Perata Speaks "Democratese" About Schwarzenegger Budget Revision

These people have no one to speak for them and these are the people we are trying to bring from poor to working class to middle class. Now that is a plan.

If you look at this budget, there is no rhyme or reason to anything that is being done. I would defy anybody to sit down and plot this out and say this is the fiscal policy of the state of California. It’s not there.

Let me just add one thing that goes a little bit beyond the arc of this budget. What is being begged here is the need for us to sit down and change the way California funds programs and captures revenues. I think the governor needs to take this on, or he’s not going to want to serve the last three years of his term.

These little mix and matches, we're going to sell this off and we're going to sell that off, we're about done with now? And the question is: When are we going to make rationalizing our system, capturing revenues and spending revenues in some kind of rational way. If you look at this budget, there is no rhyme or reason to anything being done. I would defy anybody to sit down and plot this out and say, "This is the fiscal policy of the state of California." It's not there.

And if you stop and think about it for a minute, a lot of the ways we depend upon funding services in California, we are effectively giving the money to the Federal government. We rely more heavily on sales taxes and we can't deduct that from our tax forms. The one thing that we can deduct, property taxes, we've got our heads screwed on so tightly about "Oh no, the sky is going to fall if we even talk about it," that we are giving away billions and billions of dollars that otherwise could be part of the pocketbooks of Californians. No wonder they are angry about the way in which the state funds or doesn't fund its programs.

We haven’t had a rational policy in this state since 1978, when we moved away from local control and we put all the money and all the emphasis in Sacramento, where all the "geniuses" are. And then, a little plug here, we've made sure that no one would know what they were doing because we put in term limits. So now we have a bus station rather than what would pass for a governor.

So I would encourage the Governor, however we get through this budget, he will not want to be the Governor of the state of California when Don Perata and Fabian Nunez. Leave. Not because we are going although there will be a huge vacuum, [laughter] understandably. The fact of the matter is we can't keep doing this. No one can keep doing this, so that's what we ought to be looking at.

The governor ought to lead that charge – a bipartisan effort to rationalize the way Californians contribute their taxes and receive services so we are no longer a sidecar to the federal government, where we just drive up and dump the money to them.”

So that's what I'm going to be looking for. This will be the same skirmishes that we always do. No one will pay any attention to it between now and the time that we have the final budget, except after June 15, you will write and talk about that we haven't passed the budget. But the only way that is ever going to change is if we decide to do something unlike the way we've been doing it since I've been here, and again, since I think, 1979.

In answer to a question about the lottery:

Well, first of all, we're going back to the same thing. Some of us opposed the lottery because we didn't think the state should be in the business of pandering to people who want to earn money by taking a chance on the teachers. Poor people are the ones who play the lottery the most. I mean, people argue that's not true. If some of us had a hard time trying to get the lottery to do better, because the more you market, the more people play the lottery, the people who are playing the lottery are the ones that we would not like to have to count on in order to fund out schools.

“Let’s face it, the lottery is like an expanded bake sale. That’s all it is--it’s extra money. People in my district raise revenues for essential programs by selling cakes, by selling cookies, by selling candy, sometimes door to door. That's what the lottery is.

I don’t think we should be in that business to begin with. I have no problem getting the hell out of it, but it will not fix a thing. That money is there. If we can earn something off it, fine, let’s look at it as straight up business deal . I don't think the state of California should have ever been in the gambling business. If it’s going to be there by the will of the people, I think the governor is right, it probably should be put back on the ballot.”

If people want it, that's fine. Let's let somebody run it that knows what they're doing.

Question: "Senator, are you advocating a repeal of Prop 13?"

No, no. What I am saying is that we've been running around, see, the nice thing to do would be to immediately run to that, and then we can say "That will fix everything." And nobody will want to have the conversation.

What I am saying is, ever since we passed Proposition 13, when people were being thrown out of their homes by run away property taxes, ever since then we have decided to change every picture in the room that was crooked to conform to the one that was not. And that's just mindless. And I'm not suggesting for a moment that we ought to be getting rid of Prop 13. What I am saying, we should stop hiding behind Prop 13 to continue to support a system that defies logic, allows Californians to be ripped off by the Federal government and every state in the union because we're too stupid to have elected leaders who are saying there's a smarter way to run the state of California. That's what I'm saying, put everything on the table.

There is an initiative in circulation right now that would create Prop 13 conditions for community colleges. We only have about 7 or 8 percent discretion right now. That will tighten if down further. So if anybody who can go out there to convince voters--and voters say yeah, community colleges are important, let's guarantee them funding--but we keep doing that by the ballot box and we don't do anything else to make an important decision. That's all I'm saying. It ain't that complicated.

And I think this is a governor to lead that. That's the point. He's got the ability to bring people together. He's got the charisma and the celebrity to do something in California that he's been marketing about global warming. You know, Fabian did as much about--I would probably say more--bringing us AB 32. Without him there would be no bill, But he's not going to be on national television all the time because his movies never sold. [Laughter] They're all in Spanish. [More laughter]

Question: "What else it is that you want to change? What do you guys want to do differently in this budget?"

Well, I think Fabian said it very well. The people that we are in elected office to help the most are the ones who feel most at risk. This is not new. It's again, as I said before, the free fire zone. People who get care into their homes, have to worry. People who have been told, with the CalWorks program, if you work hard, we're going to help you get off of welfare and become a productive citizen. Those numbers are declining, which means the program's working. But if you don't give than a little bit of cost of living, and I mean, hell, anyone in this room who belongs to a bargaining unit, or who is an independent contractor, when you sit down across the table from your employer and start negotiating, cost of living will come up at some point. These people have no one to speak for them. And these are the people that we are trying to bring from poverty class to working poor to middle class. That is a plan. I don't see that plan here.