Say what you will about Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Republicans - they learn from their mistakes.

In the 2005 special election they made it easy for labor unions and progressives to unite to defeat his proposals. The attacks on unions were like red cloth to a bull, and that enabled a big and broad coalition to come together to deal Arnold a significant defeat.

Arnold never abandoned his goals of breaking the power of his Democratic and progressive enemies. This time he and his Republican allies in the Legislature decided on a different approach - offering unions a Faustian bargain designed to screw them no matter which option they choose, as today's Sacramento Bee explains:

Unions last month were attacking the budget deal for including a limit on future state spending growth and $15 billion in cuts to state programs. The spending limit must be approved by voters in Proposition 1A to take effect.

Fearing that unions could mount a successful opposition campaign, lawmakers and Schwarzenegger crafted the budget deal so that increased taxes on income, sales and vehicles would last up to an additional two years if Proposition 1A passes.

The strategy assumed that the additional state tax revenue, worth as much as $16 billion between 2011 and 2013, would provide enough incentive for unions to let Proposition 1A go unchallenged.

The deal even included a specific deal with the devil for the California Teachers Association - Proposition 1B, which would restore $9 billion in educational funding in 2011 and afterward, which is also predicated on the passage of the spending cap. CTA has taken an "interim support position" on Prop 1B but like SEIU has not taken a position yet on Prop 1A.

These tactics on the part of Arnold and the Republicans is part of a broader strategy to force progressives and Democrats to defend bad deals, and leave room for conservatives to score points by opposing them. The Howard Jarvis Association and Meg Whitman have both come out against Prop 1A and may spend some money to try and defeat it.

To me the answer for progressives seems clear - reject the deal with the devil and strongly oppose Prop 1A. (In fact, there is a strong case for opposing /all/ the propositions on the May ballot but right now my focus is the spending cap.)

The tax increases would not immediately disappear, but would expire in mid-2010 along with the rest of the current budget deal. Since we're going to have to mount a big fight anyway at that time, why agree to a crippling spending cap that will at best provide just a few years of new revenues at a truly enormous long-term cost?

Keep in mind this chart from the California Budget Project on the likely effect of a spending cap on future budgets:



Those are enormous cuts that we'll face in the next decade. If Democrats, progressive activists, and labor unions don't oppose this thing, then we'll be letting the devil get our soul.