How we would solve the budget mess
| By Robert Cruickshank, Courage Campaign - May 21st, 2009 at 4:04 am PDT |
| Also listed in: Courage Campaign Staff |
With the predictable failure of the five budget propositions, it's time for progressives to step up and lead the fight to not only fix our budget, but replant the seeds of economic growth, and rebuild confidence in our government.
There are two broad elements of a May 20 strategy - policy and attitude. As President Obama has demonstrated, they must be intricately linked to be effective.
Voters rejected a campaign of fear. They showed they won't respond to scare tactics. Either they'll vote no, or stay home. Progressive organizations, like the Courage Campaign, instinctively understand that. We organize to empower and offer solutions.
Despite what some like to claim, progressives have always had an alternative to the May 19 initiatives in mind. The Courage Campaign has proposed a three-step process to fix the state:
1. Majority vote for budget and taxes. The Courage Campaign has been advocating for an end to the 2/3 rule for a long time. Today we're partnering with CREDO Mobile and the League of Young Voters to offer a Declaration of Democracy for a Majority Vote Budget. It's time that we brought democracy back to the legislature. We all know that the 2/3 rule prevents us from passing good budgets. But it also undermines public confidence in the legislature, since nobody can be held accountable and since the 2/3 rule produces unworkable compromises that voters immediately see right through.
Some may claim voters are not yet ready to support this change. Some recent polls suggested there are majorities or near-majorities in favor of restoring democracy. More fundamentally, it's time to build a movement to fix the mess. Courage Campaign doesn't expect this to happen overnight. That's why we're recommitting ourselves to a long-term organizing effort to get this done.
2. Restore responsible taxation of the wealthy and corporations. Some may argue that the public doesn't support repeal of the 2/3 rule for taxes and budgets. What better way to build public support than show the consequences of the conservative veto than by making a *strong* push to demand the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share? Besides, one of the key reasons our budget is in crisis is because we have been cutting taxes on those with the greatest ability to pay. This makes state revenues heavily dependent on consumer spending from working- and middle-class people, spending that is volatile to short-term economic dislocation.
California needs to follow the tax policies of President Barack Obama and reverse three decades of giving tax breaks to the wealthy and to large corporations.
Under Republican governors Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson, the highest income earners in this state paid taxes at a higher marginal rate than they do today. Now, an individual making $900,000 pays the same tax rate as someone making $50,000. Oil companies pay the same property tax rate as an elderly homeowner -- and unlike Alaska and Texas, oil companies pay no tax on the oil they extract in California. This is absurd and it must change.
Republican legislators will scream and cry, but will they actually vote no on these popular taxes? If they do, we set up victories in 2010. If they vote yes, we help ease the existing budget mess.
3. Convene a Constitutional Convention. The state needs a broad range of changes to the way its government operates. But more fundamentally, it needs a constructive process to produce those fixes. We've gone about as far as the gimmicky special election approach can take us. A Constitutional Convention allows the entire state, whether they're delegates or not, to engage in a debate about the core issues of how our government should react to a 21st century crisis.
We don't believe a Convention should tackle social issues or human rights, but if it's focused on fixing our budget and government, on providing more democracy and participation in the public sector, then we can finally get this state moving in the right direction. Of course, the delegates need to represent the state's diversity, and voters will rightly have the final say. But it's better than the status quo, and will help provide a better state.
Finally, *attitudes matter*. It's time we got aggressive. Democrats should NOT accept cuts as inevitable. They should NOT assume Republicans are inflexible. The Zombie Death Cult is living on borrowed time. President Obama has shown that Republicans are unpopular and vulnerable. We would be fools to not take advantage of that unpopularity here in California. Remember that Republicans have been in steady decline in both registrations and election outcomes since 1996. We can beat the conservative attack on California - if we realize we've had the tools to do so all along.
Below is the email we sent our members yesterday morning.
There are two broad elements of a May 20 strategy - policy and attitude. As President Obama has demonstrated, they must be intricately linked to be effective.
Voters rejected a campaign of fear. They showed they won't respond to scare tactics. Either they'll vote no, or stay home. Progressive organizations, like the Courage Campaign, instinctively understand that. We organize to empower and offer solutions.
Despite what some like to claim, progressives have always had an alternative to the May 19 initiatives in mind. The Courage Campaign has proposed a three-step process to fix the state:
1. Majority vote for budget and taxes. The Courage Campaign has been advocating for an end to the 2/3 rule for a long time. Today we're partnering with CREDO Mobile and the League of Young Voters to offer a Declaration of Democracy for a Majority Vote Budget. It's time that we brought democracy back to the legislature. We all know that the 2/3 rule prevents us from passing good budgets. But it also undermines public confidence in the legislature, since nobody can be held accountable and since the 2/3 rule produces unworkable compromises that voters immediately see right through.
Some may claim voters are not yet ready to support this change. Some recent polls suggested there are majorities or near-majorities in favor of restoring democracy. More fundamentally, it's time to build a movement to fix the mess. Courage Campaign doesn't expect this to happen overnight. That's why we're recommitting ourselves to a long-term organizing effort to get this done.
2. Restore responsible taxation of the wealthy and corporations. Some may argue that the public doesn't support repeal of the 2/3 rule for taxes and budgets. What better way to build public support than show the consequences of the conservative veto than by making a *strong* push to demand the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share? Besides, one of the key reasons our budget is in crisis is because we have been cutting taxes on those with the greatest ability to pay. This makes state revenues heavily dependent on consumer spending from working- and middle-class people, spending that is volatile to short-term economic dislocation.
California needs to follow the tax policies of President Barack Obama and reverse three decades of giving tax breaks to the wealthy and to large corporations.
Under Republican governors Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson, the highest income earners in this state paid taxes at a higher marginal rate than they do today. Now, an individual making $900,000 pays the same tax rate as someone making $50,000. Oil companies pay the same property tax rate as an elderly homeowner -- and unlike Alaska and Texas, oil companies pay no tax on the oil they extract in California. This is absurd and it must change.
Republican legislators will scream and cry, but will they actually vote no on these popular taxes? If they do, we set up victories in 2010. If they vote yes, we help ease the existing budget mess.
3. Convene a Constitutional Convention. The state needs a broad range of changes to the way its government operates. But more fundamentally, it needs a constructive process to produce those fixes. We've gone about as far as the gimmicky special election approach can take us. A Constitutional Convention allows the entire state, whether they're delegates or not, to engage in a debate about the core issues of how our government should react to a 21st century crisis.
We don't believe a Convention should tackle social issues or human rights, but if it's focused on fixing our budget and government, on providing more democracy and participation in the public sector, then we can finally get this state moving in the right direction. Of course, the delegates need to represent the state's diversity, and voters will rightly have the final say. But it's better than the status quo, and will help provide a better state.
Finally, *attitudes matter*. It's time we got aggressive. Democrats should NOT accept cuts as inevitable. They should NOT assume Republicans are inflexible. The Zombie Death Cult is living on borrowed time. President Obama has shown that Republicans are unpopular and vulnerable. We would be fools to not take advantage of that unpopularity here in California. Remember that Republicans have been in steady decline in both registrations and election outcomes since 1996. We can beat the conservative attack on California - if we realize we've had the tools to do so all along.
Below is the email we sent our members yesterday morning.
Dear Eden --
It's the day after. How are you feeling?
About yesterday's special election in California, that is.
Angry? Sad? Depressed? Apathetic?
You have good reason to feel all of the above -- this special election resolved nothing. California still faces a massive budget deficit. And, try as they might, our state legislators will likely fail to close the gap because the system in which they operate is inherently dysfunctional.
This election wasn't about taxes, despite what the right-wing noise machine wants you to believe. The reality is that Californians rejected a broken government -- the failed system that forces our state legislators to call special elections in the first place.
The legislature cannot do its job because unlike 47 other states, it cannot make budget decisions by a majority vote. As a result of the ridiculous 2/3rds requirement for passing a budget, a small cabal of right-wing Republicans hold California's budget hostage year after year after year.
Government fails when it isn't democratic, as the 2/3rds rule repeatedly proves. That's why the Courage Campaign, CREDO Mobile and the League of Young Voters are declaring today that it's time to bring democracy to California's broken government. We're calling it the "Declaration of Democracy" and we need your support to make it a success:
DECLARATION OF DEMOCRACY: Budgets and taxes should be approved by a majority vote of the legislature
Are you with us? If you support this declaration for a Majority Vote Budget, please join us by signing your name to it now:
http://www.couragecampaign.org/Declaration
Despite what defenders of the rule requiring a 2/3rds vote to pass a budget or find new revenues claim, the rule does nothing to promote collaborative solutions. All it does is force the legislature to make bad deals that make the state's crisis worse. The ballot measures that voters rejected yesterday were a typical product of the 2/3rds rule. Only small states like Rhode Island and Arkansas have a similar rule.
California is suffering because the right-wing uses the 2/3rds rule as a conservative veto to block progressive change, to create a regressive tax structure, and to prevent us from meeting social needs and rebuilding our economy. That's not fair and that's not democratic.
It's time for immediate solutions and long-term reforms to end our budget mess. That's why, starting today, we will:
• Press for adoption of a Majority Vote Budget to close the existing deficit.
• Demand that California's wealthy and corporations pay their fair share of taxes to help protect our teachers, our students, our elderly and our sick.
The Courage Campaign, CREDO Mobile, and the League of Young Voters are teaming up to ask you to add your name to this Declaration of Democracy for a Majority Vote Budget. Are you with us?
http://www.couragecampaign.org/Declaration
This is just the start of our campaign to fix California. Thank you for helping us restore democracy to our state.
Rick Jacobs
Chair, Courage Campaign
Comments are closed for this post.
Would this need to go through the legislative process or could this be accomplished by a state-wide ballot measure? And if the latter, how do we go about getting it on the ballot as soon as possible.