is filled with exhortations to vote for the initiatives. (I say "apparently" because the Chronicle is no longer delivering to the Central Coast). Here's Debra Saunders' view of the progressive attitude toward May 19:
Likewise, hard-core Democrats seem to think that if the five measures fail, there will be a golden age as Democratic leaders go after the requirement that two-thirds of the Assembly and Senate raise taxes. Folks, that is not going to happen - not when the latest Field Poll showed 58 percent of Democrats supporting the two-thirds mandate. Democrats may send big spenders to Sacramento and complain about spending reductions, but they still don't want to pay for all that stuff. They want someone else to pay - and there aren't enough smokers and millionaires to get there.
I don't know where she's getting this idea that we who oppose the propositions think it will create some magically positive outcome - sounds like a strawman to me. We are well aware of the difficulties involved with eliminating the 2/3 rule and in pursuing wealth taxes (which the Field Poll showed are massively popular with all voters). But we don't believe the difficult tasks ahead will be eased by straitjacketing the budget through Props 1A and 1C.
John Diaz, also in the Chronicle Opinion section, makes much the same argument as the right-wing Saunders:
The passions against the state budget measures in the May 19 special election are running hottest among the ideologues of the far left and far right.
Both extremes are determined especially to defeat Proposition 1A - the creation of a "rainy-day fund" - yet for reasons that are polar opposites.
Liberals warn that the measure would force the state to keep pouring money into that new fund, instead of resuscitating government programs, even when the economy is booming. Conservatives regard the spending restraints in Prop. 1A as far too squishy - plus, its passage would extend $16 billion in temporary increases in the state's sales tax, car-license fee and income tax.
Each side seems convinced that an election-day crash of Prop. 1A would send a shudder through Sacramento that would magically produce a groundswell for (the left's dream) the end of the constitutional requirement for a two-thirds vote to pass a budget, along with a surge in support for new taxes; or (the right's dream) a mandate to slash spending and not even think about raising taxes.
"Always beware when the far right and the far left go to bed together," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who crafted the propositions with legislative leaders, said in a telephone interview last week.
Ah, if Arnold said it, then it must be true! Diaz builds the same strawman as Saunders, that the "left" wants to kill the propositions out of some misguided belief that doing so will magically bring about the progressive millennium.
Instead we are well aware that we already are at the point of fighting with the right over whether we will raise revenues or destroy government. That fight will happen regardless of the outcome of the May 19 initiatives, since we're looking at a $9 billion deficit no matter what happens on May 19. We know that the public isn't yet where they need to be on the issue of supporting government programs for economic growth and collective security, but that's because nobody is willing to actually and openly make that argument.
Instead we recognize that the first step forward is to kill Prop 1A in particular. Delaine Eastin, who has forgotten more about public education in this state than most of us will ever know, put it well:
"It leaves us in the hole forever," warned Delaine Eastin, former state superintendent of public instruction, who predicted the public would defeat all propositions in a wave of "righteous wrath" against legislators who didn't have "the backbone" to raise taxes.
Diaz, Saunders, the Chronicle editorial board - none of them really grapple with this issue. And that's why they don't understand progressive opposition to the May 19 measures. Instead they choose to read it according to their usual script of "centrism is always good, especially when it's actually conservatism".
Californians are going to reject these measures. And progressives will be ready on May 20 to offer an alternative. Will the Chronicle? |
