Today the Republican Party here in California is at a crossroads.
We watched from here in the Golden State while the GOP’s brand name was severely damaged by a Republican President and Senate and House majorities earlier this decade, when with GOP control, our party “presided” over growth in the size and scope of the federal government. Credibility is now an issue for our party, because our rhetoric did not match our actions.
Today, on a holiday weekend, on Valentine’s Day no less, at night, the State Legislature will gather in the State Capitol to vote on a state budget deal that is really, really bad news for California taxpayers and their families – the center point of this place is $14.8 billion in new taxes (more like $70 billion in new taxes over five years if all of the taxpayer-pain envisioned in this plan comes to fruition). I won’t spend time in this column blasting away at the poor policy reasons to oppose this plan, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, Jon Coupal with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and John Kabateck with the National Federation of Independent Business – California, do a fine job of that on the FlashReport today.
But I will say that after months of Republicans holding the line, and making the case for why these kinds of tax increases are exactly what we do not need – and also that they simply don’t work (we are at a tipping point where higher tax rates will likely result in less revenues), now it would appear that massive tax increases are exactly what we are going to get.
At the end of the day, I might have envisioned (because it has happened before) a case where some “rogue” GOPers in the Senate and the Assembly bolt across party lines and side with the Democrats to give us a bad package like the one being shoved onto legislators in the midst of Valentine’s Day – then we get stuck with a bad package, and the party has to go after these turn coat legislators very publicly and very sternly in order to protect our brand name – we are not the party of higher taxes.
Or are we? You see the insidious part of this current budget “deal” is that it is being supported by Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines. Let me start by saying that despite days of requests, neither of these gentlemen were willing to talk to me, or to make any information in support of their actions available to FlashReport readers. This from two leaders who have had many, many featured columns on this site when they were preaching against the evils of higher taxation on Californians. Very disappointing.
While I am happy to give some “blame” to a system that shoves two principled, conservative leaders into a “Big-5” group that is essentially focused on “striking a deal” – there is a problem when the deal that emerges “socks it” to California taxpayers (we’re talking about over $1200 in higher taxes every year for the average California family) with no real reforms delivered in the process.
Our Republican leaders have a very bizarre way of doing their jobs. They are elected by their colleagues to represent the interests of their respective caucuses in negotiation. One would assume that would mean that they would apply some sort of test like, “What can I bring back to the people that elected me to this leadership post that would garner the support of most of them.”
That sounds logical.
Instead, in some bizarre reasoning method that completely escapes me, they are operating with the premise that we need to strike a deal that will allow me to deliver only three votes from each caucus for tax increases. Huh?
At some point it seems like instead of being representatives from their caucuses to the “Big 5” – it’s like Dave Cogdill and Mike Villines flipped their roles, and became representatives FROM the “Big 5” to Republicans.
Let me note by the way (because the written word is sometimes misinterpreted) — I am not trying to malign the character of our leaders, but I am saying that they are human beings, and may be victims of a horribly flawed process.
Based on all of the public statements and private conversations that I have had with many state legislators this week, it is overwhelmingly the case that Republican legislators think this is a bad deal – that the massive tax increases are a bad idea. Why our leaders can’t absorb that and go back to the liberal Democrats and tell them that this deal doesn’t work for us is beyond me. Why have we held out so long for meaningful reforms only to pack it in now, in the 11th hour? And how does the Republican Party distance itself from this colossal policy flip-flop (now higher taxes are okay?) when the votes to pass them are coming from our Republican Leaders???
A “center piece” of the deal is a spending cap proposal. But there are two critical flaws in that cap. The first is that according to fiscal policy experts, the cap is flawed (see the Coupal/Kabateck piece today). More significantly, the cap is tied to billions of dollars in taxes, making support of it radioactive for the GOP (I will work hard to keep my party from endorsing ANYTHING chained to tax increases). Of course, at the end of the day, having enough pro-taxpayer legislators to block a 2/3 vote for tax increases is supposed to be the real cap – but that isn’t working – at least not today, with the largest tax increase in the history of California staring us in the face.
I will close this commentary with a plea to Senator Cogdill, to Assemblyman Villines, and to those Republican legislators who are thinking about voting for this plan – please reconsider. Please don’t approve this “deal with the devil” that is bad policy for California – and delivers a perilous and terrible blow politically to your own party.
The problems facing state government due to years of massive overspending are great, and I am not saying that an ultimate solution will be pretty – but this deal coming before you today doesn’t meet the most important test – its passage does not fundamentally reform state government. We’ll be back in the same spot a year and a half from now, wondering why when we were so close to having the needed leverage on the public employee unions to force real change, instead we “blinked” and maintained the status quo.
I urge every Republican to blanket vote NO on EVERY PART of this "deal" that contains massive tax increases. As you all know, every part of a budget deal is "tied" to the others. Conservatives may be able to stop the taxes, ironically, by voting against the spending cuts. Remember, those cuts never get enacted without the taxes. But maybe, just maybe, there are enough left wingers on the other side of the isle who can’t stomach the cuts, and teamed with conservatives with can stop them — which kills the entire package. Then we will have achieved a major victory.
Just thinking about the future of the conservative cause in the wake of a failure to stop these massive tax increases that are tied at the hip to the GOP is enough to give me an ulcer. I can’t even wrap my hands around the credibility gap we will have with our core supporters. I will pray for clarity of purpose for our GOP leaders and members, and hope that this package is defeated.
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