During this holiday week you may be enjoying your favorite version of Charles Dickens' classic /A Christmas Carol/ (I was always partial to the Muppets' version with Michael Caine).

Unfortunately we in California are actually *living* it. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed Democratic plans to close a $16 billion deficit with a mix of taxes and cuts, in pursuit of his radical right-wing agenda. His veto is a lump of coal in the stocking - we face crippling cuts to education & health care, the erosion of the safety net so he can gut environmental and labor laws to satisfy his corporate and conservative buddies. And the media actively enables him.

We at the Courage Campaign decided to do something about it. We produced this video with Donkey on the Edge, and made possible by Cheri and Naren Shankar, showing Arnold and California the impact of his Scrooge-like ways:



Note: I work for the Courage Campaign and helped conceive of this video

The basic concept here is to show Arnold and the state just how messed up and crazy it is to try and close a budget deficit with cuts alone. Spending cuts - which are really just a euphemism for "mass layoffs" and "economic ruin" - are, as Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz noted, the worst way you can close a budget gap. Personal income taxes are the best way, and sales taxes are less ideal but still far better than any cuts (although we can and should seriously reduce our prison spending!).

Arnold continues to be unrepentant in his obstructionism. He continues to cast the environment as a "special interest" and demands cuts in worker protections - including meal and rest breaks - as a price of enacting a budget.

Without a budget California faces bankruptcy - and if that happens Republicans like Arnold will use it *exactly* the way Bob Corker wanted to use to the Big 3 bankruptcy - to break unions, roll back public services, and achieve long-held right-wing goals. It's the shock doctrine at work - Arnold uses a crisis to push through radical reforms that would never fly during normal times.

These cuts, if they go through, will destroy the Golden State. Our economic crisis is severe enough as it is. Spending cuts will shove the state into a depression - mass layoffs will have a huge ripple effect as public workers and their families scale back spending, struggle to meet health care costs, and lose their homes. Businesses and their employees that depend on that spending will be pulled under as well - and ultimately, ironically, the state budget will be *worse* off since all that economic destruction results in fewer tax receipts.

And so Californians like myself are turned into either Bob Cratchit, hoping Arnold will do the right thing; or Tiny Tim, suffering at the hands of an unscrupulous and wealthy miser who has nothing but contempt for working people.

So watch the video. Sign our holiday card to the governor - he'll never have a Scrooge-like change of heart unless we the people demand it.

And get active. California Obama campaign activists are organizing to demand Arnold protect the safety net and increase, not cut spending. They have it right - if left unchecked Arnold is going to drive this state into a ditch.

We can stop him. And it starts by reframing the narrative, as this video does. I hope you like it!