Memorandum
Date: 06/15/11
To: Legislative Republicans
From: Jon Fleischman, Publisher, FlashReport.org
RE: Today’s Democrat Majority-Vote Budget Drill

There is a better time and place to debate whether or not the voters of California were wise in passing Proposition 25 last year, which among other things provided that vote threshold to pass a budget and its attendant trailer bills would be a simple majority.  The voters did approve it, which is all that really matters today.

The budget that Democrats will put before you today will be a terrible one.  You should feel very comfortable voting against it.  It represents the priorities of the ultra-liberal majority, and the will of the state’s powerful public employee unions.

The important task ahead of you is to take advantage of the opportunity provided with a majority vote budget.  By definition, this represents the first budget (perhaps ever) that Democrats cannot claim has any patina of bipartisanship.  This is their budget — they own it.  Lock, stock and barrel.   Each of you must be ready to talk to reporters, pen columns, prepare e-mail blasts, post on Facebook and Twitter, and much more all of the specific reasons why this budget, the Democrat budget, is bad for California and will only make the challenges facing California that much more difficult to overcome.  There is no Republican Governor threatening to veto what meager legislation you may have gotten to his desk.

The Golden Opportunity provided by Prop. 25, to present the clear differences between how Democrats and Republicans would govern California, must not be wasted.

To be sure, what the Democrats are doing today is tragic.  It’s very bad public policy.  But they own it, and each of them will have to run on this budget vote in their elections.

Oh yes, on a closing note, you should be very proud that Republican unity means that at the end of this month, the remnants of the largest tax increase on Californians will fall off of the books — a de facto tax cut.  That is something positive that you can and should be taking credit for — something that every Democrat in the Capitol opposed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 10:41 am and is filed under Blog Posts.