Controversy over what message California voters sent on May 19 heats up as the governor proceeds to
propose cuts that allocate most of the pain to the young, the old, the infirm, and the poor, treating these cuts as mandates of the electorate. The governor is correct in claiming that tax avoidance was a major factor in the
election, but there is no reason to treat its outcome as a mandate to apply the policies of the Republican minority in the legislature
    The narrow slice of eligible voters who actually voted on May 19 had differing reasons for rejecting the
financial propositions. Only Republicans who believe that turning California finances over to the tender mercies
of Wall Street will solve California’s problems can feel that their election goals are being fulfilled.

    Election campaigns did little to generate support for the financial propositions. A sharp decline in revenues made them obsolete before the polls opened, indicating that their authors had seriously misjudged the momentum and depth of the decelerating economy. Democratic officeholders were stuck with defending a compromise extorted from them by a disciplined minority having veto power thanks to the two thirds majority for budgets and taxes required by the constitution. Except for oil and gas producers, big business had little need to enter the fray because they had already obtained permanent tax reductions. Support for Prop IA came mainly from businesses subject to potential tax increases—gas and oil extractors, tobacco, entertainment, and for-profit sports—plus educators wooed by Prop IB. Given the choices offered, voting either Yea or Nay favored corporate and financial tax evaders who had long shifted the growing tax burden onto personal income tax payers, whose resentment of taxes could be counted on for further anti-tax campaigns. There was no place for voters seeking escape from the system whose symptoms of dysfunction long predated the collapse of the housing bubble. But thanks to the price extracted for his vote, one legislator provided them with a whipping boy for their frustrations, Prop IF. Voters were spared thereby from attributing much of their woe to previous propositions approved by previous voters .

    So we now have a situation described by Naomi Klein’s Crisis Capitalism. Big winners from unregulated
markets produce crises and then exploit the crises to abolish any social contract redressing dangerous
imbalances in the distribution of wealth and income. For tax-hating ideologues, this crisis provides cover for
repealing all welfare except corporate welfare. 

    Now is the time for Democratic leaders and activists to frame this reality for the public. Constitutional
reform – or at least breaking the veto power of the minority—is a prerequisite for recovery from the current
economic meltdown. Constitutional reform in itself will not restore the artificial debt-based “good times” of the
recent past, but allowing Reaganite conservatives to turn California into a failed state endangers not only
Californians at large but also those beyond our borders.

By Allen Dirrim