Cavala: Rich-Guy Governor Demonstrates Insensitivity to Salaried Employees of California’s Government

The cuts to min. wage should be for any state employee making over$80,000 a year and should include all legislators, judges and their staff. It would save much more money and would effect those most in a position to change how money is spent by the state.

Comrade Cavala,

I'm so impressed! Your class warfare propaganda skills have been dormant for a while, but here they are in full force!

Lets not mention the democratically led majority legislature being LATE on a budget in the first place (ONLY republicans by themselves could make it late, right?)

Let's not mention the Democratic Senate Pro Tem and Assembly Speaker allowing the legislators to GO ON VACATION when the said budget is late. I guess that is OK too.

Lets not mention the "need" to have an additional election this year decided upon by democrats to move the state primary "forward" so that just maybe, democratic Pro Tem Perata and Speaker Nunez could stay in office an ADDITIONAL TERM via Proposition 93. Lets not mention how moving this election cost taxpayers $80 million dollars that didn't need to be spent at all but did add to the current deficit...

Let's not mention how Perata wanted "just enough" senators to stay in Sacramento over a 4 day weekend so ALL OF THEM would get FULL PER DIEM for the whole weekend as if they ALL were there...

Sure, only Arnold has distain for the "average joe" working paycheck to paycheck...

So how do you classify the above behavior exhibited by the leadership in your own party?

Please reply.

Yes Jay, but the Democrats will only be stupid for a little bit longer. Then whip-smart and policy-savvy Daryl Steinberg will replace arrogant Don Perata as head of the Senate Democrats. The Republicans will be go on being stupid into infinity because they have embraced an extreme version of a stupid and bankrupt ideology. The Republicans would have us believe that the same economic policies that Herbert Hoover followed as the United States tumbled into the Great Depression are the same ones we should embrace now as the United States experiences the most acute and worrisome economic decline since the Depression. As is taught in Economics 101, government spending should be counter-cyclical falling during periods of economic growth and rising during peiods of economic decline. This is to smooth out the extremes of the business cycle. Spending cuts during a recession are pro-cyclical and make the recession worse. We need investment in infrastructure projects that will create jobs. Additionally we need to maintain spending on public health programs so as not to lose the billions of federal matching dollars that fund hundreds of hospitals and clinics and tens of thousands of health care jobs in California. The Republican plan really will cost this state so much more in the long run.

Republicans do not wish to raise the tax burden.

Democrats do not wish to cut programs that cater to their voting base.

Somewhere in there the differences must be resolved. Cutting some programs is probably the answer.

Besides, this just sounds more like the Governor is playing politics to get the legislature to come back to the table and work out their differences again (much like his initial suggestion to cut '10% across the board' early this fiscal season).

I'm sure those public employees will receive back pay once the budget is finally worked out. It happens enough, I wonder why its even news (other than to poke jabs at the Governor).

Tom,

Be careful or you might be accused here for hiding behind a false name. Wasn't Tom Joad played by Henry Fonda in "The Grapes of Wrath"?

I get grief for my name all the time is why I brought that up...

Would get into bond issues verses taxes spending with you as a weak link in your position. But at this specific moment in time we are no where near a depression and unemployment levels of the 1929 crach and subsequent years.

Plus, in CA specifically, the state tax base (jobs and the businesses that create them) is once again looking for other states or even overseas to break the stranglehold our state is placing on them. If they can make more or even ANY profit by moving out of CA, they will go, it is that simple.

Then who will pay for all the infrastructure we "need", let alone use it all?

Both economics and politics have adherants to different ideologies. Which one is "more right" is debatable isn't it?

Tom, but is it OK with you that the democratic "leadership" I illustrate here actually happened? Do you have a critical eye on them for this or find it OK as they share your political views? I look forward to your reply.

Jay- I was appalled by Perata's "vacation" as the budget crisis has worsened, and am not alright with it. However, I take comfort knowing that Perata will soon be replaced by Steinberg, a much smarter man. That drama aside, the Republican refusal to compromise and accept some revenue increases is not only penny-wise and pound foolish for the State of California, but amounts to a political death wish.

The Republican spending cuts will create additional unemployment and further depress consumer spending and demand, which is already dampened by the housing crisis and rising energy prices, which will further depress our economy and accelerate the downward economic spiral. The Medi-Cal cuts alone will cost the State hundreds of millions in federal matching dollars that help support hundreds of hospitals and clinics. Meanwhile our once prized university system, which once atttracted so much high tech investment, continues to decline as tuitions move further out of reach for the middle class. Rising gasoline prices are taking a big bite out of consumer disposable income, yet state investment in mass transportation projects remains paltry and embarassingly inadequete.

As Obama and the Democrats advance to what increasingly looks like a landslide victory this November, California Republicans should be trying to make themselves look more, not less attractive to the voters, so as not to get swept out of office by the wave. Instead, the face California Republicans are projecting to voters is one of fierce alliance with the interests of the rich combined with contemptuous insensitivity towards the economic security of middle- and lower-income Californians.

The Republicans have yet to identify a single area of waste and inefficiency that could be cut. This is because their desire for spending cuts derives from an ideological and philosophical hostility to the concept of government in general, bot a desire for efficiency. During a period of economic uncertainty, when anxious voters want a more, not less active government, the behavior of California Republicans is even more out of step.

Tom, thanks for writing.

How about no "extra" elections. The Dems desire to do so this year cost taxpayers $80 million unnecessary bucks. Perata's Per Diem scam (Please reread the above), etc.

This is NOT fiscally respnsible behavior. Yet the Republicans are somehow at fault for not wanting to raise taxes? The Dems hold ALL comittee chair positions and Speaker/Pro Tem positions. They had ALL YEAR to work a budget. Where was the courage to raise taxes last February for example? It didn't show up until the budget "showdown" and after a $15 plus billion defcit was announced.Anybody who can balance a checkbook, except our legislative leaders perhaps, can see a deficit coming a long ways off. Yet here we are...

If Perata wasn't that smart, why was he allowed to hold a primary leadership position for so long?

High energy prices? Which political party is opposed to nuclear power plants? Off shore drilling? New refineries? Etc?

Recall high tuition is not a problem for illegal aliens who also get in state tuition rates (scolarships too?); Our own citizens then have to compete with them for a relatively few slots. Is that right? Which party promotes this?

The High-Speed Rail Proposition is 10 years and $60 million already spent. (Mismanaged) Yet the right of way in many aras is not secured and there is ZERO private investment/risk in it thus far. Yet which party is running this initiative and with yet another expensive to our grandkids bond measure to pay off on Novembers ballot? I like HSR in concept, but it has been mismanaged way too much to toss even more money at it. It's business plan as "discovered" in a recent transportation comittee meeting was way out of date...by the way, a Republican (Ashburn) caught that one.

Just better use of common sense, better management, less political posturing at taxpayer expense, why we just saved a bundle right there!

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