[Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [GPCA-CCWG] California Greens should be running for the state legislature in 2008]

[Jim Stauffer]

Forwarded with permission.

Regardless of what you think of Mike F in general, he does have some 
noteworthy ideas.

Jim



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [GPCA-CCWG] California Greens should be running for the state 
legislature in 2008
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:10:29 -0800
From: Mike Feinstein <mfeinstein at feinstein.org>
Reply-To: mfeinstein at feinstein.org
To: GPCA-CCWG Listserv <gpca-CCWG at cagreens.org>


Dear all


As many of you know, I've been reciting the mantra for the last two
election cycles, that to begin to appear more relevant in California
partisan politics, Califonria Greens should focus primarily on State
Assembly and State Senate races, and run on a common platform to address
the state's structural deficit, including with an approach to reform
Prop 13 and relate land use and tax policy.

Exhibit 1A below discusses the political window open to us on these
issues.  It would be major step forward if we ran at least 20 Assembly
races (preferably at least 40) and five to ten senate races.

Please some of you in your local areas, step forward and find good
candidates to seize this opportunity.

http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/589023.html

Analysis: Budget faced realism deficit

Governor repeatedly said problem was solved, but structural shortfall
persists.

By Kevin Yamamura - kyamamura at sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Monday, December 24, 2007

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won re-election in 2006 by selling himself as
a problem solver who boosted California's economy and resolved the
state's budget problems, all without new taxes.

The Republican governor declared in January that "through discipline and
through new revenues that come from economic growth, we reduced the
deficit over time and got our fiscal house in order."

But less than a year into his second term, the narrative has run dry.

An estimated $14 billion deficit looms, the state's housing market has
become an economic drag and Schwarzenegger can no longer count on a tax
windfall to cover the spending increases he has approved since taking
office.

Schwarzenegger is proposing an average 10 percent spending cut across
the board, while Democratic leaders want a mix of cuts and new taxes.
The governor admitted Wednesday, "This state has had problems with the
budget ever since I have gotten here," even suggesting the process is
beyond anyone's control.

"I think the problems were deeper and more structural than the governor
realized when he was first elected," said Jean Ross, executive director
of the California Budget Project, which advocates for poor and
middle-class families.

"There is a fundamental imbalance between revenues and expenditures,"
Ross added. "Many budgets that were signed into law, including those
signed by the current governor, made the problems worse, not better."

Throughout his time in office, Schwarzenegger has characterized his
budgets as disciplined enough to avoid the deficit problems of
California's past. He has suggested that his own anti-tax policies led
to California's growing economy and thus a boom in state revenues.

Budget experts say the governor has ridden the crest of the state's good
economic fortunes and now will be at the mercy of its impending fiscal
slowdown.

They say he has done little more than his predecessors, including the
recalled Gov. Gray Davis, to change the state's structural budget
problems, which range from too much formulaic spending to single-year
budgeting.

"He fell into the same trap that governors and legislators have always
fallen into, which is to say, 'Boy, if you have enough revenues from the
prior year, don't sweat it,' " said Fred Silva, a former legislative
budget director who now works for the fiscal forecasting firm Beacon
Economics.

When Schwarzenegger ran for governor in 2003, he promised to "end the
crazy deficit spending," a task he made sound as easy as conducting an
audit and finding waste, according to his campaign commercials.

The audit – the governor's 2004 California Performance Review – fell
apart when multiple interest groups said recommended cuts would hurt the
public.

To bridge the budget gap he inherited, the governor that same year asked
voters to approve $15 billion in bonds, which the state is still paying
off. Another measure that passed, Proposition 58, prevented the state
from using similar bonds to cover the deficit in the future.

Schwarzenegger communications director Adam Mendelsohn said that ballot
measure forces the state to cut spending responsibly rather than rely on
more borrowing.

"We are in a position right now where the state has to deal with the
budget deficit head-on, in large part because of the changes he has made
in the last four years," Mendelsohn said.

He added that the governor "has been frustrated that you have this
budget in Sacramento where revenues and spending have no relationship to
one another."

Under Schwarzenegger, the state's overall budget has increased 36
percent above Davis' most expensive year in 2002-03. That is nearly as
much as the 42 percent increase during Davis' first term, a spending
boost that resulted in a once-projected $34.6 billion deficit and
sparked his recall in 2003.

Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, said Schwarzenegger had plenty of
opportunities to restrain spending in flush times in order to avoid the
$14 billion deficit he now faces.

"This was not an unforeseen crisis," McClintock said. "This is what the
entire budget impasse was about last summer. The unfortunate thing was
that last summer was the time to address this issue, and the governor
was on the other side."

McClintock, who ran against Schwarzenegger in the 2003 recall, said he
told the governor at a January caucus dinner that he was "on the same
fiscal trajectory that wrecked the budget under Gray Davis." The senator
said the governor told him he was simply being a pessimist and "people
don't want to hear bad news."

Schwarzenegger in 2005 pursued an initiative to give the Governor's
Office more power to unilaterally cut spending and weaken the
Proposition 98 spending guarantee for K-14 schools, which accounts for
roughly 43 percent of the general fund budget, according to the
Department of Finance. But the governor came under attack from
educators, nurses and other groups, and suffered a political setback
right before his re-election year.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, also has called for
structural changes in budget-making, but nothing has occurred so far.
When he suggested in 2005 that the Proposition 98 schools guarantee
should be re-examined, the California Teachers Association posted signs
in his district questioning his position.

"Part of why it's hard to get structural reform is that it challenges
the status quo," said Tim Gage, a former Department of Finance director
for Davis. "People are uncertain what the change would bring – or it
would disadvantage their interests."

Fresh off his election victory in 2006, the governor declared last
November on national television that he was going to eliminate the
structural budget deficit by 2009-10. He said elsewhere that the state's
newly passed infrastructure bonds would stimulate the economy so much
"that we are going to solve those problems and lower the structural
deficit and eventually wipe it out."

Schwarzenegger earlier this year declared that his administration had
"made tremendous progress" because he reduced the structural deficit
from a projected $16.5 billion to $1.4 billion. He said that "we did it
by growing our economy and exercising spending restraint."

The $16.5 billion figure was what his first finance director, Donna
Arduin, projected the state would face in 2006-07 if spending continued
at the same pace in 2004. The governor now faces a $14 billion deficit,
only $2.5 billion less than his oft-used budget benchmark.

"People love his sense of optimism and sense of bravado, but it's
absolutely what keeps getting him in trouble," said Kevin Gordon, a
consultant on education budget issues. "He says things, but then reality
undermines the situation. … I'm sorry, but the budget was never
balanced, and it's always been subject to the ups and downs of the economy."

Schwarzenegger lately seems to have toned down the budget boasting he
did for the past five years.

The governor, speaking Wednesday in San Diego, called the $14 billion
deficit "a temporary problem." He then went on to suggest that the
budget process has remained the same over the past 40 years and that the
system was to blame, not the governor or legislators.

That remark stood in sharp contrast to statements he made before he was
governor, when he blamed the budget problems squarely on Davis.

"And you know why nothing has changed?" he said. "Because the system
itself is flawed, the budget system. It's not that there's anyone in
Sacramento that is making the wrong decision. There is no one in
Sacramento making the wrong move or doing something bad. This has been
created by itself, because the system is flawed."


_______________________________________________
gpca-ccwg mailing list
gpca-ccwg at cagreens.org
http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/gpca-ccwg