Governor Schwarzenegger is casting his lot with the Republican minority in the legislature which is primarily responsible for the failure of the legislature to produce a viable budget. True, our staggering deficit does represent an accumulation of spending greater than revenue collection, and some of that spending, the burgeoning prison bill, for example, is certainly misdirected, but most of the deficit now undermining our credit and credibility comes from the success of the minority party repressing equitable revenue collection for several decades. The governor got his office by promising to hold the vehicle license fee at recession levels, thereby creating much of the current shortfall. The Republican minority in the legislature has wielded the veto given by the two thirds rule to keep taxes on the most lucrative sectors of the economy—real estate, financial services, and corporations, especially oil companies, low, shifting the burden onto individual personal income taxpayers and sales taxes. Their low taxes contributed to the housing bubble and subsidized an infrastructure increasingly dependent on shrinking supplies of oil and stubbornly resistant to adapting to menacing climate change. Extraction of rainy day funds from sunshine sectors was denied.
Both the governor and Republican legislators claim a mandate against any increase in taxes from the May 19 election, but neither election analysis nor public opinion assessments substantiates their claims. Long-term remedy lay not exclusively in spending cuts but in overcoming application of the two thirds rule. Continued tyranny by this highly disciplined minority will continue to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of winners taking all, depriving the rest of the broad incentives needed by the capitalist system it claims to represent. Instead, its “gusher up” policies disguised as “trickle down” have led to systemic breakdown, in which most who expect to win lose, and to destruction, not the “creative destruction” touted by its ideologists. Regenerative creativity has to come from policies based on experience, not ideological fantasy. Crisis may bring opportunity but institutionalized stalemate does not. Heaping blame on the boxed-in majority in the legislature produces more stalemate, not creative change. It merely serves to perpetuate the tyranny of the minority, results of whose ascendancy have now come home to roost.

By Allen Dirrim, GOOD Club President

Governor Schwarzenegger is casting his lot with the Republican minority in the legislature which is primarily responsible for the failure of the legislature to produce a viable budget. True, our staggering deficit does represent an accumulation of spending greater than revenue collection, and some of that spending, the burgeoning prison bill, for example, is certainly misdirected, but most of the deficit now undermining our credit and credibility comes from the success of the minority party repressing equitable revenue collection for several decades. The governor got his office by promising to hold the vehicle license fee at recession levels, thereby creating much of the current shortfall. The Republican minority in the legislature has wielded the veto given by the two thirds rule to keep taxes on the most lucrative sectors of the economy—real estate, financial services, and corporations, especially oil companies, low, shifting the burden onto individual personal income taxpayers and sales taxes. Their low taxes contributed to the housing bubble and subsidized an infrastructure increasingly dependent on shrinking supplies of oil and stubbornly resistant to adapting to menacing climate change. Extraction of rainy day funds from sunshine sectors was denied.
Both the governor and Republican legislators claim a mandate against any increase in taxes from the May 19 election, but neither election analysis nor public opinion assessments substantiates their claims. Long-term remedy lay not exclusively in spending cuts but in overcoming application of the two thirds rule. Continued tyranny by this highly disciplined minority will continue to consolidate economic and political power in the hands of winners taking all, depriving the rest of the broad incentives needed by the capitalist system it claims to represent. Instead, its “gusher up” policies disguised as “trickle down” have led to systemic breakdown, in which most who expect to win lose, and to destruction, not the “creative destruction” touted by its ideologists. Regenerative creativity has to come from policies based on experience, not ideological fantasy. Crisis may bring opportunity but institutionalized stalemate does not. Heaping blame on the boxed-in majority in the legislature produces more stalemate, not creative change. It merely serves to perpetuate the tyranny of the minority, results of whose ascendancy have now come home to roost.

By Allen Dirrim, GOOD Club President