The idea that Democrats care more about the poor and the needy is
an enduring American political stereotype — and one of the
party’s most potent vote-getting tools. It’s highly questionable
whether Democrats’ emphasis on government paternalism and a
generous welfare state actually helps the downtrodden more than
Republicans’ recipe of economic growth and low taxes. But at
least on a rhetorical basis, Democrats certainly do talk the most
about the hurting.
This is why we saw Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John
Edwards jousting over which Democratic presidential candidate had
the best anti-poverty program, with Obama touting his plans for
“an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort.” On
the brink of Obama’s presidency, there is every reason to assume
his intentions to broadly expand the scope, power and spending of
the federal government will include plenty of goodies for poor
and working-class Americans.
But in California, when it comes to the politics of compassion,
the Democrats who dominate the politics of the nation’s largest
state have been exposed as utter frauds — machine politicians
beholden to public employee unions who barely bother to pose as
protectors of the poor.
There have always been signs that this pose was a ruse. Even as
the state went on a spending binge from 2002 to 2007, funding for
social services and welfare programs barely kept up with
inflation. This history of indifference prompted liberal groups
to do end runs around the legislature twice since 1998, using
initiatives to pass cigarette and income tax hikes to fund
programs for children and the mentally ill, respectively.
But now the state’s budget crisis has made Democrats’ true
priorities crystal-clear. The crisis has been exaggerated by
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to try to soften up voters
for tax hikes; the oft-heard estimate of a $42 billion deficit is
based on the Sacramento fantasy that a reduction in future
projected spending increases is a real-world, hard-dollar
spending cut. But there is no question that the state spends an
average of about $1.5 billion more a month than it takes in —
and that bankruptcy looms unless this imbalance is resolved.
Toward this end, Democratic leaders of the California Senate and
Assembly agreed in closed-door negotiations with Schwarzenegger
to cuts in virtually every social services, health and welfare
program in the state. This was the governor’s price for going
along with proposed increases in sales, gas and income taxes; a
sharp reduction in the dependent children income tax credit; and
a new levy on oil production.
But the cooperation ended when Schwarzenegger took his
everyone-must-share-the-pain thesis to its logical conclusion. To
ease the state’s cash crunch, he announced plans to have state
employees take off two unpaid furlough days a month beginning
Feb. 1.
Leading Democratic officeholders — and several likely 2010
gubernatorial candidates, including Attorney General Jerry Brown
— immediately engaged in an impromptu contest to determine who
could denounce the proposal with the most vigor. Treasurer Bill
Lockyer was typical, expressing outrage that the governor would
“impose such a hardship on the backs of our employees.” Lockyer
and other Democrats elected to statewide office said they would
refuse to enforce the furlough plan with their own staffs.
Medical checkups for poor kids can be halved. Help for the
developmentally disabled can be reduced. Job training for
inner-city youths can be suspended. But when it comes to cutting
pay or benefits for a highly compensated state work force,
Democratic officeholders not only draw the line; they express
horror at the very thought.
Their reductive priorities were on display yet again on last
Friday. That’s when state Controller John Chiang offered his
alternative to Schwarzenegger’s plan to fight the cash crunch:
Beginning Feb. 1, he said he would withhold $3.7 billion in
payments owed to Californians.
Headlines focused on the fact that this meant nearly $2 billion
in state income tax refunds were being kept for now by the state.
A look at the fine print, however, showed Chiang also intends to
withhold $188 million in funds for the two main state programs
helping blind people and ailing seniors.
What was that again about Democrats being the best friend of the
disadvantaged?
What was that again about heartless Republicans?
In crisis, a crude political Darwinism now rules in California.
This survival-of-the-fittest scrum has made more obvious than
ever that Democrats in the state legislature aren’t just allies
of public employee unions. Instead, these lawmakers are best
described as wholly owned union subsidiaries – people who see
state government as a jobs program, not a means to provide
services to the downtrodden or anyone else.
The poor and needy? They’re helpful political props to be used
and discarded as needed — no more and no less.
