April 9, 2012

By Katy Grimes

More than ever, California is a state run by children. Selfish, self-absorbed state officials and lawmakers have been implementing pet policies and legislation for so many decades, they are now arguing among themselves over whose liberal policies are better.

A recent op-ed and subsequent letter to the editor of the Sacramento Bee exemplify this.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s current and former Natural Resources Secretaries wrote to the Sacramento Bee, criticizing and defending Brown’s green agenda. But both missed the far more important larger picture: California is going broke, our infrastructure is in disrepair and top state employees are getting paid better than Fortune 500 CEOs.

Instead of arguing how green Brown is, the discussion should center around misguided policies and childish and slimy politics.

In an op ed for the Sacramento Bee, Huey D. Johnson, Brown’s former Natural Resources Secretary–from Brown’s gubernatorial stints in the 1970′s–wrote that he doesn’t think the governor is green enough. Current Natural Resources Secretary John Laird responded, defending Brown’s green agenda in a feeble letter to the editor.

Laird was appointed to the agency after he lost a run for the state Senate against Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo.  As Natural Resources Secretary, Laird is receiving a much larger salary than the Senate would pay, and he is only accountable to the Governor–not a bad tradeoff for losing.

According to Johnson, “precious resource assets include forests, parks, air and soil” are at risk because of Brown’s failure to make proper appointments.

Johnson was critical of the parks department director, a Schwarzenegger appointment, who he says is about to give away some land for a golf course in Lake Tahoe.

But the state water policy is what really rankled Johnson. “For a state that has been so progressive, the antiquated, corrupt water matters are unbelievable,” Johnson said.

I agree with him about water. The state has done nothing about water storage. In our good rain years, California loses most of it to runoff.  That’s just negligence in a state which has to send so much water to the San Francisco Bay area and the cities in the south.

Laird’s defense

Laird defended Brown’s “big green agenda”:

“He signed a ban on shark finning and on Bisphenol A in children’s food containers. California adopted a bold plan for electric vehicles: 1.5 million by 2025.”

That’s really bold.

Laird also said that the state’s parks are being closed because of budget cuts.

But the state parks closures are about as political as it gets. California’s tourism industry benefits significantly from the hundreds of thousands of visitors to the state’s parks every year. Closure of any of the parks  will have virtually no impact on the state’s massive deficit, but will slam tourism.

The water debacle is politics at work, not leadership, and it’s killing the state.

Closing parks is pure politics. Signing a ban on shark finning and BPA is political drama, designed to grab headlines.

The other headline grabber is High-Speed Rail. While the governor appears hypnotized by the train, and continues to advance it instead of pushing to repair the highways and roads, even California’s voters have grown queasy on the subject.

Brown is also pushing a tax increase to help pay for the state’s growing deficit. But pushing tax increases is career suicide in this state.

California Needs Some Grownups

California’s politicians keep passing legislation that only grabs headlines and deflects from the serious issues.

California has a water problem–the solutions aren’t sexy and won’t get anyone reelected.

Jerry Brown was elected because enough voters believed him when he said, “At this stage of my life, I’m prepared to focus on nothing else but fixing this state I love.” Brown is 74 and has spent most of his career in politics.

But so far, the godfather of the state’s organized labor movement has only given back to the union powers which put him back in office.

It’s not just Brown’s green agenda that is failing; it’s his entire agenda. Again. California needs a grownup in the governor’s office, and some adults in the Legislature.

The self-absorbed, hyper-sensitive children currently masquerading as lawmakers and leaders have done staggering amounts of damage to this state from which it may not recover. They’ve ruined the environment, ruined the schools, devastated the agriculture industry, created a water crisis and can’t even properly maintain roads, bridges, levees, sewer systems and rivers.

That’s should be proof enough that California needs a part-time Legislature made up of people with real jobs, who understand how to live within their means instead of raising taxes whenever times get tough. Feeding out of the public trough skews a lawmakers’ perspective, and the role becomes instead about saving their own job instead of saving the state.

California has always been known as the most self-absorbed liberal state in the country. The gluttonous appetites for welfare and social services, and now, big public salaries and pensions, have brought the chickens home to roost.

The Governor appears incapable to do anything about the state of the state, and legislators look like children.

JAN. 7, 2011

It felt like “Groundhog Day” on Thursday during Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget proposal press conference. I had a flashback to January 2011. Listening to him make the same claims about the budget that he made all year proved that Brown has only one trick in his bag.

After attending all of Brown’s press conferences since he was elected, I have come to the conclusion that he is inept. He’s a tool. He’s a front man — the public face for those really controlling state government. He’s bought and paid for. And his staff is inept. The Department of Finance is inept. They’re all inept.

Or they are all corrupt.

Either way, these people should all be fired. They are highly paid impostors, pretending at playing “budget.” I’ve seen more sincere budgeting from circus carnies and grifters who have to live within their “budgets.”

One year of  watching Brown say the same things, and use the same expressions he has used at every news conference since his election, struck me the most, and angered me greatly.

The Old Familiar Budget Proposal

Brown said that his fiscal 2012-13 budget proposal is “straightforward and fair.”

We’ve heard that before.

So I started digging back into stories I wrote in 2011 while covering the governor.

On January 31, 2011, I wrote, “Earlier in the month, Brown proposed an ambitious budget plan to eliminate the state’s deficit and budget shortfall using spending cuts, borrowing, tax increases, and somehow locating $1.9 billion in ‘other unspecified solutions,’ in order to provide for a $1 billion reserve. The 2009 tax increases are estimated to net $12 billion, and they include a 1 cent increase in the state’s sales tax, a 0.25 percentage point increase in the state income tax and an increase in the vehicle license fee rate.”

It’s déjà vu all over again.

And on that date last year I wrote, “According to Brown’s budget proposal, in addition to the substantial cuts to Medi-Cal, CalWORKs, and the state’s universities, state employees pay will be cut by 10 percent — but only state employees not currently covered under collective bargaining agreements.”

Brown said on Thursday that he would be cutting the state workforce again, this time by 15,000. But when pressed, state Finance Director Ana Matosantos said that 15,000 have already been eliminated. Matosantos said that it was actually another 3,000 that would be cut, mostly Department of Corrections employees. But then she said that they weren’t actually going to be eliminated, but instead shifted to other jails and prisons.

In state government, cuts are not really cuts. Numbers are just moved to other columns. Employees are just given a different job, moved elsewhere or buried in another obscure department.

Believe What They Do — Not What They Say

Last year, Brown said that his realignment plan would return decisions and authority to cities, counties and schools, and would “allow government at all levels to focus on core functions, and become more efficient and less expensive” through reductions in duplicative services and administrative costs.

Is California government more efficient, less expensive and rid of duplicative services yet?

No. The state budget is actually increasing by $6 billion, Brown is creating a new state agency and increasing spending on nowhere projects.

In January 2011 I wrote, “During his inauguration earlier this month, Brown warned that “the year ahead will demand courage and sacrifice.”

He said that again on Thursday.

Last year, Brown spoke of the need for “tough choices” in the budget and pushed hard for a public vote on controversial tax extensions.

He used that one again on Thursday.

Last year, CalWatchdog’s editor-in-chief, Steven Greenhut, wrote about Brown’s proposed tax increases in Full Court Tax Hike Press, “He became even more direct and even shameless on Monday, as he compared this issue to what’s going in the Middle East: ‘When democratic ideals and calls for the right to vote are stirring the imagination of young people in Egypt and Tunisia and other parts of the world, we in California can’t say now is the time to block a vote of the people from this process,’ he said in the Assembly chambers, in a prime-time speech.”

Brown made a nearly identical reference on Thursday, again comparing the California economy to troubled countries in Europe and Egypt.

But the broken record Brown has played all year is that he continues to offer voters the false choice of higher taxes or service cuts, while avoiding real, sincere, cost-saving budget reforms.

How To Save California’s Economy

It is evident by now that Brown is not a believer in free market principles, but he should be. The Department of Finance gurus should be as well.

CalWatchdog Managing Editor John Seiler wrote last year about a December 2010 Wall Street Journal article which Seilersaid, “highlighted a study by three economists who found that, over the past 37 years, nations around the globe reduced debt burdens only when spending cuts were on average 85 percent of a budget solution, with tax cuts only 15 percent.” Andrew Biggs, Kevin Hassett and Matt Jensen wrote:

“On average, the typical unsuccessful consolidation consisted of 53% tax increases and 47 percent spending cuts.

“By contrast, the typical successful fiscal consolidation consisted, on average, of 85 percent spending cuts. While tax increases play little role in successful efforts to balance budgets, there are some cases where governments reduced spending by more than was needed to lower the budget deficit, and then went on to cut taxes. Finland’s consolidation in the late 1990s consisted of 108 percent spending cuts, accompanied by modest tax cuts.”

“This is important because California’s tax increases should amount to no more than about $4 billion, with spending cuts at $22 billion,” Seiler wrote.

Their findings were practically a roadmap for California. The three economists wrote:

“Consistent with other studies, we found that successful consolidations focused on reducing social transfers, which in the American context means entitlements, and also on cuts to the size and pay of the government work force.

“A 1996 International Monetary Fund study concluded that ‘fiscal consolidation that concentrates on the expenditure side, and especially on transfers and government wages, is more likely to succeed in reducing the public debt ratio than tax-based consolidation.’ For example, in the U.K’s 1997 consolidation, cuts to transfers made up 32 percent of expenditure cuts, and cuts to government wages made up 21 percent.

Blah Blah Blah

In his 2011 inauguration speech, Brown said, “Choices have to be made and difficult decisions taken. At this stage in my life, I have not come here to embrace delay or denial.”

And last year Brown said, “The budget I present next week will be painful but it will be an honest budget.” Brown promised to spend only what is available in tax revenues while restructuring government services between state and local agencies. “The plan represents my best understanding of our real dilemmas and possibilities. It is a tough budget for tough times.”

In Brown’s recent “An Open Letter to the People of California,” he wrote:

“My proposal is straightforward and fair. It proposes a temporary tax increase on the wealthy, a modest and temporary increase in the sales tax and guarantees that the new revenues be spent only on education. … This initiative dedicates funding only to education and public safety — not on other programs that we simply cannot afford. … I ask you to join with me to get our state back on track.”

Greenhut had his own interpretation of Brown’s rhetoric:

“These increases will be gone in an instant, and I will be back asking for more money. The public safety money means protecting huge compensation packages for union workers, not for actually improving the public’s safety. The schools are substandard, but the teachers’ unions won’t let us get rid of bad teachers or improve schools with market-based reform. We will be taxing the rich more (watch how broadly we define that term!), and more of them will join the exodus out of the state. Of course, when I say millionaires, I don’t mean those many public employees who are retiring on the kind of pensions that only a millionaire could afford.”

Brown’s been great on the abolition of redevelopment agencies. But it is becoming increasingly clear that he is not making other necessary reforms, largely due to the labor unions in California who currently control the purse strings.

Like in the movie “Groundhog Day,” Californians wake up to find nothing has changed. Meet the New Brown, same as the Old Brown.

–Katy Grimes

CalWatchdog