Yesterday I sat in the back of the Governor’s press conference room in the State Capitol, and listened to the Governor talk about the current status of budget negotiations. He basically said that Democrat and Republican legislators were putting more energy into disagreeing that in trying to negotiate a solution to the current fiscal crisis. He summarily announced that he would be inviting the “Big 5” to meet tomorrow to kick-start negotiations.
I have some strong advice for the Governor, relative to improving his ability to bring Republicans to the table in a meaningful way. First and foremost, the Governor KNOWS how passionate and outraged all of the Republican legislators were over the end-run on Proposition 13 when the Democrats orchestrated passing billions of dollars in new taxes in both houses on a majority vote, making some bizarre case that because of the circuitous route they took to raise the revenues, they had avoided the 2/3rds vote requirement. In fact, the Governor went into yesterday’s press conference knowing that every Republican legislator (yes, every single one) had signed on as plaintiffs, along with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the NFIB California, and others (including the FlashReport!), in a lawsuit to stop his end-run against the State Constitution.
All of that said, I surprised initially that the Governor didn’t immediately, at the time the Democrats pulled this stunt, condemn it and declare any taxes passed this way to be dead on arrival on his desk. I was extremely saddened yesterday that the Governor was actually quite dismissive of the whole issue in the Press Conference. In response to a reporter question, the Governor’s statement was something extremely close to this: “I was not that concerned about the two-thirds vote versus the majority. I know there are legal experts out there and they can battle all that out.”
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January 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Well done John!
January 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Folks. This is the Armagedon….the moochers, unions and gov. workers feel strong enough to impose autocratic rule over the producers….
When you take the total state workforce of union and government workers…they most likely have 1.0 million masters to rule us…the state alone has 235,000 workers more than General Motors.
What is to be done….action folks…action…we need another economic revolt similar to Prop 13. We need recalls, Propositions to the moon, bull horns, demonstrations and audits, reviews, investigations of each any every government regulation, budget, law administrative case ruling, bureaucratic red tape(s) that have ruined the California Economic Engine…
It is time to stop talking and listening to a rudderless Governor and Commissar legislators, most of whom are failed attornies with no business experience.
I have spirit How Bout You!
January 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Legal experts can battle about 2/3 vs. majority vote? Wuz up with that??? I’ll just file that one away.
It is said that one should never waste a good crisis. We have a whopper right now and this is the time for us to put up or shut up about reducing the size of government.
I’m not talking about the old chestnuts like “10% across the board”. It’s time to get specific about which programs we want gone. What bureaucracies can we just clean out. If ever there was a time to get specific and start doing what we have been talking about for decades, this is it.