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The Tax and Spend Spectator
Derailing Brown’s Tax Plan
California Republicans refuse to play the role of saps in this production.
Governor Jerry Brown’s foolproof plan to deal with California’s $26 billion deficit hasn’t quite gone off the rails, but it’s teetering.
The plan, announced early in his new term this year, was to call a special election in June to let the voters decide whether to extend for five years several taxes about to expire. At first, the idea polled well, including majority support for the tax extensions. This, along with some legislative budget cuts, would solve the problem. If the voters said “no” to the tax extensions, severe cuts would ensue, but the voters would have been warned in advance. It was the perfect way for the Democrats to avoid being held responsible for cutting popular programs. If the people voted against the tax extensions, they couldn’t blame the legislators.
Getting to the special election required a two-thirds vote of the legislature. The Democratic majority is not quite lopsided enough to do this without some Republican votes. Gradually, Republican resistance to the costly special election stiffened. Brown taunted the Republicans to come up with their own plan for solving the deficit. His self-imposed deadline of March 10 for the enabling vote came and went. A small group of Republican legislators began meeting with Democratic counterparts and the governor’s staff to see if a deal could be struck. They would deliver the votes in exchange for public employee pension reform. That’s the last thing the Democrats want, for these unions are the state’s biggest special interest and the financier of many Democratic legislative campaigns.
Next, the Republicans came forth with a comprehensive list of four dozen elements to a deficit-reduction plan. Brown acted surprised, though this is what he had requested. He abruptly cut off talks with them. Now it’s back to politics as usual. He’s about to barnstorm, including a visit to the district of the Senate minority leader who, Brown says, “…is leading the charge to block any other alternatives other than massive and destructive cuts.” This translates into English as “blah, blah, blah, blah.”
Meanwhile, voter support for the special election and the tax extensions is slipping. Brown’s main option now is to get a petition drive mounted to collect enough signatures for a November ballot issue. This is high risk. Tax issues on the ballot historically see their support decline as election day comes closer. If they are not well above 50 percent when campaigning begins, they are usually defeated. November is well beyond the June 30 date when the 2011-12 budget is required by law to be adopted. If it loses in November, the last arrow in Brown’s quiver will be to blame the Republicans — again. Yet it would be the Democratic majority that must enact the “massive and destructive cuts.” Who will the people blame for that?
Many Democratic legislators don’t want to think about that, so they are turning their attention to more serious business. They have introduced 2,323 bills this year, covering such urgent issues as a revised definition of olive oil, Parks Make Life Better Month, tax credits for commercial space vehicles, Spay Day, regulation of caffeinated beer, how to describe a dog pound, and regulation of pavement reflectivity in order to reduce global warming.
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (31) | Leave a comment
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saleboter| 4.4.11 @ 7:40AM
"a revised definition of olive oil, Parks Make Life Better Month, tax credits for commercial space vehicles, Spay Day, regulation of caffeinated beer, how to describe a dog pound, and regulation of pavement reflectivity in order to reduce global warming."
This reminds one of a fiddle and a guy named Nero
roadmaster| 4.4.11 @ 8:19AM
So who expected any different from the land of fruits and nuts?
I feel so sorry for my CA friends. They're swimming in a cesspool and every time they get a handhold where they could possibly get themselves out, their neighbors pull them back in.
Edda| 4.4.11 @ 8:44AM
For those of us in So. Calif. who managed to survive Jerry (the fruit fly) Brown's first 2 terms almost 30 years ago, he is a Nightmare on Elm Street writ large. Through a loop hole he comes to us, determined to finish his grand vision of Utopia. Things he set in motion so long ago he now must deal with. Hah! Fat Chance of that happening. He's not calling the shots but must check with the puppet masters, i.e. the Union Thugs of the Sacto River cesspools.
Louis Jenkins| 4.4.11 @ 8:50AM
Gov. Moon Beam is the last person on earth who needs to be at the helm. Of course Arnold didn't do much better either. Write off California, folks, its way past reform. I think swimming in a cesspool describes the situation perfectly, but handholds? My mind went to the gutter on that one.
Richard Baker| 4.4.11 @ 8:50AM
Goodbye California. The song needs to be changed from "California, Here I Come" to "California, Here I Go."
Rip Phillips| 4.4.11 @ 9:23AM
The election of Brown was the dagger to the heart of California. Their only hope now is to get a huge bailout from Obama before the 2012 election.
WB| 4.4.11 @ 9:35AM
Well, good luck getting that past the Republican-controlled House ...
buckeyeman| 4.4.11 @ 11:31AM
“The Fed has the authority to buy foreign government debt, as well as domestic government debt,” - Ben Bernanke, in a 2002 speech to the National Economists Club
Of course, I'm still waiting for the faintest shred of evidence that the Republicans would actually deny a federal bailout to Kalifornia, but the easiest approach would be to skip Congress altogether and go straight to the creators of all wealth, the Federal Reserve system. Next election, I'm not going to vote for Bernanke!
Steve A| 4.4.11 @ 9:29AM
Watching California hit the wall is much like the broadcast of the OJ low speed chase in the Bronco. You just have to look on with morbid curiosity. It's like a slow motion train wreck.
Nightmare on Obama Street| 4.4.11 @ 9:44AM
For the first time in a long, long time the California Republicans have actually started acting like Republicans! Usually one or two will allow themselves to be bought off by the marxist democrats which has led to the utter ruin of California. Living here in the state has become a economic and personal liberty nightmare with no end in sight. One budget issue never brought up by either side is the cost of illlegal Aliens to the tune of at least $13 billion a year. One other item that is never reported about Brown is that he personally already collects at least two seperate government pensions. Think he will ever reform the system.
While California burns, the state legislature is adding yet another state commission, over 500 of them are in existence already, to deal with the urgent business of regulating bee hives which will be funded by - you guessed it, a tax on bee hives.
Sometimes a dyfunctional structure needs to collapse and be razed in order for it to be fixed.
cowgirl| 4.4.11 @ 10:26AM
Let it fail. Let it fail. Let if fail. Let it fail. This from a native Californian who has lived there for 50 years.
Let it fail.
Steve A| 4.4.11 @ 10:36AM
cowgirl, I like your style.
Melvin| 4.4.11 @ 10:55AM
Hmmm, always could sell the place to, China, but of course Mexico should have first dibs.
CalMark| 4.4.11 @ 11:07AM
"People eventually get the government they deserve."
Everyone knew what Moonbeam was about the first time around. Yet they re-elected him over a highly successful business woman.
Why? I overheard two state employees talking, one of them (allegedly) a Republican: "Brown would definitely be a better choice if you're a state employee."
OK. If that's what you want, that's what you get. Just don't come asking me for more of my money.
P.S. If I could find a job, I would get the hell out of California as fast as I could go.
Colin | 4.4.11 @ 11:18AM
Yep, all THAT and the latest scam-plan that will DOUBLE California's water rates over the next few years is already in the mill.
Yesterday, I received notice of a public hearing on this new move. When I read it I thought: "Why bother with a public hearing when the goons in charge of extracting more "jing" from the flow of California water will jack those rates as high as they want and will DO IT whether the ratepayers like (or can afford it) OR NOT."
The liberal agenda driven Sac Bee won't actually tell you, but it's all intertwined to the Green Goo-Goo squads (Sierra Club et al) currently living in the hip pockets of our lefty legislature that want this deal. Thems and the unions.
It's no tougher to figure out than that.
I hear Uganda's nice this time of year. Can't be a lot worse than this sinking cesspool.
Steve A| 4.4.11 @ 11:41AM
The producers, successful businesses & Conservatives should make plans to relocate from California ASAP. Leave it to the tree huggers, unions, state employees & illegals & watch it burn.
Southern_Comment| 4.4.11 @ 11:53AM
I have to admit 'regulation of pavement reflectivity in order to reduce global warming' will give me chuckles for a good few weeks to come. Well, no maybe just today I'm sure I'll read something even more inane tomorrow.
Richard Baker| 4.4.11 @ 12:10PM
Southern_Comment:
Why not require birds to have a diaper to reduce the effect of their droppings? Is that still not crazy enough?
Old One| 4.4.11 @ 1:27PM
Jerry has cinched it for me. This 60 year resident of California is on his way out. Daily in the upscale neighborhood where I live there is another empty storefront, an additional vacancies in the area's business parks, and more for rent & for sale signs .
SaneInCali| 4.4.11 @ 1:54PM
Even the Chinese wouldn't invest in the State of Northern Mexico. Funny, but some of my liberal friends think Jerry is doing well so far! Of course, they don't want to discuss the Pension issues, public employee union reform, etc. Such amazing resources sqandered by the Left in this State.
Timely Renewed | 4.4.11 @ 3:38PM
California has become so dysfunctional that the time has come to consider dividing it up. There are three obvious divisions which would enable the non-leftist parts of the state to become independent of the hyper-leftist-dominated coastal cities from SF to LA. First, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino counties (plus maybe some of the southern Central Valley) could be a very viable and geographically sensible separate state. Second, the counties on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada always should have been part of the state of Nevada from the beginning. Third, the counties north of the San Francisco metropolitan area would be a geographically cohesive and viable state, especially if they joined with some southwestern Oregon counties looking to be liberated from the domination of hyper-leftist Portland.
Clint Lovell| 4.4.11 @ 7:10PM
Jesus. Could anyone suck as hard as Jerry? Christ, he couldn't lead anyone to the bathroom.
Bobbie| 4.4.11 @ 7:54PM
Hey WB, your knowledge of CA politics is PATHETIC so get your facts straight before you post a snarky troll remark. The Dems control everthing ,the House,Senate, Gov Office, AG office, Insurance office , etc.. Old Jerry created this mess back in 1978 with the Dill Act which created the 2.4 million Dem party state union drones and the Environ Wacko offices.So move their Lefty WB and enjoy the hell thats been created
John II| 4.4.11 @ 8:03PM
Associate Professor Brown (born 1938) is the very exemplar of the most coddled generation in human history--the generation, by the way, that gave us Professor Obama: too young for World War II or Korea, too old for Vietnam, too smug and narcissistic for a serious family life, too scattered to settle on any coherent view of the universe, too undisciplined to make any sustained effort to do anything productive or creative, too self-centered, too icy, too disconnected, at once too ostentatiously public and too onanistically private: just too damn weird.
And whenever he holds forth on public issues, one may discern (in the immortal words of the Spectator's editor-in-chief-for-life) the damp plop-plop of cow-droppings hitting the barn floor.
Californiadude| 4.5.11 @ 12:05AM
It just shows socialism doesn't work. In California, the other 49 states or is it 56 states, Europe or Asia. Don't exhale either, it's a pollutant. I'm not kidding you. That's what the experts say. Tweet your friend, but don't exhale. Poison.
Californiadude| 4.5.11 @ 12:07AM
cowgirl: I feel your pain.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque| 4.5.11 @ 1:37AM
California Republicans refuse to play the role of saps in this production.
Give 'em time.
Dee See| 4.5.11 @ 5:19AM
BTW ----speaking of California
WHY NO MENTION of the skyrocketing
181X (18000%) increase in radiation in
California's rainfall and tap water from the
STILL massively unfolding Fukishima disaster?
The lock-step Gloabalist cover-up of this
mess, and the background questions and issues
(re: GE's Jeff I-Melt-down) ----is truly, utterly,
undeniably psychopathic.
Tony in Central PA| 4.5.11 @ 9:41PM
There was an interesting WSJ opinion piece a few weeks back about the idea that states that go bankrupt should lose their representation and be managed by the federal gov't as a territory. The only bad part is that the feds would probably run even higher deficits.
Christian Louboutin | 6.23.11 @ 4:10AM
The plan, announced early in his new term this year, was to call a special election in June to let the voters decide whether to extend for five years several taxes about to expire. At first, the idea polled well, including majority support for the tax extensions. This, along with some legislative budget cuts,
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:55PM
is good