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Home  At Length Driving California Off the Edge
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Driving California Off the Edge |
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Thursday, 30 July 2009 |
We should be so lucky as the State of Alaska that our celebrity governor would simply resign at this point. That’s what I think of Sarah Palin’s resignation the other day–– a lucky break, and it’s what I think Schwarzenegger should do after his “line-item veto” ploy that cut another $500 million after the California legislature packed up for summer recess. The Governator claims to be forcing the state to live within its means, but in effect he is driving the Golden State right off the edge. We’d be lucky if he just resigned at this point.
The problem that idiots like Schwarzenegger have is that they really don’t understand the role of government in solving economic crises, nor do the conservatives that support him understand the huge impact that public spending has on stimulating the private sector economy, except when they are on the receiving end of a no-bid contract. Simply put, some 30 percent of the overall economy is based on public spending and it’s spent on providing the essentials of an environment in which the rest of the economy works, like roads, aqueducts, transportation, and even health care and education. These last two are as much essential infrastructure as are the roads and sewers. But this is what we get for electing a leader of this state who was not born here, unlike what the looney-toon pundits are saying about Obama.
What the Schwarz doesn’t get is one of the oldest directives in American governance, “The role of the government is to do for the people that which they can’t do for themselves.” This is not only the right and just cause for our government to take any action, but is also the moral justification for its authority, granted with the permission of those governed.
Needless to say, our erstwhile governor doesn’t heed nor understand this directive, and as the state’s economy continues to spiral down into the abyss of recession by cutting safety net expenses, closing parks, slashing health care and cutting education, he is only expanding the effects of the recession to those who can least afford it. This, in the end, will result in further exacerbating the recession rather than ending it. The budget analysts tacitly admit that these latest cuts won’t be the final ones. Like most neo-con politicians, he arrives at solutions from an ideological position before examining the facts and then taking action based on those facts and knowledge. Remember President Bush talking to God before invading Iraq? Well, Schwarz has been channeling the ghost of Milton Friedman and has imposed the “least government” solution. This 20 percent cut in state spending will in the end come back to haunt us for years to come– long after he has left office.
The two solutions that the offended citizens of this state should now consider come back to the use of state-wide initiatives; one for the regulation and taxation of marijuana which could be used to fund a single payer health care system in California and the other would be the oil severance tax that should be used to fund education. What most people fail to remember is that in the “good ol’ days” when California had the best university system in the country it was built and funded in part by the state’s tidelands oil revenues. Back when Pat Brown, Jerry’s father, was governor– the state invested in the infrastructure that to this day serves as the backbone of our economy. Glenn Anderson, then Lieutenant Governor and later our local Congressman, was the architect for the use of these tidelands revenues before the oil companies sued the state and won in the Supreme Court.
However, there is no such legal ruling on the use of a severance tax on the 35 percent of the oil extracted and used in this state. In fact, California stands alone as the only one of the seven oil-producing states in our country, which doesn’t have an oil severance tax! And this is because the California State Chamber of Commerce opposes it and the “no tax” Republican minority in the legislature opposes it and finally wouldn’t you know it, Chevron paid some $500,000 into one of the Govenator’s special campaign funds, so he opposes it! Is that what it takes to buy a governor’s line item veto?
So as we watch the idiot Schwarz drive the government off the cliffs of California using the same ideology that sank Wall Street, he saves the sacred oil corporations from paying one penny of severance tax and balances the budget on the back of the working poor, students, teachers and nurses. Instead of accepting mandated furlough days, it might make more sense for the workers of this state and all the affected unions besides to just host a one day general strike to let the Governator know what it might look like if the entire economy shut down for just one day.
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