In part 1 of a New Deal for California, I discussed why any effort to rebuild the state must begin with a frontal assault on high unemployment as the only reliable means of achieving budget stability - as opposed to self-defeating quests for balance via austerity. In part 2, I studied how the quest for a more perfect democracy is inextricably linked to a renewal of democratic control over the state's own revenues.
Today, I want to discuss two areas of policy that are among the largest spending categories in the California state budget, but which also represent two faces of the state, and two approaches to developing its youth, and two sets of values - namely, education and prisons.
Arnold's recent proposal to put a floor under higher education at 10% of the state budget and a ceiling over prisons at 7% of the state budget is only the most recent example of a long trend of discussing the two in the same breath. As I discussed in the linked article, Schwarzenegger's approach is fundamentally flawed, a mirage of egalitarianism masking a reality of utter callousness. A moral society cannot pay for the future of its most talented youth through the deliberate immiseration of its least advantaged.
However, a New Deal for California will have to grapple with the reality that California will either educate or incarcerate its young, and that the power to choose lies with us.
In the wake of the passage of the Affordable Choices Act into law, there are a lot of questions about how we go on from here. Obviously, one line of activism focuses on ways to improve the health care reform act. To some progressives so morally outraged at the defeat of the public option that they’ve given up on the Congress as hopelessly wedded to corporate interests, obviously, this isn’t so appealing.
However, if the progressive movement can be clever and strategic for a second, and is willing to work from within rather than to cry defeat, we can actually work on the state level to move the goalposts of the health care debate in the direction of single-payer before we even get to the next round of national legislation.
The current state of California politics can be summed up in a simple comparison: in the Republican gubernatorial primaries, we see one candidate promising that their first action upon becoming governor is to put 40,000 people out of work and the other complaining that this isn’t enough; in the Democratic convention, we see a party divided over whether to fight for majority rule for budgets or for budgets and taxes.
As a state, California seems caught between the scissors of an increasing need for public services to provide a basic level of social protection for the sick, the elderly and the poor and to restore our high-road, high-wage economy based on superior public education and green technology, and a paralyzed, undemocratic, and irrational political structure that is unwilling and unable to take the necessary actions to meet those needs.
We know that the strategies proposed by the GOP’s gubernatorial candidates won’t work because they are essentially a retreat of the last seven years of failed policies – Schwarzeneggerism without a human face.
Yet Democrats lack a forceful message about what we want to do beyond the immediate issue of the budget.
In part 1 of this series, I discussed the possibility of creating state economic recovery bonds that the Federal government could buy to lend its ability to deficit-spend in recessions to the state governments to counter-act their natural pro-cyclical tendencies. In part 2, I expanded on how we could adapt state governments to Keynesian economic policies by passing anti-recession budget reform initiatives allowing limited deficits during times of economic recession, establishing state banks to provide borrowing capacity for state governments, and establishing state job insurance programs.
So what remains to be done for Keynesian economic policy to be brought to the benefit of state government?
Mark DeSaulnier has had a rapid ascent through the state legislature and now, potentially, into Congress. Within three years, this former restaurant owner won elections to the State Assembly (in 2006) and the State Senate (in 2008), with a Congressional primary scheduled for September 1. Prior to that, he was a 3-time member of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and the California Air Resources Board. A former liberal Republican in the mold of Edward Brooke, DeSaulnier switched parties several years ago and compiled a liberal voting record in the State Legislature. His first ad of the campaign covered the topic of health care, and I asked him about this and several other issues in an interview conducted last week. Having taken place before the crucial budget vote, I spent a good deal of time asking DeSaulnier about that, and you can see his responses here. Depending on your perspective, he either did or did not fulfill the promise to vote against "most" of the budget, by the way, voting no on 11 of 26 bills, including all of the more controversial ones.
I'll pick up with a paraphrased transcript of the rest of the interview below:
(Welcome back Representative! - promoted by Bob Brigham)
We have a problem with our economy. The raw numbers say the economic pie is growing, but the larger pieces are all going to a small minority of Americans -- meaning that for most Americans, wages are barely keeping pace with inflation.
Clearly, it's time to reconnect the economic fortunes of front-line workers to those of their CEO's -- who are commonly making making tens of millions of dollars annually -- by cutting off tax subsidies for these enormous compensation packages if they are more than 25 times the salary of the lowest paid worker in the company.
It's about time. Although neoliberalism has been hurting working Californians since 1979, it's been in the last few years that the situation has become dramatically worse. Low wages, poor job growth prospects, and soaring costs of living are killing the California Dream for millions of residents of this state.
Below I offer an overview of the report, and some suggestions on what we can - and should - do about the growing crisis.
I have a conflicted relationship with the LA Times. On the one hand, they still do a stellar job covering international news; I would put the paper's Iraq reporting up with any other news organization in the world. But on the editorial side, the paper has taken up the neoliberal consensus with a vengeance, and turns a blind eye to vital issues to this community, like inequality and poverty. Nancy Cleeland, an excellent writer, has decided to leave the paper for just this reason:
Busloads of protesters fighting the construction of new penitentiaries swarmed the Capitol on Wednesday, while inside the statehouse, the simmering politics surrounding the prison overcrowding crisis boiled into full view.
The protesters attacked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to build 78,000 new prison and jail beds, saying that $11 billion worth of "bricks and mortar and debt" are no substitute for true reform.
Instead, the demonstrators - some dressed in orange prison jumpsuits and standing in makeshift cells - said lawmakers could quickly thin the inmate population by releasing geriatric and incapacitated convicts and by sanctioning thousands of parole violators in their communities rather than in state lockups.
I would add revising sentencing guidelines through a newly-created independent commission, but just the presence of these protesters at all suggests that this issue will not be as invisible as it has been in previous years. Which makes sense, as we're two months from a court-imposed deadline to do something about overcrowding.
Beep...beep...we now interrupt your regularly scheduled blogreading. Ok I kid (and I rip of k/o's humor). This is nothing new. Jerry Lewis is once again under investigation. From the AP:
Federal investigators probing Rep. Jerry Lewis' ties to lobbyists are looking into a land deal that put nearly 41 pristine acres in the congressman's neighborhood off-limits to developers, The Associated Press has learned.
The land was given to the city of Redlands by Jack and Laura Dangermond, who have donated generously to Lewis, R-Redlands. The Dangermonds founded and run a company ESRI in Redlands that has gotten tens of millions of dollars' worth of contracts through the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which Lewis chairs.
One government contract came months after the land donation.
The land, some of which sits directly across from Lewis' home, is part of a scenic canyon in one of Redlands' wealthiest neighborhoods. Keeping the land free of development helps ensure that property values remain high.(San Bernadino Sun 9/6/06)
So what's new? Well, I guess it's just one more example of the GOP corruption here in California and in DC. Lewis just loves his little quid pro quo arrangements, passing out government contracts like candy to his supporters. It's really rather revolting. It's also another example of why we need the bipartisan legislation championed by Sens. Obama and Coburn to create a searchable online database of government contracts. Sen Stevens, Remove this hold!
This past week, much to everyone’s surprise, Democrats in the House of Representatives managed to slip a proposal to increase the minimum wage into a bill funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.
Faced with the specter of having to vote against increasing the wage floor from its current embarrassing level of $5.15 to $7.25 by Jan. 1, 2009, Congressional Republicans snapped into action and pulled the bill.
This is what these brave souls do in election season when they don’t want to have to go back to their districts and answer questions as to why it’s ok to cut hundreds of billions in rich people’s taxes but deny the working poor a boost.
Well, I say: “Not so fast, guys. Let’s chat about this for a few minutes.”
Not let me get this straight. Last month, you passed $70 billion worth of new tax cuts, mostly by extending earlier Bush cuts on dividends and capital gains. When tax cuts target investment income, the benefits flow to the wealthy, and these cuts are exhibit A: they reduce millionaire’s tax payments by $43,000, and those of middle-income families by $20. Sorry, that’s not a typo. It’s what you get when you put the YOYOs in charge of fiscal policy.
Wait a second, where you going? I’m not done. Set a spell…
