Governor Schwarzenegger is joined by California families
as he discusses the state’s budget crisis.
Photo courtesy the governor’s office.
By Gino Rambetes
July 3, 2009
The photograph above came out of the governor’s press office and illustrates why California’s government and the state’s economy are in such a mess.
First, one wonders how many taxpayer dollars were wasted to choreograph, shoot and distribute the photo.
Second, and more important, the press release (see below) does nothing but continue a finger-pointing exercise. Like so much other drivel from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, it fails to mention what politicians in both “major” and some “minor” parties have long known and refuse to admit: that the budget crisis and economic disaster stem from the class warfare that started with California voters’ passage in 1978 of the property tax limitation initiative known as Proposition 13.
Taxes per se are not evil nor harmful. They are absolutely necessary to fund vital public services — health care, education, aid to the needy, public-works projects, police and fire protection, etc. — and a taxation system that is properly constructed and fairly implemented can do just that.
The politicians need to stop parroting the corporate lies, and to start telling and acting on the truth. Otherwise, within 10 years, the class war will erupt into violence that will make the urban riots of the 1960s look like tea socials. Sleep well.
Gino Rembetes is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.
Schwarzenegger’s Press Release
Following the legislature’s inability to pass a comprehensive solution to solve California’s entire $24.3 billion deficit, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today visited San Francisco to discuss the state’s budget crisis. Wednesday, the Governor proclaimed a fiscal emergency and called a Proposition 58 legislative special session to address this emergency. Additionally, the Governor exercised his executive authority to save cash for vital state functions and services by ordering three furlough days every month. Click here to read more. The following photo was taken at Governor Schwarzenegger’s field office in San Francisco, CA.
The Hunger Site
July 5, 2009 at 2:39 pm
quite a few of the progressive leaders of the lower classes are themselves in the upper classes, so that ‘class warfare’ could get a little schizophrenic
July 5, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I have yet to hear how the state outspends every economic indicator over the last decade and its prop 13’s fault? Spending climbs with the economy like there has never been a recession before, then its a shock that there is a deficit. The fault lies with the people who run this state, the democrats.
Alas for the prop 13 howlers, all the taxes raised will passed onto the small business through the rental contract that every small business owner signs. Just as the small business owner pays for all the crazy schemes of the “greedy” left.
When the only stores and restaurants left are chain stores thanks to the liberal complaining they will come up with a way to use tax payer monies to subsidize small business, so they can get their “special” food.
Also I wonder, was the “article” news or opinion? Its hard to tell here. There will be class war riots because why again? The poor don’t get basic services like what? Poor people will be still squeezing out babies that tax payers will have to pay for. No worries there, the poor will just make more.
July 5, 2009 at 8:05 am
Mr Rambetes states:
“Otherwise, within 10 years, the class war will erupt into violence that will make the urban riots of the 1960s look like tea socials.”
Violent class warfare requires guns and people who will use them. I am having a hard time imagining the average liberal Californian even coming close to a gun much less using one.
Maybe you need a more believable scare tactic, Gino?
July 4, 2009 at 10:57 am
I’m back to correct myself here. It does not look like those supermajority rules, many of which are rules for raising new taxes, not for passing the whole state budget. The supermajority rule for raising taxes in Arkansas looks to have been enacted in 1934. But there is a supermajority, a k.a., minority-rules, national movement.
July 4, 2009 at 9:52 am
I accidentally left the same Heritage Foundation URL twice there. I’d meant to live these two, regarding the national movement for minority rule via supermajority laws, and the 16 states that now seem to have some form of supermajority law for approving revenue measures:
http://www.fiscalaccountability.org/supermajority
http://www.heartland.org/publications/budget%20tax/article/16775/Movement_for_Supermajorities_to_Raise_Taxes_Growing_Fast.html
July 4, 2009 at 9:46 am
Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico told me that he urged the majority State Democrats to discard Arnold Schwarzenegger’s immoral, inhumane budget and present him with their own—so as to negotiate from strength, rather than trying to simply defend this or that program from cuts. For whatever reason, the State Democrats failed to follow his lead.
The Schwarzenegger budget is a hugely aggressive attempt to further advance the neoconservative agenda:
1) Shred the social safety net,
2) Privatize anything and everything,
3) Slash personal and corporate income tax.
4) Use remaining state revenues to fund privatization, via “public private” partnerships.
5) Deconstruct all environmental and business law and regulation by defunding its enforcement.
6) Weaken labor.
That’s a very clear vision, as it has been for a long time; State Democrats need to articulate and press an equally clear vision to mount more than a feeble defense against such aggressive neoconservativism. And, against neoliberalism, i.e., neoconservatism with a smiley, civil libertarian, sex tolerant face.
The agenda behind Schwarzenegger’s budget is more than transparent; his cuts at the state level will cost California more billions in federal funds than the cuts themselves.
If it advances further in California, it’s likely to spread, as did Proposition 13. Sixteen states now seem to have some form of supermajority rule regarding revenues, and rule by supermajority—a.k.a., minority—-is a national movement, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/paper93.cfm
The Heritage Foundation has been promoting it since at least 1996, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/paper93.cfm.
July 4, 2009 at 6:33 am
Each budget season, we hear cries to change Proposition 13, which unfairly treats commercial property like residential property. One idea that has been floating around for years is the so-called “split roll” property tax, which applies higher tax rates to commercial property than for residential property. Another approach is to assess homeowner property at a lower rate than commercial property. And yet another approach is to assess residential property at a lower rate than commercial property. Or if the objective is to provide tax relief to low- and middle-income property owners, then give a homestead exemption to these taxpayers only. Unfortunately, once a budget is finally passed, the cries for Proposition 13 relief lessen until the next budget season.
July 3, 2009 at 3:24 pm
All of this is well-known. The problem in dealing with the state budget is caused by that part of Prop. 13 that requires a 2/3 majority to pass the budget in the state legislature, which essentially gives the Republicans the power to veto even a sensible solution. The Democrats are blameless.