Carla Marinucci takes a look at how the four major statewide candidates would create jobs and, although she provides a good discussion of the details, her article seems to miss the bigger picture.

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina's approach to job creation is quite different from that of Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer. These differences have a number of aspects, but can be boiled down to this:

Brown/Boxer believe that the government has a clear role to play in creating jobs by providing by investing in both working people and in creating the 21st century infrastructure they need to prosper - whereas Whitman/Fiorina believe mass unemployment and further concentration of wealth in the hands of the small elite that already dominate the economy will provide "growth," even at the expense of our basic social and physical infrastructure.

Here's how Marinucci describes the Whitman/Fiorina approach:

Republicans Whitman and Fiorina, two former CEOs, decry what they say has been California's unfriendly business climate and call AB32 a job killer. They emphasize tax cuts and regulatory reforms to help small and large businesses and argue that they have direct experience creating jobs.

Both Whitman and Fiorina are calling for voodoo economics tax cuts - slashing capital gains and other taxes for the wealthy in the belief, in spite of the evidence, that this will create jobs. In fact, all it will do is fuel the collapse that is starting to occur, especially since Whitman and Fiorina both oppose new government spending and have pledged to make deeper cuts to core government services.

They both also pledge mass layoffs, a tool they employed at their own companies to try and produce more profit. In Fiorina's case it failed; in Whitman's case the success is more uneven. Either way, in a state with over 12% unemployment, mass layoffs - whether of public or private workers - is an extremely bad and reckless idea.

Further, both Whitman and Fiorina believe we should actively undermine efforts to position California for the 21st century economy. Whitman doesn't want to fund the high speed rail project and like Fiorina believes that action on climate change, which creates and sustains a green jobs economy, is bad - both preferring to instead prop up the failed 20th century economy and the oil companies that are vehemently opposed to new innovation.

In contrast, Brown and Boxer both prefer to invest in working Californians and in the infrastructure and policies needed to spur a 21st century economy. As Marinucci describes it:

Democrats Brown and Boxer argue for green-tech and clean-energy jobs that they say represent California's best hope for employment for decades to come.

They say their government experience is a plus. Brown said he put Californians to work in his two terms as governor as the state led the way in alternative energy. Boxer touts her efforts to secure funding and jobs for major projects such as BART extensions, and her co-authorship of legislation to give small businesses more access to credit, capital and tax advantages.

There's more to it than just that, of course. Boxer voted for the stimulus and to extend unemployment benefits, both of which have helped many Californians avoid the worst during this long recession - whereas Fiorina has said she opposes both and would have done nothing at all to help the unemployed and the suffering, instead focusing her efforts on making the rich richer.

Jerry Brown's jobs plan is fundamentally oriented around positioning California for the 21st century, pledging to accelerate development of clean technologies from solar panels to high speed rail, while ensuring our schools have the support and resources they need.

The choice this November could not possibly be clearer. Whitman and Fiorina are determined to channel even more wealth and power to their CEO friends, at the expense of the jobs and prosperity the rest of us desperately need. Brown and Boxer are proposing to continue investing in us and in our infrastructure so that California is well-positioned for the 21st century.

Carla Marinucci and Lance Williams have a long and in-depth article today on Meg Whitman's connections to reviled investment banking house Goldman Sachs, which has played a leading role in the European debt crisis and is accused of being at the center of asset bubbles and their subsequent crashes.

The article goes into depth on both Whitman's time on the Goldman Sachs board in 2001-02, relations between eBay and Goldman Sachs, and Goldman Sachs' role in state bond issuances. An excerpt:

From 1998 to 2002, while she was CEO of eBay, Whitman helped steer millions of dollars of her company's investment banking business to Goldman, court records show.

In 2001, Goldman put Whitman on its corporate board, paying her an estimated $475,000 for little more than a year of part-time service. The company also gave her insider access to the initial public offerings of hot stocks worth millions, according to the records.

Whitman left the board in 2002 after she was singled out in a congressional probe of bond underwriters and "spinning" - a financial maneuver, now banned, in which Goldman and other firms allegedly traded access to hot IPOs for bond business. Whitman later settled a shareholder lawsuit related to profits she and other execs made from buying the IPOs.

In recent years, Whitman has kept part of her fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine to be $1.2 billion, in investment funds managed by Goldman, her financial disclosure report indicates. For her campaign, she's received $105,500 in donations from Goldman executives, state records show.

But it's not just that Whitman has ties to GS, from serving on its board to raking in campaign contributions from them. Goldman Sachs has been implicated in urging bets against California bonds it helped to sell. The firm basically was advising clients to profit off of the state's budget crisis, driving up the cost of borrowing and potentially contributing to the state's cash flow problems in the spring of 2009.

State bonds are big business for Goldman Sachs, and can only be expected to grow if Whitman gets elected. Her campaign pledge to increase the budget deficit through higher taxes will lead to a greater reliance on bond debt to fund programs, unless Whitman plans to destroy those programs in their entirety and never spend another dime on infrastructure. Although the state treasurer has the key role in selling the bonds, the governor appoints members of key commissions overseeing these sales.

Meg Whitman represents the Goldman Sachs "vampire squid" approach to governance, extracting wealth for the elite by pillaging public services and picking the pockets of taxpayers. This has been going on under Arnold Schwarzenegger, but would likely rise to a new level under Whitman, who further plans to reward Goldman Sachs and their investors by eliminating the state's capital gains tax, regardless of the cost.

Jerry Brown has his own familial connections to Goldman Sachs - his sister Kathleen Brown, former state treasurer and candidate for governor in 1994, serves as a vice president for Goldman Sachs in LA. But Brown himself has no ties to Goldman Sachs and owns no Goldman stock, according to the Marinucci and Williams article.

Jerry Brown has already been staking out a position as a populist critic of Wall Street, as seen on a memorable CNBC appearance last October. Whitman's Goldman Sachs ties do indeed make for an important campaign issue, one that Brown would do well to exploit.

After all, one of the key political and economic needs this country faces is to get the vampire squid of Goldman Sachs off our backs. If Brown is willing to lead the charge, he would find many Californians willing to back him in doing so.

RJ Eskow has a excellent post up examining "Meg Whtiman's shady Goldman Sachs past" and what it might portend for California's future if she were to get elected.

Whitman was a Goldman Sachs board member from 2001 to 2002, when she resigned under a cloud of suspicion for her role in an IPO scandal:

Whitman has said she did nothing wrong by accepting the IPO shares and that the offerings did not help Goldman Sachs win additional business from eBay, which has paid the Wall Street firm $8 million for investment banking services since 1996, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In October, Congressional investigators disclosed that Goldman allocated shares of more than 100 IPOs to Whitman since 1996 and she then quickly sold those shares for a profit, in a practice known as "spinning."

Whitman's connections to Goldman Sachs are quite relevant, as Eskow explains, showing that Goldman Sachs has a long record of screwing California taxpayers:

What kind of business relationship can Californians expect their state to have with Goldman Sachs and firms like it if Meg Whitman becomes governor? Here's a clue: In a report called "Corporate cash boosts Whitman," the Associated Press reported that "The biggest donations came from New York investment bankers, hedge fund managers, attorneys and others." If there's one thing these guys know it's how to prime the pump.

Not that Whitman's old pals at Goldman haven't already been profiting off California's misery. They were hired to manage some multibillion dollar state bond offerings but, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, millions in fees didn't stop Goldman from secretly undermining California's credit rating. That hurt the very sales they were hired to manage. As the Times states, the firm "urged some of its big clients to place investment bets against California bonds" by "proposing a way for ... clients to profit from California's deepening financial misery."

Goldman Sachs's role in serious government debt crises is getting greater scrutiny over in Europe, where they appear to have played the leading role in hiding Greek debt levels in order to massively profit off of Greece's heavy borrowing in preparation for the Athens Olympics. This unsustainable lending has spawned a European Union investigation while the EU works to deal with the crisis Goldman Sachs helped create with the Greek debt. Eskow cites reporting that indicates Goldman Sachs has screwed around with California debt, in this case undermining state bond sales for their own profit.

As it turns out, it's not just Goldman Sachs that is screwing with Californians and their debt sales. JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers (before their collapse) and UBS have all been implicated in an alleged conspiracy to cheat municipal governments by paying below-market interest rates to those governments. Remember that, as Eskow noted, many of Meg's donors are investment bankers.

The picture this all paints is extremely clear. California has been cheated out of millions - at least - by Goldman Sachs and its fellow investment banking houses. Meg Whitman represents them and their interests, and will almost certainly enable this misbehavior to continue.

It's also further evidence of the need for California to develop its own state bank, as was done by North Dakota nearly 100 years ago, in order to remove as much state borrowing as possible from the greedy clutches of Goldman Sachs and its fellow henchmen.

UPDATE: An op-ed by Faith Bautista and Preeti Vissa at Capitol Weekly draws more attention to the issue and calls for a legislative investigation.

In 2009, 16,000 teachers and other public school employees lost their jobs. The devastating effect on the quality of education in this state is just beginning to be felt. Now we learn that insane policy of mass firings of teachers and school employees is going to be renewed, as 23,000 more have received pink slips this month:

Faced with another year of potentially deep budget cuts, California's public schools have sent out 22,000 pink slips to teachers and school employees, according to the state's superintendent.

"Our state budget crisis has forced districts to lay off thousands of teachers over the past few years," said Jack O'Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction. "The governor has proposed cutting another $2.4 billion from public education. While the education community opposes these cuts, our schools are forced to prepare for this potential outcome by issuing a massive wave of potential layoff notices."

(Note: CTA reports today that the number of layoffs is now 23,225)

Arnold Schwarzenegger's office tried to spin this as not their fault, and even claimed the governor wasn't making further cuts to K-12 budgets:

Still, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aaron McLear, took umbrage with O'Connell's characterization of the governor's January budget proposal, noting that Schwarzenegger has proposed allocating the same amount of money for K-12 and community colleges as he did last year.

What McLear didn't say is that because of the (senseless) expiration of federal stimulus funds, keeping K-12 budgets the same in 2010-11 as in 2009-10 is a /de facto/ budget cut. Last March over 30,000 pink slips were issued, and it appears stimulus funds helped about half of those employees to get rehired for this current school year, most of whom were on 1-year temporary contracts. Without stimulus funds, and with a freeze in education spending, those teachers will get laid off for good this summer.

So far none of the gubernatorial candidates have addressed the destruction of our schools. Sure, Meg Whitman pledges to "fix education" but also pledges to blow an enormous hole in the state budget deficit with her tax cuts for the rich. How will she do both?

As Joe Garofoli points out, it might have something to do with her attack on public employee unions. Apparently she thinks teachers and other public workers, who make a middle-class living and retire with a decent though by no means generous pension, make too much money and should learn to do with less.

That's not going to solve the problems of our schools. If teacher pay decreases, it will become even more difficult to keep qualified teachers in the classroom to provide the education students deserve.

But that seems to be Whitman's approach, since she is on record as opposing new taxes. As California's schools suffer, Meg Whitman is showing no sign of wanting to help reverse the trend.

Meg Whitman is a master of slick campaigning. Her feelgood radio and TV ads are designed to make her seem like a moderate, pragmatic person who will help cure what ails California. Just today she launched her second TV ad, one in which the word "Republican" is *never mentioned*.

When it comes to the #1 task our next governor will face - solving the budget crisis - she is offering a continuation of Arnold Schwarzenegger's slash-and-burn cuts. But you wouldn't know that from Whitman's ads. She doesn't make reference to her refusal to embrace new revenues to save popular and vital services, even though the public supports doing so. Instead she offers vague pleasantries that mask her true intentions to destroy what remains of the California Dream.

That needs to change. The Courage Campaign is taking the initiative by launching a new TV ad showing what will happen if Whitman's proposed cuts become reality. We're calling it "Meg's California" and we're going to air it on TV screens across the state - with your help. If you pitch in and donate to air the ad, we can finally get some progressive narratives out there challenging Whitman's emphasis on cuts.

Here's the background.

California currently faces a $20 billion budget deficit for both the remainder of the 2009-10 budget year (about $6 billion) and the 2010-11 budget year (about $14 billion). The Legislative Analyst's Office projects an annual $20 billion deficit for years to come, including most if not all of the first term of our next governor. So let's say that the next governor has to deal with an annual $20 billion shortfall, largely owing to the structural revenue shortfall - the fact that we have artificially low tax levels designed to make it impossible to fund our ongoing core services.

How will Whitman deal with it? She has not yet offered a comprehensive budget package, and may not do so at all during the entire campaign. She's likely to try and keep skating by with vague promises of "fixing California" and "solving problems" - but as we've seen, California's budget crisis needs genuine solutions.

Whitman's website emphasizes "spending" as her budget category, showing that she continues the right-wing framing of our budget problem being a spending problem. Whitman has also called for widespread tax cuts that, although undefined in nature and amount, will widen further the existing budget gap.

So it's clear that Whitman rejects tax increases as a solution (otherwise the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association wouldn't have endorsed her). That leaves her with budget cuts and cuts alone as the solution to the state's crisis.

Whitman's proposed cuts are also generally vague and unspecific. But there is no way she can offer a cuts-only budget without hammering hard schools, parks, libraries, health care services, and the other services the Courage Campaign ad defends.

Specifically, Whitman wants to fire 40,000 state workers, apparently out of the belief that higher unemployment is good for the state. The average base pay for California state employees in 2008 was $63,815. Multiply that by 40,000 and you get $2,552,600,000. Just $2.5 billion, which would leave Whitman with another whopping $17.5 billion left to cut out of the budget.

That's about the total amount the state spends on higher education and on prisons. Medi-Cal, IHSS, Cal-WORKS, and other important human services take up billions themselves. If Whitman wants to close the budget deficit with no new taxes - and even wants new tax cuts - she's going to have to make massive cuts to the kinds of services we featured in our ad.

In short, she's going to hang "closed" signs on public services and buildings and parks across California.

We expect Whitman to respond to this ad by saying she's not actually proposing to cut schools, parks, libraries, health services, etc. As I just demonstrated above, such a response is simply not credible given the size of the deficits she'll face as governor, and given her own refusal to countenance new revenues.

This is just the start of the Courage Campaign's efforts to hold Meg Whitman accountable. Her bad math and flawed budgeting stands completely opposed to the priorities of the people of California. With your help, we're going to show that to the people of this state. Click here to get "Meg's California" on the air.

Below is the email we sent to our members today:   Read More »

California's Sarah Palin (aka Meg Whitman) has taken notice of the Courage Campaign radio ad launched today on radio stations across the state educating the public about Whitman's position on global warming. She just sent this email out to her list:

Dear Supporter,

A group of liberal activists headed by Howard Dean's former California campaign chair today launched a negative radio ad attacking Meg Whitman for her common-sense, pro-jobs environmental policies.

Fight back with Meg. She has led the call to put a one-year moratorium on California's AB 32, which has been estimated to negatively affect one million jobs in California. California cannot afford to hastily implement new environmental regulations that could further delay our economic recovery.

Coincidentally, the attack ad debuted on the same day that a new poll was released showing that Meg is beating the likely Democratic nominee Jerry Brown among independent voters.

National Democrats have already named Meg a top target and now the liberal "Courage Campaign" is taking up the call.

See their attack here.

Can we count on you to help beat these special interest groups and restore California? If you can contribute $15, $25 or $50, please link here to help fight back.

It's not surprising that Democrats and their special interest groups are already working hard to try to defeat Meg in the Republican primary. They want their chosen candidate, likely Jerry Brown, to face a different, weaker Republican candidate next November. We are not going to let that happen.

Thank you,
Jillian Hasner
Campaign Manager, Meg Whitman 2010

Some quick points. First, it was indeed entirely coincidental that our ad launched the day the PPIC poll came out. We'd been planning this ad for about a week now, but had no clue that PPIC was even doing a poll, certainly not that they were going to release it today. Not that it would have made any difference.

Contrary to Jillian Hasner's claims, the Courage Campaign does not endorse candidates for elected office. Jerry Brown is not our "chosen candidate" - we don't have one, period.

The Courage Campaign's goal is simply to make the public aware of Whitman's views on global warming legislation. Specifically, that she believes AB 32 should be suspended.

Looks like we've succeeded in that quest. If you want to help get that message aired more broadly on radio stations in California, click here to listen to the ad and donate to expand the buy.

Earlier this week I announced that Courage Campaign was going to produce an ad showing how Meg Whitman is California's Sarah Palin when it comes to global warming legislation. Palin and Whitman both oppose laws that mandate reduction of carbon emissions. Whitman has even said that she will order an indefinite suspension of AB 32 as her *very first act* as governor.

The Courage Campaign thought Californians should know about that. And our members agreed, putting up the money to get this ad produced and now aired on stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the Silicon Valley.

You can hear the ad by clicking this link. And you can donate to help support and expand the ad buy at the same link. Just a few dollars - $25, $50, $100, whatever you can give - will help spread the word.

We've already been getting some earned media attention on this ad. Last night Candy Crowley mentioned it on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° show. And on Tuesday, Carla Marinucci covered it at the SF Chronicle blog.

We'd love it if you could help us expand the buy. Meg Whitman is blanketing the state with her ads. The Courage Campaign doesn't have those kind of resources, but with your help we can get this ad on more radio stations and hold Whitman accountable.

Over the flip is the transcript of the ad.   Read More »

Sarah Palin, WaPo op-ed, December 9, 2009:

Meeting [carbon reduction] targets would require Congress to pass its cap-and-tax plans, which will result in job losses and higher energy costs... The last thing America needs is misguided legislation that will raise taxes and cost jobs.

Meg Whitman, San Jose Mercury News op-ed, September 16, 2009:

In January, the first AB 32 mandates take effect and will lead to higher energy costs at a time when we can least afford them. They will discourage job creation and could kill any recovery.

Notice the similar phrasing here: "higher energy costs," "cost jobs/discourage job creation."

It's not just similar phrasing that Whitman and Palin share: it's similar policies. Palin's op-ed was written to attack the Copenhagen climate summit and to oppose the Congressional cap-and-trade bill. Whitman's op-ed was written to attack AB 32, which she said she would order suspended indefinitely as her very first act as governor.

Earlier today in Copenhagen, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger slammed Sarah Palin's climate stance:

"You have to ask: what was she trying to accomplish?" he told the Financial Times. "Is she really interested in this subject or is she interested in her career and in winning the [Republican] nomination [for president]? You have to take all these things with a grain of salt."...

"I think there are people that just don't believe in fixing and working on the environment. They don't believe there is such a thing as global warming, they're still living in the Stone Age, which is OK, we need people like that, too," he said.

But will Arnold say similar things about Meg Whitman, who shares Sarah Palin's attitude about global warming legislation?

The Courage Campaign isn't going to wait to find out. That's why we are going to produce and air a radio ad that will broadcast on stations across California later this week. The ad will explain to the listener that Palin and Whitman share the same views on the climate crisis - views that are NOT shared by President Obama, Governor Schwarzenegger, and most Californians.

We're a small organization and can't simply cut and air the ad ourselves. We need your help to get this on the air. Please click here to kick in $25 to get this ad produced and aired.

Why a radio ad? Well, as you probably know, Whitman has launched a big radio ad buy in recent weeks. Whitman's ads are designed to raise her name identification with voters and boost her poll numbers by presenting herself as a friendly moderate who wants to help fix our broken state.

The Courage Campaign thinks that the public needs to hear the truth about Whitman's stand on global warming, which is why we're going to the radio airwaves. Will you join us? Donate now!

Once the ad is ready to be aired, I'll be sure to post it here so you can listen. Over the flip is the email we sent to our members today launching this campaign.   Read More »

As heavyweight Democratic gubernatorial candidates jockey for position, the Republican side of the aisle appears to be a race with no clear cut favorite. Keeping in line with the "yacht party" mantra, the GOP will likely field several candidates wealthy enough to fund their own campaign, but not nearly represent the majority of the state's citizenry.

Once these folks go public with their stances on social issues the right-wing of their own party will eat them alive. Cant wait.

Republicans Rumored to Replace the Terminator:   Read More »