One of the great progressive achievements in American history (and no, that isn't hyperbole) is the nationwide adoption of universal public education. Here in California we went one better and created what for many decades was seen as the world's leading system of higher education - the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education.

Both were created out of the recognition that for California to have broadly shared economic prosperity, it was *essential* that we have a strong public education system that included *affordable* and *accessible* college education for those who desired it. California's fantastic economic success over the last 50 to 60 years was enabled in no small part by this commitment to education. And even after the state began entering a slow period of decline in 1978, with increasing inequality and slowly contracting public services, the educational system was still able to train a skilled and innovative workforce that helped sustain California until the present crisis hit.

Now all of that is about to be destroyed. California's colleges are facing cuts so vast that they will finally eliminate what remains of the *affordable* and *accessible* promise while turning the world-renowned system into "bachelor degree mills" that no longer contribute research knowledge to the state - knowledge that in the past spawned entire industries, including the high-tech industry.

At the same time the state legislature is poised to deliver major cuts to education spending - the only debate at this point seems to be "how" and not "if." Schools already sustained a $9 billion hit through an illegal interpretation of the Prop 98 rules, so now Arnold Schwarzenegger wants the legislature to suspend Prop 98 outright. Democrats, who have been engaged in a slow-motion cave yet again, appear likely to go along with some form of the insane cut.

Nobody has yet explained how this will do anything to promote economic recovery. Instead it is likely to leave California permanently behind the rest of the nation and much of the industrialized world for quite some time. Without being able to educate our children ind decent schools, it will be difficult to retain businesses here as they will struggle to find qualified workers, and will continually lose employees to other states that have not decided education is no longer important or valuable.

Unfortunately California in 2009 is a place where the word "future" is a verboten word, rivaled only by the phrase "economic recovery" in the level of disdain it is held in Sacramento. We are told that the need to cut trumps all else in our state - apparently it even trumps common sense.

Democrats have convinced themselves a budget deal is necessary to avert meltdown. But that meltdown is already here. Agreeing to destroy education in this state would merely be agreeing to ensure the radioactivity is channeled primarily at the young.

I don't know about you, but I can't find anything in the outcome of the May 19 election that justifies, say, ending welfare entirely, or denying AIDS patients life-saving medicines, or throwing a million kids off of health care, or closing the state park system, or eliminating affordable access to higher education. Can you?

In fact, even though polls show voters emphatically *reject* that kind of budgeting Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone ahead and proposed it anyway. In his best effort to play the role of a modern-day Herbert Hoover he has decided to interpret the election as a mandate to push through the radical attack on government he has always wanted to lead.

In recent hearings in the Legislature - which in themselves prove the value of an open budget process - the scope of the cuts has become clear, and even legislators who were just last week speaking of the need for cuts are starting to have second thoughts, as Anthony Wright reported:

Some members, like Senator Denise Ducheny, asked whether some of these cuts would not create more costs, as people end up in emergency rooms or elsewhere, even within the budget year. "What makes you think this doesn't create a cost shift?... Will people just die and we won't have to take care of them?" she asked.

Senator Mark Leno talked about how the AIDS Drug Assistance Program "literally keeps people alive," and asked for information about the increased cost of ermegency room visits as a result of the cut. Senator Alan Lowenthal asked if there was a "longitudinal" analysis, and asked for the "long-range implications" of these cuts.

Assemblywoman Noreen Evans was alarmed when she noted that dialysis would be cut for some patients, exclaiming that her father was going through such treatment, and was not optional. She also noted that some cuts, like the elimination of HIV Testing, would have public health impacts. Assemblyman Kevin DeLeon pointed out the cuts to community clinics, arguing that for many Californians, "this is the only safety-net they have."

As the Sac Bee reports, even some Republicans acknowledge that there is such a thing as a successful government program:

Assemblyman Danny Gilmore, R-Hanford, wrote an opinion piece this month for the Bakersfield Californian telling constituents how to apply to Healthy Families and touting it as a program that works "especially well."

Of course, the Zombie Death Cult still has its adherents, like Chuck DeVore:

But Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said the state must scale back because it cannot afford the benefits it provides. DeVore asserted that overregulation and high taxes have stifled businesses and led to layoffs, while California has compounded the problem with too much public aid.

"When you have an unemployment rate as high as it is in this state, it should be a signal to people to look for jobs in other states with more jobs and a lower cost of living," DeVore said. "We have had policies subsidizing poverty in this state for years, and we can't keep doing that."

And this guy wants to be in the US Senate! The irony is that even his own constituents disagree with him. Orange County residents don't want their parents to lose dialysis treatment. They don't want their kids to lose Cal Grants. They don't want to be barred from going to the nearby beach.

As we have been explaining for months now, these kinds of cuts are suicidal. They will make the budget picture worse by costing more money than the cuts would save. They will certainly make the economic crisis FAR worse by forcing consumers to pull back even further on spending in order to replace the lost state aid. Arnold Schwarzenegger is demanding a Depression.

Unfortunately the legislative leadership has woefully unprepared themselves to respond. Instead of spending the months leading up to the May 19 election talking about protecting Californians against horrific cuts, the Democratic leadership instead went along with Arnold's scare tactics and made a cuts-only budget sound inevitable - and then doubled down the day after the election.

It's time for legislators to "just say no" to these cuts. And not say it in order to accept lesser but similarly damaging cuts, but say "no" in order to walk through the wide open door that leads out of the Jarvis nightmare scenario. We have a golden opportunity to bury 30 years of anti-tax nonsense - Californians understand that taxes are necessary to prevent people from dying and to provide economic recovery. There is widespread support for raising taxes on the wealthy, closing the loopholes, and ending a failed prisons policy that costs us billions.

It's time for legislators to move beyond outrage and to start showing real leadership against this madness. If they want to restore their reputations with voters, the best way to do so is to show that the Legislature still understands common sense and can give the people what they want - a fair tax system that will stop these cuts in their entirety.

Resolutions for California Democrats

The Northern Solano Democratic Club has posted five resolutions on their web site that will be submitted for approval at the state convention next month.

They are:

A Resolution for Improving Higher Education Accreditation Practices
A Resolution for Relief from No Child Left Behind Expenditures
A Resolution Opposing the Open Primary in 2010
A Resolution for majority Rule Initiative Reducing the Threshold for Passing a State Budget
A Resolution on Contesting Elections

The full text of each is below the fold and can be adopted by local clubs by inserting your club name in the "Resolved" clauses at the appropriate place.   Read More »

Yesterday I wrote about the insanity of firing teachers as a "budget solution." Thousands of Californians seem to agree, judging by the growing outrage around our state over these cuts.

The Courage Campaign is asking our members to take action to ensure this never happens again. We need to create a progressive media narrative that calls for more investment in our schools, not less. Writing a letter to the editor of your local paper is still one of the most effective ways to accomplish this. We have an easy online tool that includes talking points, writing tips, and automatically sends your letter to whichever newspapers you want to include.

In addition, the California Teachers Association is holding a series of protest rallies around the state tomorrow on what they are calling Pink Friday.

A progressive movement is coming together around protecting our core services. Without education our state will never have an economic recovery - and we will lose an entire generation.

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

My sister got her layoff notice yesterday. After teaching 5th grade for three years in an Orange County school district, and having achieved "permanent" status, she was told her services will no longer be needed as of the end of the school year. By all accounts her students' parents loved her, and as she told me last night, "I don't know what else I would do, teaching is all I've ever wanted to do." And that's true, ever since she taught our cousin what a fork was. Teaching is the family business, and now, she's been told her dreams are no longer possible because California has stopped caring about schools.

She is not alone in watching her hopes and dreams vanish. Over 20,000 of her fellow teachers have been pink slipped, with LA Unified alone firing 9,000 teachers. Uncounted numbers of support staff - the people who answer the phones, who drive the buses, who enable teachers to focus on their jobs, are getting laid off as well. Nobody in Sacramento or the offices of the Zombie Death Cult have been able to explain how this is going to help our state survive economic crisis.

The mass layoffs are an act so vile and insane that it almost defies description. Teachers should be the *last* people in society laid off, before almost everyone else but the technicians at the water treatment plant. To engage in a mass firing of teachers in the midst of a Depression is like a man stranded in the desert poking out his eyes with a stick because the sun is too bright. Sure, it might help temporarily, but eventually you're going to want to see where you're going, and wish you'd never acted so rashly back there on the dune.

Here at the Courage Campaign we have repeatedly explained why these layoffs are happening - a conservative veto (the 2/3rds rule) enables Republicans to starve government of revenue and then force crippling cuts while Democrats fail to craft a coherent response. Our knowledge of those underlying causes should not blind us to the insanity of these layoffs.

These pink slips also make a mockery of President Obama's education plans, which revolve around trying to attract new teachers to the profession:

And so today, I am calling on a new generation of Americans to step forward and serve our country in our classrooms. If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation; if you want to make the most of your talents and dedication; if you want to make your mark with a legacy that will endure - join the teaching profession. America needs you.

Such words ring hollow here in California, where those who already have stepped forward to make the most of their talents and to make a difference in the life of our nation have discovered that the legacy that will endure is a pink slip telling them "sorry, we don't really want you after all."

As Chris Bowers pointed out yesterday Obama's education plans have an overemphasis on dealing with "bad teachers":

I don't entirely understand why talk of making teachers work harder, making their profesion more competitive, and making their job secure is so common in America. We don't talk about making the lives of other people who work in public service, such as soldiers and first responders--or even health care workers--in such a foreboding way. If, as a nation, we actually want to solve our teacher shortage, part of that is going to mean dropping our constant national threats to make teachers lives more difficult. That is just a really, really bad way to recruit and retain teachers.

Obama's efforts to attract and retain the good teachers is simply impossible and unrealistic when those teachers who, like my sister and her 20,000 colleagues, have been given glowing reviews from administrators and parents alike and yet still find themselves turned away from the career they love.

His plans also suggest he is too wound up in what education writer Stanley Fish called the neoliberalization of education - the belief that education reform involves introducing market forces into schools, even though market forces prioritize money and denigrate other values such as good teaching, care for students, and building communities.

If Barack Obama wants to be serious about education reform, he needs to realize that you must first stop the bleeding before you can do anything else. The US Senate's decision to gut the state stabilization funds is behind the mass layoffs here in California. That act will neutralized the effect of the stimulus in California and cause lasting damage to a generation of young people whose education has been sacrificed to appease Republicans in Sacramento and the US Senate.

Before Obama focuses on how to fire bad teachers, he needs to first ensure that we retain the good ones. If teaching becomes seen as a profession where quality work brings no job security, then reforms are doomed from the outset.

Health education funding at risk!

The Chairman of the OC Board of Supervisors, right-wing conservative John Moorlach is going to attempt to cancel contracts that total over $300,000 with Planned Parenthood.

WE NEED YOUR PRESENCE AND PHONE CALLS AND EMAILS!

Next Tuesday (Mar 10th), John Moorlach, Orange County Supervisor District 2, will bring an agenda item to the Board of Supervisors meeting that could drastically inhibit our ability to serve the community. He plans to single out Planned Parenthood by withholding more than $290,000 in health education funding. Services provided through the Health Education Program empower teens and young adults throughout our community to make informed, healthy, and responsible decisions about their health, and ultimately to reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancies, STIs, and tobacco use in Orange County. Any attempt by the supervisors to change the contract represents a breach of contract and an abuse of power on their behalf. At a time when people are losing their jobs and their medical coverage, Supervisor Moorlach wants to take hundreds of thousands of dollars away from primary health care resources.

We need you to take action to protect family planning and health education services in your community.

Please call or e-mail your County Supervisor to let them know you support Planned Parenthood and the health education services we provide under the Tobacco Settlement Funds (TSR) and immunization contracts. (all contact info is provided in extended post)

   Read More »

What will you do with your IOU from Aarold? I would pay all the hardworking teachers and educators in California what they deserve. Frankly this budget crisis is a bunch of malarkey. How can we afford to spend so much of our money on our state prison system while ignoring education? California is at a crossroads: if we choose to ignore education, we are truly doomed. All the uneducated will ultimately end up in the prison system anyway. But maybe that's the answer. After all, prisons create jobs, right? Maybe we should just cut to the chase and spend all our invaluable Arnold Bucks on the prisons, completely ignoring education, and then hire all of the state's educators to run our prisons. Would that work? Oh, I almost forgot about the students (the future of California and this Great Nation), but that's okay, because apparently so did Arnold.

The details of Arnold's budget plan are in and it is even more insane than we thought. His budget includes large cuts to public schools, which are bad enough in their own right. But the specific kinds of cuts are going to trigger a snowball effect that could destroy public schools in California - and I don't believe that's an exaggeration.

California schools could eliminate a week of instruction and increase class sizes next year under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's new plan for solving the state's budget crisis.

Vowing to give schools maximum flexibility to cut costs, the proposal unveiled Wednesday also would allow districts to eliminate one of two science courses required for high school graduation.

Schwarzenegger's plan would provide no teacher salary increases, eliminate a program providing subsidies to overhaul low-performing schools, and suspend participation in a program encouraging teachers to obtain national certification.

In and of themselves these cuts are damaging and reckless. California students need MORE science instruction, not less, if they're going to be globally competitive. Cutting instruction isn't going to help students learn more, and will lead to corner-cutting by teachers and administrators alike.

Those damaging cuts become catastrophic, however, in the context of No Child Left Behind. Arnold's proposals are likely to cause numerous schools to fail to meet federal standards set by the law, especially when subsidies to low-performing schools are cut. Because NCLB mandates the closure of low-performing schools, Arnold's budget if enacted as-is would virtually ensure the closure of numerous schools in this state.

Arnold's budget also leaves schools facing their own cash crisis during the school year (and in prime testing season):

The governor has proposed to ease the pain, in part, by accounting transfers involving state transportation funds and by deferring $2.8 billion in school payments from April to July. Wells said the state, by deferring payments for three months, would place an "awful" new burden on school districts to secure short-term loans.

It will be extremely difficult to secure those kinds of loans, but Arnold continues to delude himself into thinking the private sector is interested in lending to state government or its affiliated agencies.

There are plenty of other ridiculous elements to Arnold's budget but the kinds of education cuts proposed are a good example of just how badly Arnold has screwed up our state. One has to wonder whether this is a shock-doctrine style plan to force mass privatization of public schools in California by starving them of revenue and forcing them to close when they inevitably are unable to meet NCLB standards.

Two years from now a new governor will be sworn in. I wonder if California can wait that long.

Today's New York Times examines the nationwide state budget deficit problem - the total deficit faced by the states is at least $66 billion (and is likely higher since the NY Times didn't include, for example, the $1 billion deficit in Washington State). California figures prominently in their story, of course, but the story makes it sound as if our deficit is solely the product of the economic crisis:

The plunging revenues -- the result of an unusual assemblage of personal, sales, capital gains and corporate taxes falling significantly -- have poked holes in budgets that are just weeks and months old and that came about only after difficult legislative sessions.

"The fiscal landscape," said H. D. Palmer, a spokesman for the California Department of Finance, "is fundamentally altered from where it was six weeks ago."

There's no doubt that the worsening economic picture is partly responsible for the budget deficit. But the NY Times article does not explain to its readers that reckless tax cuts have created a structural revenue shortfall - for decades the state hasn't taken in as much money as it needs to fund core services. Arnold's reckless VLF cut is responsible for nearly $6 billion of the deficit.

Still, given a deficit of this size, and the fact that numerous states are facing deficits, suggests that a federal response is a necessary part of the solution. Already cities such as San José are seeking part of the $700 billion federal bailout to help ease their cash crunch. Henry Paulson isn't interested - gotta keep the funds flowing to his Wall Street cronies - but a federal bailout of state and local governments needs to be a central part of President Obama's economic stimulus come January.

That bailout could be focused, for example, on filling gaps in health care, education, and transportation. The bailout funds could be made contingent on state-level solutions - here in California, for example, a smart and fair revenue proposal linked with a federal bailout could eliminate the deficit.

A revenue solution MUST be part of this - given the likelihood of state budget deficits for the next several years. The alternative is massive and crippling cuts to schools like that described in today's LA Times:

District officials -- already in the process of identifying $400 million in cuts for next year -- almost certainly will have to reopen this year's budget and find about $200 million to $400 million to meet an anticipated shortfall. The budget-cutting is becoming a painfully familiar routine: Officials had to eliminate 680 jobs just to balance the books last June.

"It was hard enough to do that, so doing it again, in the middle of the school year" could be chaotic, said Megan Reilly, the district's chief financial officer.

Those cuts would push LA even deeper into recession. Without a coordinated state and federal response, the economic picture is going to get MUCH worse.

Having barely escaped Arnold's demands for budget cuts this spring, education in California is in his crosshairs yet again. Arnold is announcing that California now faces a $10 billion deficit and as a result, held a closed-door meeting with education leaders warning them of cuts of $2 to $4 billion that could come as soon as next month.

The reaction was swift:

"There is just no way we would be able to cut that much," said Scott Plotkin, executive director of the California School Boards Assn., who was at the meeting. "For virtually every district I know of, this would be catastrophic."...

Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. David L. Brewer said that Schwarzenegger's proposal would cost the district as much as $440 million. He called cuts of that magnitude "impossible."

"They're going to have to go out and borrow money because we'd go bankrupt," Brewer said. "Fiscally, we can't do that without literally having to shut down schools."

By law, teachers cannot be fired unless they are told months in advance.

"You can't just hand out pink slips," Brewer said. Teachers "have protections, they have union agreements."

Plotkin was also quoted in the SF Chronicle saying he thought this was an effort by Arnold to scare the education community into backing a budget that wasn't cuts only. But I am not so sure this is the case. Arnold is talking as if education cuts are inevitable, and if he were truly interested in avoiding them, he would not have called a lame-duck legislature into session - he'd have waited until December 1 and allowed a new legislature with fewer Yacht Party members to take their seats and solve the mess.

Complicating matters is the fact that the budget deal that resulted from Don Perata's surrender in September is worse than we expected according to an analysis posted at the California Progress Report:

In a nutshell, the budget agreement includes new sweeping midyear cut authority for the executive branch, a restrictive new state spending cap that was billed as an expansion of the state's rainy day fund, and new corporate tax breaks that will cost the state more than $1 billion a year. The first two proposals require voter approval, presumably in a June 2009 special election, but the tax breaks are permanent unless reversed by the Legislature or at the ballot box.

All three proposals were carefully crafted by their proponents but were jammed through the Legislature at the last minute without receiving property scrutiny and review. Democratic leaders have vehemently opposed similar proposals in the past but surrendered on all three proposals in one fell swoop--a boon to fiscally conservative Republicans who have fought for a restrictive state spending cap and midyear cut authority for years.

The spending cap and midyear cut authority undermine the power of Democrats to protect education funding. Apparently these aren't yet in effect, but Democrats have already given up as much as they can. Beginning November 5th their job is to fight, fight, fight. They will likely have a voter mandate to do so.

They will also have common sense on their side. Cutting education spending - or any other government spending - during a severe recession is an act of madness that guarantees the recession will get deeper and last longer. Arnold needs to not only look at a new sales tax, but admit his error and restore the Vehicle License Fee, which would restore $6 billion to the budget immediately and make this immeasurably easier to solve.

Only if Democrats hold their ground will that happen. And for them to hold their ground, we must make them do so.

Yesterday, Al Gore emailed a special video message to members of the Courage Campaign discussing how vitally important it is that our budget priorities not abandon education. And he asked everyone to tell him what we think about the current threat to education funding here in California at Current.com. Already, 18 members of the State Assembly have recorded video responses and posted them at Current. But even more impressive is that there are already close to 200 (probably more by now) responses by people from all over.

For instance, CarolynGillis said:

We need to increase our investment in financial and economic literacy for all our K-12 students and their parents so they have a chance to use their earnings wisely and to choose skills that empower them to create a future for themselves and their families.

commenter lritz noted:

If we want to retain our competitive edge in this world, we need to refocus our priorities on education, and turn the system upside-down. Make people want to be teachers. Make kids want to go to school. Reward those that show potential with scholarships, and squash the myth that sports is the only way for underprivileged kids to escape their situation. Make college affordable and available to anyone who wants it. Stop grading kids on their ability to take tests. Dismiss the idea that we have to constantly boost self-esteem by not failing kids or holding them back a grade.

This is the sort of dialogue our education system needs if we're going to save it. But I certainly can't say it any better than Al Gore himself:   Read More »

Tomorrow, the San Diego Unified School board will vote on laying off more than 900 teachers in the face of budget cuts rippling down from the state's current fiscal crisis. That's an average of more than four teachers leaving every school in the district. While the future of our next generation becomes cloudier, Republicans in the legislature continue to defend tax free yachts. It tells you a lot about where their priorities lie. Driving home this point as the state wades through the budget process is vitally important, and that's why Courage Campaign and the California Nurses Association have come together, producing a new Yacht Party ad that needs your help to reach the air. Arianna Huffington emailed Courage Campaign supporters earlier today to explain the importance of this ad and this meme overall:   Read More »

Cross posted at Calitics

Senator Jeff Denham knows he can't win on his record. He knows that the state's budget is screwed, he was and remains part of the problem and people are smart enough to put it together. And since he can't resist a recall on his actual performance as a legislator, he's left bitching and moaning over ticky-tack stuff that only matters if you're scared of being judged on your merits.

So today, Denham filed two criminal complaints against Senator Don Perata. They object to some pretty innocuous and obscure actions- like a Senate staffer translating a transcript- which, while worth being looked at, have nothing to do with the actual substance of the recall election. It's misdirection, it's obfuscation, and it's a refusal to take responsibility for the crisis that the state is facing. Par for the course these days from the Yacht Party and it's preference for party loyalty over productive governance.

Senator Denham continues to base his entire campaign on the notion that his behavior is no business of anyone outside the district. He complains that Perata shouldn't be involved, outside activists shouldn't be involved, that the eyes of the state have been unjustly turned to his record and district. But when Senator Denham obstructs a workable budget, it isn't just his district that suffers. Kids are losing teachers in every corner of the state because of the budget shortfall that Denham helped create. Vital services are being slashed across California because Denham refuses to deal in fiscal reality instead of partisan obstinacy.

We're all in Jeff Denham's district, and if he's going to whine about it, maybe he should find a different line of work.

Update: Just received a press release (full text below the flip) accusing Denham's campaign of using state email accounts to solicit state employees for campaign purposes. State resources should, it seems, be used to protect his own hide but not to provide basic services to Californians. Presumably the resources in question do not exclusively come from his Senate district. We're all in Jeff Denham's district.   Read More »

Over 2,000 students from UC, CSU, and community colleges gathered yesterday for a protest march from Raley Field in West Sac to the State Capitol to denounce Arnold's planned higher ed cuts, and 200 more gathered at Arnold's LA office. The protest is getting big coverage - it's the featured article at SFGate this evening:

"Kick us out, we will vote you out," the crowd in Sacramento chanted as they walked along a bridge crossing Highway 99, through downtown and onto the Capital steps. The line of students, which included hundreds from the Bay Area, stretched six blocks, and dozens of motorists honked in support as they drove by.

   Read More »

When Arnold took office in late 2003 he argued that one of the state's highest priorities was to "reform" a workers' compensation system that was supposedly driving businesses, and therefore jobs, out of the state. And the Legislature did so, cutting benefits to injured workers in order to try and keep business and the Chamber of Commerce happy.

Five years later California faces a similar crisis, as skilled workers flee the state in droves, taking their salaries and therefore their positive economic impact with them. But this time, Arnold seems happy to see their backs, because it's teachers and not well-connected corporations that are fleeing a state thanks to poor budget priorities:   Read More »

During the morning drive today, NPR ran through John McCain's healthcare plan, which isn't really a plan so much as a plot to throw sick people to the wolves. But what struck me most wasn't how ineffectual McCain's plan would be (make private insurance cheaper...somehow), but how dramatically he apparently misunderstands the fundamental nature of the health care crisis in this country. Senator McCain believes:

The problem is not that most Americans lack adequate health insurance...The biggest problem with the American health care system is that it costs too much.

Which of course ignores the millions of people who have health insurance but still can't get adequate health care. And the millions of people who have become uninsurable because of prexisting conditions. Those people aren't John McCain's concern apparently, and why would it be since his goal is protecting insurance companies? What's even more shockingly ignorant though is the parallels he tries to draw with other national programs. McCain flatly rejects the notion of mandated health insurance (a debatable issue, granted) with the argument that he wants everyone to have a college education too, but he's not going to force it on them. Unfortunately for McCain, this country mandates over a decade of education already. You know- the basic level necessary to reasonably function in modern society? Yeah, that one. Which is exactly what a health insurance mandate would be doing. So either McCain doesn't realize that kids are required to go to school in this country (rather unlikely), he doesn't understand what a health insurance mandate is (also unlikely, but less so), or he's just being willfully deceptive and dishonest with the country (I think we have a winner). It's amazing not only that he thinks he can get away with this, but that the people in this country deserve to be treated with this sort of intellectual contempt. I can't wait to beat this guy.

It looks like we've finally figured out how to get decent policy out of Senator Jeff Denham. All it took was to directly threaten his own political wellbeing. In response to being targeted for recall, Denham has embarked on a rather elaborate woe-is-me defense campaign, part of which is legislation to reform the signature gathering process. This sort of reform- which would make the law much tougher on out-of-state sig gatherers, might have been quite relevant back when the Dirty Tricksters were bending the law to the breaking point. But Senator Denham waited until his own butt was on the block to suddenly take an interest in the integrity of the signature gathering process. This is a solid bit of legislation, and as the first article notes, Don Perata was one of the aye votes today.

It's just a shame that Denham's personal interests don't appear to coincide more often with the people in his district or the state of California. He ran strong on education to get into office, but once his personal career was better served by toeing the CRP line, he blew that one off. He talks a big game about opposing pay raises, but then he accepts them. That one is obviously the most literal of personal profit trumping good policy. So as Denham's reform of signature gathering works its way towards passage, it's an opportunity to appreciate the potential for good policy. It would just be nice if Senator Denham would do the right thing because it's the right thing once in a while.

Here in the dog days of April, as the state awaits the governor's May Revise, frustration seems to be setting in over the budget. The real political battles will begin in earnest after the May Revise, but the jockeying for position has been going on for some time, including in the state's media. Unsurprisingly, the media wants to spin the budget crisis as a failure of all Sacramento politicians, when in fact the current impasse is the responsibility of one group alone: the Republicans.

As an article in Sunday's Sac Bee would have us believe, there is "scant support for budget changes." But a deeper look shows that while Democrats have already proposed budget fixes, such as closing the yacht loophole and creating an oil severance tax (as exists in nearly every other state), it is the Republicans alone that have blocked meaningful budget action.

And why have they done so? Republicans want us to believe that *any* revenue solution is economically damaging:

However, Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the GOP's incoming leader, said the state should not take away credits at a time when the economy is struggling.

Other ideas that have yet to gain traction would raise income taxes on high-wage earners or amend Proposition 13 to assess businesses in the same way as residential property. The latter, known as "split-roll" property tax, would require that commercial and industrial properties be reassessed more regularly, bringing the state an estimated $3 billion annually.

Cogdill dismissed all as non-starters.

"We should help the general fund by stimulating the economy and be a more beneficial partner with industry, rather than stifling them," Cogdill said.

But whose economy is stimulated by revenue cuts? Who actually sees this so-called economic growth? And who suffers from the spending cuts that are forced by the revenue cuts? A closer look at the overall situation shows that the Republicans' claims are nonsense. Tax cuts provide economic growth for a wealthy few, but cause economic distress for pretty much everyone else - *especially* when those tax cuts come at the expense of education. More below.   Read More »

What began in Alameda last month is now beginning to spread around the state. As their future is taken from them by a Yacht Party determined to protect wealth and aristocracy through crippling education cuts, California students are beginning to fight back. In rallies that are unfolding across the state, they are speaking out for opportunity, for education, for democracy.

And on April 18 and April 21, they are poised to make the loudest statement yet against the destruction of education in California.

More on that below. But first, how is Arnold responding to the crisis in public education? The governor, whose own children attend private schools, made a fundraising visit to St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano yesterday at the request of Mimi Walters, GOP assemblywoman and parent of two St. Margaret's students. He was met by over 200 protestors who denounced Arnold's education cuts:

Chanting "Save our schools" and "Shame on you," about 200 teachers, students and parents from across South County lined the narrow sidewalks in front of a Mexican restaurant Thursday afternoon, protesting Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed education cuts as the governor rolled up for a fundraiser.

Sheriff's deputies on foot and motorcycle ordered protesters to stay off the private driveway of El Adobe de Capistrano restaurant in the moments leading up to the governor's 6:15 p.m. arrival. Schwarzenegger entered the downtown San Juan Capistrano eatery through a side entrance and did not address the protesters.

Schwarzenegger's communications director, Matt David, told reporters the governor "wishes he could be outside with these protesters" and that he applauded their efforts.

"This is the last thing he wants to do," said David, explaining that the governor hoped to work with lawmakers to find a different solution to the state's budget crisis. "He understands how important it is to fund education."

Of course, nobody forced Arnold to propose a $4 billion cut to K-12 funding. And he can reverse those cuts in his May revise. But he will get his chance to join these protestors over the next week, as California students are about to unleash an unprecedented wave of activism to stop Arnold and his attacks on public education.   Read More »

Cross posted at Calitics

Jeff Denham's first tv ad is up and running, and it's striking a familiar "how dare you" tone, but mixing in a new bit of "you want me on that wall, you NEED me on that wall." Via Capitol Alert, is the transcript as delivered by former Secretary of State Bill Jones:

The recall was launched against Sen. Jeff Denham for one reason only.

He refused to vote for a budget billions out of balance. But then the non-partisan Legislative Analyst proved him right, forecasting an additional $10 billion in red ink.

Local newspapers label this recall an "Abuse of the ballot box." (The Monterey County Herald 2/17/2008)

-- a "sham." (The Madera Tribune, 3/21/2008)

"Petty politics" (Hollister Freelance 2/19/2008)

And "Unjustified" (Fresno Bee 3/20/2008)

Saying this recall is "Just plain wrong." (Merced Sun-Star 2/11/2008)

I agree. Vote No on the Recall.

At some point between last fall and now, Denham and Republicans forcing their budgetary priorities on the Democratic majority has turned into Republicans standing strong in the face of fiscal irresponsibility. At least in Jeff Denham's head. If Denham really wants to hold himself up as a paragon of budgetary virtue, he might need to answer a few questions. Like why he keeps accepting pay raises even though he proudly/loudly opposes them. He also better start coming up with an actual defense for why he stood in lockstep with his GOP brethren in sacrifice of his (supposed) legislative priorities:   Read More »