Ok, all Californians. The budget crisis is pretty much over. Or it will be as soon as Steve Poizner is sworn into office. Because he has a plan that in no way relies on massive leaps of logic and steadfast faith in a theory of supply-side economics that has been pretty well rejected over the last twenty, and particularly the last two, years.
But in a speech to the Riverside Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Poizner outlined what he's calling his 10-10-10 plan. The Press-Enterprise got some footage of the speech, but you'll have to head over there to watch it.
State insurance commissioner and Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner on Monday proposed a combination of tax cuts and spending reductions as a remedy for California's budget woes. Poizner told a business audience in Riverside that as governor he would cut corporate, income and sales taxes 10 percent, cut state spending by 10 percent in two years, and build a $10 billion rainy day fund in one term.
The tax cuts will make the state more competitive and encourage taxpayers to stay here, he said. "We'll never be able to afford anything until we have a healthy economy again," Poizner said at a lunch held by the Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce at the Riverside Convention Center. (P-E 11/17/09)
A few points here. First, cutting spending 10%? Really, that's your goal? Dude, we cut spending by over 30% the last two years, and you want to talk about ten percent? Does that include the money we've already cut? And in what dream world does a Republican governor really have simple authority like that. The Democratic majorities in the Legislature aren't going away anytime soon. And though you could simply blue pencil, that doesn't exactly engender good relations with the Legislature.
Next, how exactly are you planning to pay for that tax cut you are proposing? A magical money tree? Because that would be great. Otherwise, you are going to need to cut even deeper than the 10% you proposed, as revenue numbers won't improve much, if at all, over the next 24 months.
And, finally, I will point out that it was San Francisco, yes, that liberal hell-hole that I call home, that got out in front of the rainy day fund in California. Now-Assemblyman Tom Ammiano pushed for the Rainy Day Fund when he was a Supervisor, and the City was able to save hundreds of teachers' jobs because we did so.
But I guess I shouldn't worry, because you have a cutesy "10-10-10" name for your "plan." Everything is going to groovy.
It is a rare day that every major candidate for the California governor's race is from Northern California, but that's they way it is today. And specifically, all three Republicans are from the Silicon Valley. It's generally a Democratic leaning area, as it is hard to find a Republican in the Bay Area at all. But in the Valley, Republicans tend to be the less dogmatic type than you'd find in the Central Valley. They'll focus less on social issues and more on their own pocket books. They want a generally functional government, but would like to get it on the cheap.
And that's why despite the fact that all three candidates are from the area, Tom Campbell's wonky campaign carries some sway. In a poll by San Jose State's Survey & Public Research Institute (PDF, Campbell was shown with a pretty hefty lead in Silicon Valley. While the poll was quite small and the margin of error was huge (6.9%), the size of the lead means there is something to this data. Campbell is at 39%, Whitman 11%, Poizner 7, and the famous "Undecided" at 41.
Campbell is a wonk and a bit of a nerd. And perhaps that is what is playing so well down there. Or perhaps it is the fact that he has represented much of the region when he was in Congress. But for whatever reason, Silicon Valley Republicans are leaning hard for Campbell. The question with Campbell in this race is always the money question. Can he come up with enough cash to really compete with Whitman and Poizner. He can't self finance, and he'll need to spend a hefty chunk of change to really make any headway with the right-wing base of the party.
However, if Campbell does manage to squeak out, he probably makes for a very tough campaign for the Democratic nominee, whether it be Jerry Brown or some other late announcing candidate. While his "solutions" tend to be pretty much the same as his former boss, Arnold Schwarzenegger, he is still able to talk the moderate talk.
How generous of her. She's worth a billion, give or take a couple hundred million, and she's willing to pass on the $200 K or so. Incidentally, the Bee has it on good authority that Tom Campbell will accept the salary (he's not a billionaire, you know) and Poizner (who is) will also accept the salary.
Why do we need to know this? Perhaps so that we can feel just how small we really are. It's certainly not to solve any budget problems, as the amount of money won't by itself really break the budget one way or the other. No, this is a gesture that says to the people of California that she is making a big sacrifice to take this job, and that we should be thrilled to have her experience and ill-informed judgment to save us.
For the record, I'll be happy to pay a governor for the work he does. We got the last one on the cheap, as Arnold isn't accepting a salary either, and look what that got us. Sometimes you get what you pay for. And trust me, it'll be worth it to pay the cash for a governor who has a clue about the problems facing the state, can reasonably discuss the issues, and isn't there to shock doctrine the state.
STEVE POIZNER: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker, good morning everybody. I do get to travel up and down the state quite a bit now, Mr. Speaker, giving speeches as I run for governor, also as Insurance Commissioner. Sometimes the introductions don't go quite so well. I was at a high school recently not so far from here. Student stands up to introduce me, she has this incredibly bored look on her face. Her introduction of me was short and sweet. She said, this is Mr. Poizner, he's been an engineering geek in Silicon Valley for 20 years. Now he's into insurance. Sat down, that was the whole introduction. When I got home that evening I couldn't resist going to talk to my 18-year old daughter Rebecca. I had to ask her, why did you introduce me that way? Sad but true. I've just got to say for the record, now that my daughter is out on the road driving, I lose sleep every night as your Insurance Commissioner with my daughter out there.
Now I haven't been in politics very long. Most of my career here in California, starting and running high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. My last company was called SnapTrack, maybe you've heard of it. It was a company where we figured out a way to put Global Positioning Satellite Receivers, GPS Receivers into cell phone chips so that when you dial 9-1-1 from the cell phone, the emergency operators will know where you're calling from. Now that turned out to be an important feature. About 700 million cell phones have this feature now, we've saved hundreds of lives, and I'm really quite proud of it. So I was really surprised when I was describing my last feat to Speaker Brown one day and he expressed some concerns. He said, you mean you can track my exact location when I'm carrying a cell phone? So I'm pleased to announce a new feature today, the company is rolling out for an additional $5 a month, the location technology will always show you at the library. I call it the Willie Brown feature. So I sold this company to Qualcomm a few years ago. Qualcomm, the big cell phone company in San Diego.
And after running companies for 20 years, I decided I just can't sit on the sidelines any longer. I could see that California was going off of a cliff, that we were going through a meltdown. So I decided to put the private sector behind me and get involved in public sector service, helping to get this great state back on track. Now my first foray into public sector service was not to run for office, but actually be a school teacher. Now, we will never fix this broken state, we will never get California back on track ever until we repair our broken public school system. Do you know that 50% of the fourth graders, 50% of the fourth graders that go to California public schools cannot pass basic reading proficiency tests? 50%. So I couldn't resist. I decided to plunge into the trenches, immerse myself in the details with other teachers to get a first-hand view of what happens in the public school system. Now little did I know how difficult it would be to get into the classroom. I thought they would embrace me with open arms. Well it didn't work out exactly that way.
Now I live in Los Gatos with my wife and daughter, and there's a school district near Los Gatos, about 30 minutes from my home, the East Side Union High School District. That's in East San Jose maybe you've been there. It's got 25,000 high school kids, 12 high schools in this particular district. So one day a few years ago I decided just to drive to the district office and volunteer. No appointment made, just drove there, walked into this massive building, this district office. Went up to the receptionist, introduced myself, I'm Steve Poizner, I'd like to volunteer and teach. I'm not looking to be compensated, I just want to learn as much as I can, I want to help as much as I can. And the receptionist looked at me, kind of tilted her head, what? Never heard that one before. Hang on a second. So she goes to the back to get the head of personnel who hires teachers for the East Side Union High School District.
I'm never going to forget this, it was during lunch, she comes out, she has this kind of irritated look on her face because I disrupted her lunch. She had a little mustard on her lip, and she asked me, what can I do for you? And I said, well I'd like to teach, not looking to be paid, I want to help, I want to learn. And she says, well what qualifies you to be in the classroom? Now I had to think about that for a second. Okay, well I have an electrical engineering degree from the University of Texas, graduated number one in my class. Then I came out to Stanford Business School, got an MBA from Stanford with Honors, and then I spent 20 years starting and running high-tech companies in Silicon Valley very successfully, and then last year I was in the White House in the National Security Council in the counterterrorism group. I got there one week before the 9-11 Crisis, I had a security clearance well above top secret. I helped build the new homeland security plan for the whole country. Without missing a beat she looks at me, she says, nothing you just said qualifies you to be in the classroom. Now, I don't have a very big ego, but it shrank in size as she sent me packing that day.
I wasn't going to take no for an answer, so I went home, got on the phone, called the 12 high school principals directly, left them voicemails, I want to teach at your high school. None of them called me back, except one. Art Darren from Mount Pleasant High School got me on the phone and said -- you want to do what? Well I want to teach at your school. Have you been here? It's hard. I said, yes I'd like to teach at your school. Why don't you sign me up. So he went to the superintendent and got guest teacher status for me from the district. I taught 12th grade American Government at Mount Pleasant High School for a year a few years ago. I've got to tell you, gang members and all, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. Ever, by far. And the most rewarding. And I'll be back to the classroom some day, but I've got to tell you, what an eye-opener being in the classroom with other teachers for an extended period of time.
I'll never forget my first day, it rained in San Jose that day. And my classroom leaked. I had to position the trash can in the right spot to collect the rain water. Now, hang on a second, this is a public high school in wealthy San Jose with a leaky roof. That's shameful. Really. Who runs the school at Mount Pleasant High School? How come they cannot fix the roof at Mount Pleasant High School? Well as it turns out, I can tell you for sure, the teachers, the principals, they don't run the schools. Who does? Well as it turns out in the last several decades, the Legislature has just ripped control of the public schools out of the hands of local folks and they've moved it to Sacramento.
Now how many here went to California public schools? Well you all know. In the 1960s and '70s, we had the best public education system in the country, bar none. We know how to educate kids. What's changed over the last 20 or 30 years? Well, the education code for one. Now the education code are these mandates the Legislature applies uniformly to all 5,000 schools at the same time. That's kind of nonsense on the face of it. Now, in the 1960s when we had the best education system in the country, the size of the education code was about this size, now the education code is this size, 2,000 pages long and growing rapidly.
Clearly, one of the key solutions to our problems, one of the reasons why I'm running for governor is I'm going to rip control of the public schools out of the hands of Sacramento politicians and I'm going to move it down to the local level where it belongs and where it used to be. Now, I'm so convinced that local control, I'm so passionate about local control that I'm one of the pioneers of the California charter school movement. Now I don't know if you've been watching the charter school movement in California very closely or not. It is the most improved public education reform activity going on right now, in my opinion, in California. When I got involved 10 years ago with Reed Hastings and others, there was just a handful of charter schools. There's now 800 of them in California. 800 charter schools, 5% of all public school kids now go to charter schools. Charter schools are public schools but the state education code is waived for charter schools. They have the kind of local control that they need in order to customize programs to meet the needs of local kids.
As governor, I'm just telling you, I'm going to take the same type of freedom and flexibility that charter schools have, we're going to apply them to all schools. And in addition, we're going to drive more money back down into the classroom. It is an incredibly bureaucratic massive organization that runs our California public school system. And this is what I learned from the other California school teachers that I taught with. 5,0000 schools report to 1,000 school districts. Well hang on a second, some of these school districts have just one school. In fact, hundreds of these school districts have just one school. No matter the size of the school district, you have a staff and a superintendent and a lot of expenses. These staffs and school districts report to the 58 county boards of education. Each county board has a staff and a superintendent and a board an all. These 58 county boards of education report to - well, it's not clear.
There's the elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, there's the Secretary of Education, there's the State Board of Education, and there's the Department of Education. Incredibly fragmented. And then overlay the 2,000 pages of the state education code and you have one dysfunctional system. Now, there's 600,000 people who work in K-12 in California, 600,000. And over half of them are not in the classroom.
Now, how do we fix these things? Well the fact is, teachers are very angry right now that it's no longer a profession. They're set up for failure. Now I'm an engineer. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a problem solver. And I want to get together with teachers and educators and business folks, folks from across the political spectrum. California is in a huge crisis right now and it's time for all of us to get together and implement some common sense solutions like I'm describing here so we can get not only the public schools back on track, so that we can get California back on track. Thank you all very much for the invitation to be here. Thank you, appreciate it.
Willie Brown has been known to bring in big names, and it is really hard to say no when he asks you to come speak at one of his events, or any event really. So, as you may have guessed, everybody was at his "Breakfast Club" this morning. Arnold, all the candidates, and, well, everybody except the reclusive Meg Whitman. You'll have to forgive my camera work.
The speeches went as you would expect them. Poizner, Campbell, and Brown all gave speeches. All of which I missed, however, I did get reports from a solid (Democratic) source, who called Tom Campbell the best of the bunch. Jerry Brown's speech was just a standard stump speech, and according to Carla Marinucci, Brown has no inclination to announce his candidacy anytime soon. And Poizner, well, he was Poizner.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's right-wing Director of Finance, Mike Genest, is resigning from his post, after being the governor's point man on the budget since 2005. And after being the governor's point man on gutting the state these last few years, he is leaving with a few parting shots. Not at the current governor, but at one of the hopefuls looking to replace him: Steve Poizner. As Genest tells it to George Skelton, Poizner's 10-10-10 tax cut plan is a political non-starter as well as economically and financially ruinous:
"Tax cuts do tend to improve the economy," Genest says, "but it's very hard historically to find where they result in a revenue increase. You could argue that the best thing for the economy is to have no taxes at all, but people depend on some government services. Without them, we don't have any economy. If you don't believe me, look at Somalia."
Genest continues: "There's no basis to believe that a tax cut now would be affordable given the budget situation the state faces. I know Rush Limbaugh is going to hate me."
As for deeper spending cuts, Genest says: "You can always cut spending by 10%. The question is do you want to. We just tried to close parks, and that didn't work out. We tried to take money away from women's shelters and had to relent on that."
I like Genest's honesty here - he says they wanted to close parks and cause further harm to battered women, but that public outcry prevented this. One wonders if Democratic leaders will get the message: Arnold can be forced to back down if the Dems refuse to go along with his hurtful cuts by mobilizing public outrage. Skelton, for once, helpfully connected the dots and showed that the attack on government itself actually hurts instead of helps businesses and jobs:
There's also a dispute about whether businesses and wealthy Californians really are fleeing the state to escape high taxation. Many think any fleeing has more to do with high property costs, traffic congestion and subpar public schools.
"If high income taxes were chasing away rich Californians, high-income households would be more likely than low-income households to move to states without income taxes, but they aren't," the Public Policy Institute of California reported in July. And two years ago, the institute found that "when California businesses relocate, most stay within -- rather than moving out of -- the state."
This gets to a fundamental truth that most Californians understand, but that Poizner is determined to ignore: without strong public services, California is an undesirable place to live, work, create, and innovate. The best way to chase away businesses and jobs is to destroy our schools, wipe out our health care system, and let our transportation system become paralyzed through gridlock and dependence on oil.
In fact, a coalition of business groups have come together to fight for one of the big government spending programs designed to help California's crisis - high speed rail. I fully expect Poizner to oppose the high speed rail project, so I would like to see him explain that opposition to the corporations that comprise the SF Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Council, and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, who together founded the new HSR coalition.
Skelton also quoted from Lou Cannon, noted biographer of Ronald Reagan, who pointed out that the Republican hero himself supported several tax increases in California, including the largest ever (as a proportion of the budget) to close a budget gap in 1967. At least while he was governor, Reagan understood the role of government in providing for the California Dream.
It's a role Poizner refuses to understand, even when a fellow right-winger like Mike Genest tries to explain it to him. Although I'm sure it will play well with the teabagger base.
In the Democratic primary, there's really not much conversation to speak of. Basically, you have Gavin Newsom running around trying to increase name ID by conducting town halls and the like. Jerry Brown is just patiently waiting back for the spring, or so it seems.
But that is hardly the case on the Republican side. The three candidates have been lobbing hand grenades at each other for several months now. Two of them, Poizner and Whitman, are former CEOs who have given money to, gasp, Democrats. The other, Tom Campbell, is a self-described champion of bipartisanship.
But how do you show the right-wingers of the party, ie the party base, that you are the Real Republican. Well, if you're Tom Campbell, you don't try, and just call yourself bipartisan. I know that might work to pull in 20% in early polls, but that strategy seems like quite the longshot in a Republican primary that tends to skew hard right.
Meanwhile, as Poizner and Whitman go for the "conservative" mantle, they have to deal with their Democratic skeletons in the closet:
Whitman gave $4,000 to Boxer in November 2003 and an additional $4,000 to Boxer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that same month, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Whitman also endorsed Boxer in 2003 as a member of the group Technology Leaders for Boxer. In a joint letter publicized by the Boxer campaign, Whitman wrote, "Barbara Boxer is a courageous leader and friend of California's technology industry."
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Poizner has faced similar questions about his contributions to Gore and the Gore/Lieberman Recount Committee, which funded the Democratic candidate's unsuccessful legal efforts in the aftermath of the 2000 election. (SacBee 10/26/09)
Of course, that they each have these issues takes out much of the teeth out of this fight. Unless Tom McClintock is somehow lured into this race, Whitman and Poizner are only judged on a curve defined by the other. If a longtime Republican conservative enters the race, the complexion changes markedly. However, at this point the field seems to have solidified. McClintock is really the only name conservative that would be able to have a major impact on the race.
So, press releases are tossed back and forth on who is the Real Republican, and still the phrase has no meaning and no value to the bulk of California voters.
California political junkies are buzzing about the new Rasmussen poll which shows former Governor and current Attorney General Jerry Brown handily leading all the major Republican gubernatorial contenders (Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell) while Brown's rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination trailing the same three possible Republicans. Here's the data:
This is definitely NOT very good news for the Governor Gavin movement. That's too bad, because MadProfesah has been leaning towards Newsom, especially since Gerry Brown hasn't announced whether he wants the job (again) yet, and acting as attorney general, Brown was responsible for the devastatingly incompetent presentation by an Assistant Attorney General during the Proposition 8 California Supreme Court oral argument.
UPDATE by Dave: I would say that this poll is fairly meaningless. I'm guessing Rasmussen pushed leaners hard to get any kind of opinion. I don't think anyone has really engaged on this race, and anyone thinking it will remain static isn't being honest. This is more of a reflection of name ID, for good and ill, than anything else.
In 2006, the Schwarzenegger campaign uncorked an ad almost immediately after the primaries showing Phil Angelides walking backwards, the assumption being that he would take the state backwards as well. One of the ads liberally quoted Angelides' rival for the Democratic nomination, Steve Westly, using the bruising primary against the winner. "What if Steve Westly was right?" the announcer says, after citing Westly's rhetoric in claiming that Angelides favored $10 billion in new taxes. Steve Westly wrote most of Arnold Schwarzenegger's early strategy and even his campaign spots, as Angelides was defined by his opponent swiftly.
Steve Poizner basically bestowed the same gift on eMeg Whitman over the weekend. The ads about Whitman's failure to register to vote for 28 years write themselves, but Poizner took the liberty of making the ad. If Republicans know how to do one thing well, it's go hard negative, and this ad will probably be very effective to the GOP primary audience. It will also be effective as a "here's what Republicans say about Meg Whitman" ad next year, should see prevail in the primary. Poizner actually reiterated his call for Whitman to drop out of the race "for the good of the party" over the weekend at the Republican convention in Indian Wells. The issue received major pickup throughout the media.
And Whitman did herself no favors at all with some of the worst damage control you'll see in politics, as she repeated like a mantra this line about how "there is no excuse for my voting record," completely avoiding any specifics about why. If she manages to win the primary, expect to hear this audio right through to next November. It's cringe-worthy.
I'm guessing the Republican Governor's Association just tried to pull back their invitation to Meg Whitman to come to any of their gala events.
This is terrible crisis management, of course. And it suggests that the general election would be no kinder on eMeg. But it's not like the split in the US Senate race, with serial non-voter Carlyfornia going up against wingnut conservative Chuck DeVore (The LA Times gets this wrong by trying to impose a blanket comparison). The Yacht Party grassroots has figured out that they have no candidate in the Republican primary, and regardless of who wins they probably won't be all that excited to work for the top of the ticket.
For activists such as Mike Spence, past president of the conservative California Republican Assembly, such centrist talk inspires unease following what they said was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's betrayal of the Republican base.
Spence called the Republican governor a failure and blasted him for breaking his promises to conservatives by, among other things, approving the biggest tax increase in state history earlier this year. Schwarzenegger has also championed traditionally liberal causes such as Assembly Bill 32, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by about 25 percent by 2020.
"After the governor, people are cautious about who they support," Spence said.
Of course, this could be true of the Democratic grassroots as well, depending on circumstances. I think the only certainty in next year's elections will be the low turnout, as a slice of both sides stay home for their own reasons. But the Yacht Party's cast of characters look particularly uninspiring.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today dismissed a vow by Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman to suspend California's landmark greenhouse gas law if she's elected to succeed him next year as "just rhetoric that is going on among the candidates."
"You will hear all kinds of stories," Schwarzenegger told an audience at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "What will happen in reality and what they will do when they go into office is probably a whole different ballgame, and I think she will probably reconsider what she said.
"I'm sure she does not want to be counted as one of those Republicans that will want to move us back to the Stone Age or something like that," the Republican governor said. "So I would pay no attention to this kind of rhetoric."
Of course, relics from the Stone Age are the target demographic for a Republican primary, so Whitman has to say what she said. And she's not being accused of political pandering by, of all people, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Which should make for a fun weekend when the two appear together at the GOP convention in Indian Wells starting tomorrow.
Poizner's camp issued a statement in response to the story this morning, attacking the Whitman campaign for "refusing to answer simple questions and deliberately lying to cover up the facts" and calling for the candidate to "step aside" and drop out of the race.
"It's understandable that Meg Whitman is ashamed of this record. But it's unacceptable that she continues to run from the record and deceive voters. Though there is no shred of evidence she ever registered as a Republican before 2007, she insists she did, yet she refuses to provide any evidence. Her arrogant answer: 'Go find it,' " Communications Director Jarrod Agen said in a statement. "In the history of America, no one has been elected governor of a state with Meg Whitman's 25 year history of no-show voting. She is unelectable and has tried to cover her lack of honesty with millions of dollars."
Hysterical. By the way, if you think eMeg's voting record is bad, take a look at iCarly's. Quite a team they'll make on the GOP ticket next year...
Desperate to win over the wingnut base of the California Republican Party, and likely herself a true believer in the "let's destroy government" cause, Meg Whitman has joined Steve Poizner and taken the Grover Norquist "no new taxes" pledge:
"By signing the Pledge, Whitman makes clear that if elected she will stand up for taxpayers and not the tenured bureaucrats, coercive utopians, and union bosses that currently run Sacramento," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "In a state with one of the highest tax burdens in the country, a dismal business tax climate, rampant overspending, and a government that is so costly that Californians had to work 235 days this year, well over half the year, just to pay for it, higher taxes should be a non-starter for all elected officials and candidates. In signing the Pledge, Whitman has made clear that she recognizes this."...
"Californians are fortunate to have two high quality candidates who have made this important commitment to defend the overburdened Golden State taxpayers," added Norquist. "I strongly encourage, and challenge, Tom Campbell, Gavin Newsome [sic] and every candidate for governor to sign the Pledge."
Presumably this means Whitman and Poizner oppose making the wealthy pay more to help keep teachers in the classrooms, that they enjoy seeing classes with a whopping 42 students in them, and that they are happy to prolong the recession in order to carry out their shock doctrine of California's once-great prosperity.
Interestingly, you'll note that of the other candidates Norquist challenged to sign the pledge, Jerry Brown was not among them. He hasn't officially signed that pledge, but as Brian mentioned last week, he might as well have:
Brown said he would not raise taxes if he became governor, noting that the public is opposed. "We're not in the revenue raising business," he said.
Of course, the polls tell a different story. Californians are quite willing to raise certain taxes to restore and preserve vital public services. How exactly Brown would balance the state's budget without embracing the kinds of cuts eMeg has proposed is quite unclear.
If we are going to beat Poizner or Whitman, Democrats will have to offer a different vision for California's future. And that means rejecting the "no new taxes" mantra that is destroying our state and the economic prosperity of the working and middle classes. If Jerry Brown won't offer that vision, will Gavin Newsom?
As we drift headlong into the 2010 Governor's race, there are some very big issues facing the state. One of these, is the prison crisis. The legislature and the Governor were only able to come up with cuts that would reduce the population by somewhere in the 25,000 range, while the federal courts are looking more in the 44,000 range.
The Bee took a look at how the candidates are talking about this issue, and let's just say that some of the positions are semi-reasonable, and others simply aren't. Now, for those of you who were wondering about the Michael Jackson "Black or White" Video, well, I give you Steve Poizner's black or white take on the world:
Whitman and Poizner, on the other hand, have tried to out-tough each other, railing against legislation passed last month by the state Senate that would have let some inmates out earlier and appointed a commission to rework state sentencing laws. The ultimate version of the bill passed this month did not include the sentencing commission or a provision to release more than 6,000 inmates to home detention.
"You have to be a really bad person to get into state prison," Poizner said. "So I'm opposed to releasing people who are dangerous, absolutely opposed. That's no way to balance the budget."
Whitman went even further, saying she opposed rewriting any prison and parole guidelines that would shorten prison terms for any inmate.(Sac Bee 9/23/09emphasis mine)
Poizner simply takes the reactionary view, that is, that if you are in prison, you are a bad, bad, person. Of course, this ignores the crazy, messed up world of parole violations that lead to people going to prison to serve out a term because they missed a meeting with their parole officer or some other technicality. So, yes, you have to break the law to end up in prison, but painting all prisoners with such a wide brush serves neither the prison system, the prisoners, nor the state very well.
And then you look at eMeg's statement, and that seems all the more bizarre when you put it together with her statement from yesterday saying that she wants to can 40,000 state workers. As the governor's staff has pointed out, you can't fire that many workers without firing a bunch of prison guards. And if you plan on increasing the prison population as eMeg seems to be saying here, well forget about cutting state employee roles, you'll end up hiring another 10,000 prison guards. And that doesn't even consider the overtime pay that the guards get in spades.
Jerry Brown, who mentioned that he would consider the position, and SF Mayor Gavin Newsom have stated fairly similar positions. Both want to reduce recidivism (good!) but haven't stated whether they would support a sentencing commission or any serious reform (bad!).
On the other hand, Republican Tom Campbell has actually been quite the reasonable guy on this front. He supported the Senate bill (Good!) and has put out specific, pragmatic policies on this and some other issues, many of which are pretty vanilla milquetoast. Nonetheless, a candidate that is willing to talk about the issue from a logical viewpoint, rather than an emotional reactionary viewpoint, deserves some credit.
Campbell, on the other hand, is bucking the prevailing wisdom in his party. He backed both the Senate version and the final bill although both shorten prison terms of some inmates.
"We have an opportunity to direct a more effective prison system," Campbell said. "I'd rather approach this pragmatically, through outsourcing of prisoners, developing a triage of parole violators and focusing on more violent offenders in prisons."
Now, Arnold supported the Senate bill too, and that hardly makes him a great Governor, does it? But, unless our elected leaders are willing to deal with thhis issue out of a place of pragmatic, problem-solving leadership, rather than out of fear of an electoral backlash, we shouldn't expect too much progress.
Meg Whitman isn't quite the punching bag of say, an iCarly. She's dumped a bucket load of cash into her campaign, and has some actual support coming in as well.
But, she saw the red meat that Steve Poizner was dishing up to the base, and thought she better get in the action once again. So, in a speech that she's giving, oh, right about now, she puts a bunch of ground round on a platter and serves it up rare as can be. Joe Garofoli at the Chronicle just posted some choice excerpts from the speech:
As governor, I'll cut taxes to create jobs. Specifically, I'll cut taxes on job-creating businesses of every size and implement targeted tax relief to rebuild manufacturing in California. I'll expand research and development tax credits. I'll establish tax incentives and credits for companies that train and hire displaced workers. And I'll establish a cabinet-level position in my administration dedicated to private sector job growth. (SF Gate)
So, R&D credits, huh? Well, her friends in Silicon Valley will love that. How about her friends in the Central Valley who are struggling to pay the health insurance bill and the mortgage? No word on that issue. But don't worry, because unlike Poizner, she's got a plan on how we afford the tax cuts: Slash 40,000 government jobs.
As I committed to in February, if elected I will identify and implement at least $15 billion in permanent spending cuts from the state budget. I'll eliminate redundant and underperforming government agencies and commissions. And I will reduce the state workforce by at least 40,000 employees. That's a 17 percent reduction that would reset the workforce to 2004-2005 levels and save the state a projected $3.3 billion annually. (SF Gate)
Right, that's the ticket. I know Whitman is a business scholar, so I'll leave this question to her: How does the state sustain an additional loss of 40,000 jobs without a consequential, and substantial, drop in consumer spending and thus private sector jobs.
The fact is that this plan is even more half-baked than Poizner's merely ridiculous plan. This one carries few specifics other than "we can improve IT efficiency." Yes, that's true, but the state government isn't ebay, and you can't simply apply feedback scores and tell everybody that they just have to trust reputation and then pretend everything is hunky-dory. And you can't really outsource your labor to slave labor, as eMeg does. Nope, the state actually needs its workforce to accomplish some very important goals. Things like fighting fires, protecting its citizens, you know, silly stuff.
I'm not even sure I need to attack this plan, as the Governor's people have already done so. From back in June, here's Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear criticizing the plan:
Former eBay CEO and Republican candidate Meg Whitman campaigns across California, advocating job cuts to net a 10 percent "head count" reduction in California's 345,000-person state workforce.
But she got a brushback from Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear, who suggested such across-the-board cuts are all but impossible.
"The governor only has authority over contracts with 100,000 state employees paid through the general fund," McLear said. "About two-thirds of those are in Corrections. So it's unclear how you cut 30,000 positions without affecting public safety."
Aaah, the battle royale between Whitman and Poizner, where nothing really makes sense, but you get style points just for dressing up your utility grade red-meat.
Today, our dear Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner (let us all thank Cruz Bustamante for that) released his tax plan. You can grab the PDF here. Apparently Poizner fancies himself a George W. Bush for California, because he plans on cutting taxes with no way to pay for them. But, as we can't deficit spend, officially anyway, I'm not sure how he plans on paying for the cuts.
But the whole plan is riddled with more inaccuracies than an intern's all-nighter project. Except that this is probably the work of a few interns pulling an all-nighter. Just check the graph to the right, and somehow that's plopped down in his PDF presentation on page 5 as if it is supposed to mean something. Yes folks, that is total tax revenues. Not per capita, just bare dollar figures. Shockingly, California has far more tax revenue than every other state and the leading revenue states just happen to be the largest states by population. Now, if anybody who reads this "plan" has half a brain, they'll think, wait a minute, this data is meaningless, what is this guy trying to pull?
Well, something extraordinary as it turns out. Poizner is planning on setting fire to state government in a way that even Arnold would find worrisome. His tax plan simply cuts tax rates down the line. Of course, as is the custom, the rich will get the bulk of this tax cut, thus making the middle class carry more of the burden. The bottom tax bracket, for those making b/w $0 and $7K will be reduced from 1.25% to 0.90%, while the top tax bracket, from about $93K on up goes from 9.55% to 8.37% under Poizner's plan. Now, what Poizner isn't telling you as he continues to hide the ball, but that most Californians know and understand is that people who make less than $7,000 do not actually pay taxes, so this "working class tax cut" is completely illusory. Meanwhile, even the middle rates do not fall as much as the top tax cut.
But we should not even be shocked by this. As we've seen from the Parsky Commission, Republicans are feeling their oats. They have realized that despite defeat after defeat after defeat at the ballot box, they are still winning the war over where this state is heading. They are going to shock doctrine us, whether you like it or not. After all, they have graphs.
The data seems to be mostly from the Pacific Research Institute, a think tank chock full o' rightwing "thinkers." They are the type who sit around plotting various graphs in efforts to confuse the general public. They come up with graphs comparing net migration to the top personal tax rate, as if the two have causal relationship. But, why bother with showing causation when you can point to correlation. hey, look, I found a penny on the street yesterday, and today I got fired. Clearly, when you pick up a penny, you will get fired. It must be true, they're correlated.
But wait there's more to this so-called plan. He also plans on cutting the corporate tax as well as the capital gains tax. All this with no actual plan to pay for any of this. Oh sure, he's going to hire a Chief Innovation Officer, and "streamline" government. But, unless you read "streamline" to mean "destroy the social safety net" like most interested observers of Poizner's career track would do, there is nothing to indicate how this doesn't destroy the state budget even more than it already is.
Oh, and don't forget, he's going to make sure that grieving parents cannot recover for the loss of their children by continuing to tighten the valve on tort deform. Because, you know, the fact that the non-economic damages number hasn't been adjusted for inflation since its inception in the 1970s hasn't already done that.
Ladies and Gentleman, meet the Real Steve Poizner: The Man Who Finishes The Job That Arnold Was Too Much of A Girlie-Man to Finish. He'll go ahead and destroy the social safety net and the state budget once and for all.
Van Jones, in my book, is a guy who a) knows his stuff and b) can get things done. Just the kind of guy you want in the administration. And as we try to get the Green Jobs thing moving, his role as the green jobs czar will be increasingly important. And Jones tells it like it is. When asked why Republicans were able to pass legislation despite their relatively smaller minorities, Jones answered in a brutally honest fashion:
JONES: Well the answer to that is, they're assholes.
QUESTIONER: I was afraid that was the answer.
JONES: As a technical, political kind of term. And Barack Obama is not an asshole. Now, I will say this: I can be an asshole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity. (HuffPo)
Now, if you read this whole quote, you will see that he's not really using the term in a pejorative sense, after all he goes on to call himself an asshole as well. As I read it, he is essentially saying that the Republicans were hard-nosed and dedicated to their cause. They pushed it through no matter what. Jones is saying that is what is needed, and that he can do the same thing.
Of course, Fox News and the Gang are UP IN ARMS over this. Of course, they don't look at the whole context, but take away the one line and go play the victim on national TV. Van Jones is a bully, they say, and just plane rude. And a communist, of course!
Steve Poizner, who seems to be growing a little antsy by all the attention that eMeg is getting, thinks that he can tie this all together. A few weeks ago, eMeg commented on Jones and the time that she spent with him on a cruise to the Antarctic for a research/publicity kind of thing. She gave him a few shallow comments, calling him bright, articulate, and passionate.
Poizner is now making it an issue after the leaders of the GOP, aka the radio shock jocks made it an issue. One "Jaz McKay" is having none of this mushy middle:
JAZ MCKAY: Just to do it. I'm just going to. I'm not voting for her. I'm telling you right now. Her position on the 2nd Amendment has already pissed me off to no end. I ain't voting for her.
JOHN HAWKINS: Come on. Who doesn't love a Republican who wants to take your guns?
JAZ MCKAY: Who doesn't love a Republican who goes on global warming cruises with communists, right?
JOHN HAWKINS: And talks about how much she loves them after.
JAZ MCKAY: Ah, just loves them.
Whitman and Poizner have been swapping barbs for a while now over some really petty stuff. But hey, grab a snack, and just enjoy. Jones isn't going to lose sleep over this, and this will make not one iota of difference in the grand scheme of things. It's just another distraction from the real issues that face Californians.
Peep the flip for the radio transcript and a video of Whitman talking about Jones.
Yesterday, I found an example of the national media understanding the situation in California in Hendrick Hertzberg's article in the August 24 issue of the New Yorker. It didn't take long to remind me that he's the exception to the rule.
Take today's Wall Street Journal. I practically fell out of my chair when I read this:
California's fiscal crisis is giving Tom Campbell, an ex-congressman with few resources, a fighting chance to become the state's next governor. (WSJ 8/18/09)
Yes, that is a direct quote from what is supposed to be one of the world's leading newspapers. But, apparently the Wall Street Journal didn't bother to check the financial reports. A serious candidate doesn't have $317K in their bank account at this point. (And lest you think there's big money coming in since the report...let's dispel that now.) Considering that Meg Whitman has somewhere over $20 million in the bank, you just can't compete in California without raising more money.
I will give Campbell some props for the DailyKos/R2K poll numbers. The fact that he's only down 5 points is pretty astounding considering the money disparity. I think that poll might say more about Steve Poizner's unpopularity in the GOP electorate more than anything else (9 pts? ouch!).
Would Campbell be a strong competitor in the general election? Probably. If he could raise the money, he has some interesting ideas that could capture a sizable chunk of the Decline to State crowd. Is he more moderate than Whitman and Poizner? Sure, but it's not like that takes a lot. Poizner is running a campaign to defund California. And Whitman has some issues with the gayz as well as slave labor.
The Wall Street Journal may not understand the CA GOP electorate, but I do. Unless Campbell starts skewing hard to the right, the votes just won't be there. In today's Zombie Death Cult, "moderates" - or the slightly sane- just cannot win a statewide primary.
On another note, as I was cruising the virtual pages of the WSJ, I also came upon this article on mortgage lending. It was critical of Vermont for not letting their lenders give out crazy loans that brought down the economy. Seriously, they thought it would have been better if VT had played the game like everybody else and fed the bubble. Yes, ladies and gentleman, meet your media.
There's not a lot of love lost between Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner. That much is clear. However, they're making it really clear with how much money they are spending beating the crap out of each other. While Poizner's $1.5 million spent at this point is pretty high, it's really not all that shocking. On the other, Whitman's $6 million is quite the total, and puts her on a pace to make Al Checchi's $40 million look like chump change.
The fun part of all this, is cruising through some of the expenses, which the campaigns have each helpfully itemized for their opponents. Poizner's really isn't that much fun, but I'll get some more deets and post them over the flip. But as for Whitman, where's she spending it? Well, there was $100K for private jets, $10 K for Wolfgang Puck, $2.1 Million in consulting, and nearly $1 million for internet consulting.
To say that number is huge is an understatement. That amount of money would fund a decent presidential campaign's internet department. To spend that in 6 months, is rather astonishing.
While perhaps not a sign of the better side of our politics, the money race in California politics is crucial. This is especially true for the Governor's race, where the campaign has been mostly fought via air war in the last few elections. Thus, it is time for a Calitics look at the money situation in some of the statewide races. We'll start with the Governor's race, and within the next few days, I'll post information on some of the other races of note.
So, let's get right to it. First, the Republicans:
Meg Whitman Ending Balance - $4,962,065.61
Debts - $295,175.64
What isn't included in this report, however, is that Whitman donated a bit of money to her campaign. You know nothing, major, just $15,000,000. Yes, you read that right. Whitman has now donated over $19 million to her campaign. Money will be no issue for the Whitman campaign. There is a litany of problems for Whitman, both with the Republican primary electorate as well as with the general election voters. However, if she has an overwhelmingly large a lot of money, she might simply be able to drown out any message that isn't exactly to her liking. It is a bit worrying, despite all the fun that you can have with Meg Whitman.
Steve Poizner Ending Balance - $3,701,993.79
Debts - $176,186.66
Steve Poizner hasn't dumped the kind of money that Whitman has into her campaign. He's getting some decent level of grassroots support from the right-wing, as there has been no real hard-right McClintock-esque type of candidate. Poizner doesn't have quite the wealth of Whitman, but he can afford to drop a few million into his campaign if he begins to get overrun by the Whitman machine.
Tom Campbell Ending Balance - $317,381.69
Debts - $0
Poor Tom Campbell. Not that Campbell is a poor man, but compared to the other two, he simply cannot donate to his campaign. He cannot get the right-wing grassroots support as he has consistently ticked off the right-wing with his positions on Prop 8 and taxes. At some point unless his fundraising picks up steam rapidly, you begin to question whether this is a serious campaign and not some platform for him to talk about the budget. If that's the case, well, it's a fairly good tack, and would give him some power over the discussions in the campaign. He'll need to raise a lot more to actually be competitive in the Republican primary though.
On the Democratic side, it's starting to look like an un-fair fight. Attorney General Jerry Brown (and supposed candidate for that race again) has a lot of money heading into the Democratic primary, SF Mayor Gavin Newsom had a fairly disappointing first half of the year for fundraising, considering he was the only announced candidate. Running for Governor also allows a substantially higher maximum, so Brown can go back to a lot of his maxed out donors when (if?) he declares for the Governor's race.
Brown
Ending Balance - $7,386,669.12
Debts - $0
Brown has been extremely thrifty, with his staff very limited. His wife, Anne Gust, is doing much of the day-to-day work, and Joe Trippi is doing a bit of consulting. But, there just hasn't been much money flowing out of his campaign. If he goes back and double-dips to his other contributions, he'll have even more money. This is a train with a lot of steam now.
In years past, these numbers wouldn't have been terrible. But costs have gone up, and you simply need a lot of money. With the exodus of Eric Jaye and the now unquestioned authority of Garry South, it is a fairly safe assumption that there will be a big push on traditional fundraising methods over new media and grassroots fundraising. Whether Newsom will succeed with such methods is still an open question.
Thanks to the power of twitter, we have some real-time reporting from this afternoon's "debate" between Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner. They each came kitted out with props. Campbell apparently is a fan of whiteboards, and Poizner brought massive copies of the current California budget. Ooh, fun!
But neither actually addressed the real problem: the economic crisis in California. Instead, they choose to address the symptoms by cutting spending from the California budget. Robert described Campbell's "plan", but Poizner is even more ludicrous. Apparently a "process" makes massive cuts palatable
Poizner says it's "distasteful" to talk about cuts without a "process." LAT's George Skelton says "process doesn't solve budget problem." (John Myers twitter)
The narrative is this: Californians are sick and tired of a dysfunctional government. They want quality schools and services that work for California. And while some taxes aren't all that popular, there are a lot of taxes that could pass provided that the Governor provided some real leadership. Rather than just sitting behind a podium trying to scare people, we need a leader that is willing to go to bat for Californians.
Tea bags are a distraction from what is the sad fact facing California: we are about to Hoover our economy, and the Republicans are cheering it on.
Tom Campbell and Steve Poizner are going around "debating" the propositions. Campbell says yes on 1A, 1D, and 1E, Poisner says no on everything, owing to the fact that John and Ken said so. John Myers will be at their next stop, the Sacramento Press Club, and will be doing some live tweeting.
Ultimately both Poizner and Campbell fundamentally misunderstand the electorate. Californians are angry at their politicans, yes. They want them to do what they sent them there to do, which is work for the people. The people want a stable government which works. Sure, there are a few people who only vote based on what John and Ken say, but a much larger share of Californians are terrified of the cuts that are looming and the Failornator just hasn't helped things with his scare tactics.
, Meg Whitman has come down from her ivory tower to inform the plebes that 
