As the "O" word in the title I used above becomes more and more prevalent in the media as the "Battle O’ The Cap’tol" drags thru the "Presidents Day" holiday from the Valentines Day one, the Republicans, laboring in the minority, get branded once again with "stopping progress". I say they’re only being consistent in the belief system that they have held all aong.
Most Republicans have opposed very openly, often and in plain English, the expansion of government that has put us in the fiscal wreck we are in. It’s in our party plank, plain as day.
More importantly it’s in the minds of Republicans that run for office. A frequent difference found between the legislators of the respective parties is that most of the Republicans have been in business. They have actually lived in the world of those that are regulated to the brink by all the fine ideas that come from Sacramento and DC regulators via laws Democrat legislators pass, almost always with no, or a tiny handful of Republican votes.
Before a law like AB 32, Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Gas regs pass, you heard from our side, loudly, it makes no sense, is based on a falsehood, and we oppose [obstruct, I guess] its passage as detrimental to Califonia’s economic underpinnings and competitiveness. Still, it passes over Republicans strong objections and warnings…and we see our industries, while trying somehow to remain viable in this economy, additionally yoked with figuring out the new pile of nonsense regs for "cap and trade" or CO2 EIR’s needed to expand a business, power plant, etc.
So where are the Democrat Obstructionists on giving back to the community for jobs by relieving these unworkable and needless laws? Let’s see their reforms to make education dollars go farther…into the classroom where the teachers and their students actually are.
We know of ways to run the school busses cheaper…but wait, thats untouchable.
Do Californians still believe the Global Warming nonsense and the ridiculous steps being taken on it, as in how much CO2 comes from people living in new houses or from the existence of cows at a dairy? Nope, untouchable.
Do Californians think its smart to absolutely require a meal or rest break period to conform to such tight existing regs that a trucker or worker him/herself cannot use their own discretion as to
when they use the restroom? Nope, make that trucker stop now in the middle of I-80 traffic against his better judgement, because he and his employer will get fined to death for not getting that break at exactly the 5 hour mark. Can’t touch that, better make it a 2 day trip.
Should Californians wait idly by and have hydro-power plants and their dams torn out up on the Klamath system [you know, because we have all this extra electricity available to us and cheap too] so that we can then as taxpayers get a bill for $250,000,000 to remove these facilities? Never mind that these have been in place for several decades but they are now causing a fish problem.
And we can count on the price coming in on budget, right? Not, say, a billion when unaccounted silt removal costs or, they just plain figure out its hard to blow up and haul off a few dams out of the mountains. [Did anyone mention they need to sell bonds to pay for it? Hmm, that usually costs double to pay back] Untouchable.
Speaking of bonds, we have many of them waiting in the wings that kick in soon. Does anyone think that once this budget crisis is patched with Republicans allowing, not obstructing, new taxes against their very core beliefs, that the increased cost of new regulations will slow down?
Because there is a whole new crop of legislators that need to make their mark with new environmental laws, socialized health laws, labor laws, dog spay laws. Can’t touch those aspirations either!
And I haven’t even brought up illegal immigration costs to schools, prisons, prison health care mandates and a zillion other forms of waste we do hear about and "can’t touch."
Does the fix being patched together account for Democrat givebacks on the existing examples above, or provide for a moratorium on the sofar not so public new job-killer bill proposals lurking in committee files right now? I’m sure the numbers pieced together to make this package work don’t allow for what will still kick in soon.
The new taxes if enacted will not patch this as the load on our state budget and our economy will continue to grow. New regs, little relaxing of existing job killing regs, new bonds kicking in [we really need that High Speed Rail when unemployment hits record levels]…these things obstruct California’s recovery. So don’t tell me California is heading for a cliff by Republicans sticking to well-known hard-fought long-term consistent principles of how an economy survives and grows, part of which is not throwing it a lead life-ring of new taxes when it’s drowning.
If you look in the cab of who is driving this state over the cliff, you’ll see Democrats passing new laws and obstructing reforms to old ones that are killing us economically. Maybe a required rest break period will kick in before we reach the edge.