California: Back in the Black with Progressive Governance

Republican austerity proving to be completely wrong. What a surprise. Keep defending the wealthy Righties. They need your help.

Sun Jan 13, 2013 at 04:00 PM PST
California: Back in the black with progressive governance

by Dante AtkinsFollow for Daily Kos

Speaker John Perez and Governor Jerry Brown will decide how to restore California
For those who don't know the story of California's notoriously sad tale of budget deficits and fiscal management, the short synopsis goes something like this:
Times were good during the late '90s, when the combination of the tech bubble and the Clinton economy created a consistent stretch of prosperity in the California economy. But a series of tax cuts, combined with the ailing economy of the Bush years and the bursting of that tech bubble. led to massive structural deficits. But unlike in other states, where the majority party in the state legislature can actually govern the state, California was different: it took a two-thirds supermajority of both houses of the legislature to even pass a budget, much less raise taxes. This allowed an ever-increasing extreme band of Republicans, who controlled more than a third of at least one house during this time despite their deepening unpopularity, to hold the state hostage seemingly every year until they got even more cuts to the social safety net. These Republicans would even use their hostage-taking power to extract corporate tax cuts for big businesses, further deepening our fiscal nightmare.
Eventually, the progressive California electorate got tired of this. Even as a tea party wave swept the nation in 2010, California's Democrats increased their legislative majorities and swept all statewide offices. We passed a ballot measure ending the supermajority requirement to pass a budget. And in 2012, after over 30 years of anti-tax orthodoxy dating back to the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, Californians voted to tax themselves to stop the crushing damage done to our schools by decades of low-tax neglect. Even better, redistricting reform has allowed Democrats to win even more seats, finally claiming a supermajority in the legislature and rendering the Republican Party structurally irrelevant in every meaningful way.
And now, not coincidentally, the Sacramento Bee reports that California is finally starting to write new headlines, as Gov. Jerry Brown has declared California's budget deficits a thing of the past. Even further, the Bee reports that the University of California will likely not have to increase tuition at our world-class public universities because of Gov. Brown's new budget. These tuition increases had been a mainstay during California's painful past few years, as anti-tax Republicans somehow did not see tuition hikes as a tax increase on our students.
There's a short but important lesson to be learned here. Out here in the Golden State, we certainly have a lot of work to do to repair the damage. But we could only get started on the right track once the Republican Party in California was removed from every single lever of power and Democrats were allowed to actually govern the state by making the wealthy pay their fair share and eliminating the structural roadblocks that allowed a heartless minority to dictate the state's fiscal terms. Given the sometimes precise analogies to what is happening on a federal level now, it's a point that bears repeating: California's path back to prosperity has proven that cutting corporate taxes, gutting the social safety net and defunding our schools is simply not the way to run an economy. We had austerity imposed upon us for years by a minority party with no qualms about holding the state hostage to its whim, and no matter how much we did it, it still did not work.
Democrats across the nation can take California's example to put the lie to Republican claims of fiscal prudence, of course. But despite our nascent turnaround, California Democrats still stand at a crossroads. Gov. Brown is insistent that he will not rebuild the social safety net that was cut during the recession:

Brown said he is unwilling to restore funding for social service programs that have been cut during the recession. "That kind of yo-yo political economy is not good," he said. "I want to advance the progressive agenda, but consistent with the amount of money the people made available."​

As digby explains, however, this approach is fraught with its own challenges:

We've seen that movie before. It came out only a little over a decade ago. And what's the plot? The Democrats preside over the creation of a recovery and surplus and burnish their "fiscally responsible" bonafides by cutting vital programs and emphasizing "saving" their surplus rather than restoring those services. The Republicans then ride into power on the promise that they would hand out hundred dollar bills like candy in the form of tax cuts. ("It's yer Muneeeeee!") And the next thing you know we're back in deficit and it's time to start cutting even more. The Republicans usually let the Democrats do this dirty work because well ... cuts are unpopular. Tax cuts aren't.​

As California figures out how to rebuild, these two schools of thought will certainly butt heads, as well they should. But what everyone should be able to agree on is that the conversation about how to fix both the state and the country at large should not involve the very same people who caused these crises: namely, the unapologetic extremists who have no issue with taking everyone hostage to advance their private agenda.

 

Does this really say what I think it says?

 

Given your oft bizarre interpretations of the written word and your lack of reading comprehension in general, it's anyone's guess what YOU think it says.
Perhaps you could tell us what has you as amazed as a child full of Jolt Cola with a new puppy on Christmas morning.

P.S. Let me know which words you need explained.

 

OK! Let me see if I can dumb this down far enough for you. Dante Atkins says "gutting the social safety net" "is simply not the way to run an economy". However, "Gov. Brown is insistent that he will not rebuild the social safety net that was cut during the recession". So Brown says the budget was "balanced" because "the social safety net" was cut, but Dante Atkins concludes that cutting the "the social safety net" is not "the way to run an economy". Now does that not seem a bit contradictory to you? BTW, Definition of CONTRADICTORY: a proposition so related to another that if either of the two is true the other is false and if either is false the other must be true.

 

I see your confusion. You assume that because Gov. Brown will not restore the safety net to it's former make-up that the State Republicans gutted, he must be favor of the cuts. I think that if you bothered to read what Gov. Brown said when he was quoted as saying, "I want to advance the progressive agenda, but consistent with the amount of money the people made available." you might just realize how responsibly he is approaching the situation unlike the state Republicans that held the state hostage (ironically just like the Republicans at the Federal level have been doing) when they insisted on huge corporate tax cuts gutting state coffers and forcing the state to gut the safety net. The safety net doesn't get put back together either in it's original form or all at once but that doesn't by any stretch make his position the same as those wanting to gut every social program and eliminate corporate taxes. It's just not as black and white as you tend to see everything.

 

"consistent with the amount of money the people made available." I read that as spend only what you can afford. Don't borrow $T's from China. Don't promise billions in pension benefits. Somehow that really sounds a lot like the Republicans goals.

Oh, and yes, I read "You assume that because Gov. Brown will not restore the safety net to it's former make-up" as he must be favor of the cuts from its unmaintainable levels.

 

It sounds like the asuterity measures being vilified are exactly what got CA back on the track to economic recovery, doesn't it? By stating he won't be returning to the old days, Gov Brown seems to be maintaining the austerity status quo. (all of this is assuming, of course, that one university not raising it's tuition is proof of an economic recovery)

 

Bingo!

 

BS! You want to read it that way because that is all you can see. The fact is that the voters elected huge majorities of Democrats and voted to raise taxes and that is what began the turn around. You simply ignore the fact that the voters themselves raised taxes and that any state or federal government can't continue to function when the people making ALL of the money even in this bad economy get handed sweetheart tax deals by their buddies the republicans. You idiots like to think that starving the government will make everything better. It really only makes everything better for those that already have the most. You seem fine to carry the water for extremely wealthy people out of some twisted ideological loyalty that only screws the rest of us along with the idiots that support this stupidity. At least in California, they have figured out that "we" are the government and "they" are the corporations. You like to say that government is the problem. If "we" are the government, then people like you certainly qualify as the problem.

 

This makes sense to me but I'm sure is a foreign language to you two... Wall Street can do no wrong in your eyes even when they crash the world economy. Nice!

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So long as you have a "we" and a "they", you have not figured it out. Without the "they", there would be no "we". How about "us"?

 

You have it ass backwards as usual. Without "we" there would be no "they". It wasn't the Left that divided this country into makers and takers last election, it was the Right.

The "us" is dangerously close to socialist rhetoric for someone like you.

 

I guess I need to dumb it down for you again. It takes both for either to survive. It is not a parasitic society, it is a symbiotic society. Do I need to define those terms for you?

 

Raising taxes and cutting social programs to reduce deficits...wow, where have I heard that before. The only question will be is whether they raised the taxes broadly enough where the high incomers wont leave do to being over burdened.

 

As a Californian, I'll be the first to admit I have no idea what any of these people think, and I seriously doubt they themselves know. CA has been mismanaged for so long by both sides that there is no solution. The fact that they say there is improvement is in itself contradictory to the fact that there isn't any. It seems their only half-baked solution is to cut everything, while tripling taxes, and then not distribute public funding for schools, roads, fire and police protection, and basic infrastructure. It used to be us Californian's made fun of Arizona for being akin to a third world country. Now, even Mexico is pointing and laughing at CA.