I’ve been thinking about this for a couple days now….. and I’m still scratching my head.
What the heck is the strategy behind the tax increase games the Assembly Democrats are playing?
With the steadfast resolve put forward by the Assembly Republican leadership and members in their opposition to taxes – the thinking behind putting up a bill that would raise the price of gasoline (according to the Sac Bee) is just a little nutty.
It allows the Reps to stand strong for working families and paints the Dems as big-spending, tax-increase loving left wingers – out of touch with the mainstream. Not a place the Assembly Democrats want to be. And whatever you may think about the Assembly majority, they rarely make this kind of clunky play.
So, what’s up?
Are they trying to put vulnerable Republican targets up on "bad votes" that they can claim hurts education in the General Election?
Uber Democrat strategist Gary South thinks so. As reported in the LA Times:
But, there’s a major problem with that analysis. There are no Republican targets in the Assembly. Every single one of them is termed out (Garcia, Horton and Houston).
They can vote against tax increases all day every day and never be touched by it this November – because they aren’t on the ballot.
Other than those districts – there really aren’t any "vulnerable" Republicans that will be running for reelection this year. Oh, I know, the Dems will beat their chests and claim that this Rep or that Rep are in trouble (cue Steve Maviglio) – but here’s a secret *there really aren’t any*.
There are some Dems that might think twice however about casting a vote that will raise gas prices. There are one or two that will be facing the voters in the fall that really should be cautious about crazy stuff like this.
So that theory doesn’t work.
That leaves me as stumped as before.
The Democrat leadership knows these votes will fail. They know as well as I do that all the vulnerable Republican members are termed out (believe me, soon-to-be-former Speaker Nunez is well aware of everyone that will be termed out!). So what is their motivation?
Methinks they are stuck in auto-pilot and just can’t help themselves. This just comes so naturally – it’s just what they do.
However, in a year where the problem is just so gi-normous (I’ve always wanted to use that made up squished word) – being on auto-pilot and running bills they know will fail and bills that will solidify the respective partisan positions, is counter-productive.
In other words – running tax increase bills that are doomed to fail does not help bring the parties together to actually solve the problem.
So, I close as I began – what’s the strategy?
It makes no sense. I must be working in the legislature.
** gigantic + enormous = gi-normous (it sounds better than it reads) **
March 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Where to begin on this one …
To tens of thousands of teachers receiving pink slips this week, this is not a “game.” And it’s certainly not a game for us.
The “strategy” is simple (perhaps that’s why you didn’t get it). Voters are being showed whose side their elected representatives are on.
So far Assembly Republicans have sided with yacht owners and Big Oil over teachers, the elderly, and others who rely on state funding.
Get it now?
March 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Mr. Maviglio –
How long have you and the rest of the Democrat Caucus been waiting to say that? Three months? Six months? Since last year’s budget stalemate?
You’ve had this in the cooker for a long time, since you knew the state was going to be in the red. Plain as a blank canvas, you’ve had this worked out for a while. It’s conspicuous politicking parading as inconspicuous politicking.
Yeah, I get it.
“So far Assembly Republicans have sided with yacht owners and Big Oil over teachers, the elderly, and others who rely on state funding.” You folks are shameless. Just shameless.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Nothing “shameless” about working in a bipartisan fashion to cut the deficit in half with $8 BILLION in cuts and other savings.
Now if Republicans would be as responsible and meet us halfway, we wouldn’t have teachers with pink slips.
What’s shameless is the failure of Republicans to be responsible to what the citizens of California want instead of right-wing ideologues that they take their oath to with no-tax pledges.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Mr. Maviglio –
Tax hikes are not what the citizens of California want, they’re what your big government special interest bedmates want. I know it seems like that’s what the citizens of California want, because the big government special interest representatives and their surrogates are the only citizens of California you Democrats meet with, but you need get out of the Capitol more often.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Dear Steve,
As Nicholas will attest from some saber-crossing he and I did not long ago, I’m not much of a Republican anymore, and certainly not a knee-jerk ideologue. But this former Californian feels compelled to point out why I moved myself – a UC graduate and a reasonably productive citizen – and helped move a profitable business out of California four years ago. It was because of jackbooted, craven, grasping Marxist thugs like you.
When we left California, the state had the highest workers’ comp rates in the nation, including from the state-run insurance agency. Your ex-boss had just sold dozens of power plants to price-fixing out-of-state energy brokers, which proceeded to shut down plants solely to artificially jack up electricity fees. During these multiple crises, what was the Legislature doing about it? Debating whether feng shui should be a construction mandate for new buildings.
Now you want to jack up gas taxes – not even under the pretense of reducing pollution and fossil-fuel consumption, but because your caucus is too administratively incompetent, intellectually bankrupt, and addicted to regulation and spending to make cuts or find revenue anywhere else.
Don’t try to paint your gang as even remotely better than the GOP establishment. Some of us were born at night, but not last night.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Tax increases will not create the incentive to make money or drive this economy back to life.
Maybe we need to listen to former mayor Riordan on how to reform our education bureaucracy, where we could get more bang for our hard earned tax payer dollars.
Gas taxes would make fuel more expensive, but if we only created incentives to drill for new energy sources maybe we could make money for the state and provide lower gas prices for all.
March 16th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Geez – I always seem to start the “conversations” rolling.
All rhetoric aside – here is the point I was trying to make: knowing the tax increase was doomed to fail from the beginning, and knowing there aren’t any Reps incumbents to “target” (because all are termed out and won’t be affected by this or any vote), why the play to push each side farther apart?
How is that productive? How is trying to fool people by saying “Assembly Reps are for Big Oil and for yacht owners and against teachers” going to help solve the budget crisis?
The strategy is what?
March 17th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Dems want to raise $8 Billion in taxes and the so called yacht tax will raise how much? Estimates are as high as $21 million! I know Dems struggle to manage a budget but this tax isn’t closing any budget gap. There just aren’t enough filthy rich Republicans buying yachts in any given year to make a difference in the budget.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Senator Battin, not sure if you can get this while you are overseas but … nobody is trying to “fool people.” The votes for the yacht tax and siding with Big Oil are what they are: Republicans siding with special interests instead of trying to responsibly balance the budget.
Those two moves would have brought in $21 million and $1.2 billion respectively.
Democrats simply have adopted the same posture you have on cuts. And as one Assembly member noted in the debate, we’re not playing your game anymore. Perhaps lame ducks like yourself will be more inclined to be responsible than in playing games on cuts you know are unachieveable.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Perhaps if schools were busy educating and not parenting we wouldn’t be spending so much money?
The schools problem is also a problem with illegal immigration whereas we educate students that don’t even speak English as a first language.
The education problem in this state is part parenting, and part a failed federal mandate & immigration policy that has run amok. Granted, for the year & several to come we won’t solve our budget problems by building a wall and beginning the exporting of illegals, we can begin leveling off growing education costs.
PS you mean Democrats don’t own yachts?