California social programs threatened with devastation following special election

A small fraction of eligible California voters went to the polls last Tuesday to cast ballots on six propositions designed to remedy the state’s multibillion-dollar budget shortfall through regressive tax increases and cuts in essential programs. Despite support from Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled state legislature, all were trounced except one that prohibits salary increases for certain state officials during budget deficit years.

Schwarzenegger responded to the news of the propositions’ defeat, stating, “The message was clear from the people, go all out and make those cuts and live within your means.”

John L. Burton, chair of the California Democratic Party, remarked, “People are going to have to figure out: Do they want schools, do they want roads, do they want public safety, do they want to take care of the less fortunate?”

The notion being put forward by Schwarzenegger, the Democrats and the media alike—that the state’s working class is now responsible for devastating California’s once extensive and accessible network of social programs—should be treated with contempt. Voters were forced to choose between rotten austerity measures and slightly less rotten austerity measures funded with regressive tax increases. The latest round of budget propositions were not motivated by a desire to give voters a chance to exercise their democratic rights, or even to try to balance the budget. The special election was instead a calculated attempt to shift blame for the budget crisis from the California ruling and financial elite onto the working class.

Only a few days after the vote, state officials are already implementing devastating attacks on what remains of the state’s social safety net.

The Schwarzenegger and Obama administrations have made clear their intention to roll back social gains won through generations of struggle throughout the state. The facts clearly speak for themselves. The state of California is often a political bellwether for the rest of the nation and this particular case is no exception. A majority of states are facing severe budget crises of their own and will attempt to implement similar austerity measures.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/cali-m23.shtml

the elite still have gated mansions while the down and outers forage in the streets.

we are argentina

I'd blame Howard Jarvis with an assist to Pete Wilson. The referendum process has been perverted by well funded organizations that can use low turn out elections to turn government inside out. Just mention "low taxes" or "tax cut" and people will vote for it without a thought of who benefits and how it can and does wipe out the most needed state services. Maybe this was referrendum too far.

Now it's Obama's fault too! Isn't that special?

Why don't they make this voluntary to help out their fellow man?

Imagine the state would be the same. Not sure if its tax deductible or not

... want everything but they don't want to pay for it.

I doubt that all of these programs will be completely cut, but I have no doubt there will be deep cuts in all state spending and it is going to be painful.

And folks are going to learn that maybe they should get off their asses and vote, some times the results truly matter.

California is merely the first state faced with this situation. There are many many more waiting in the wings. Probably the Federal govt will bail them out to some extent. Why not printing 3 trillion is only a little worse than printing 2.

1) The politicians who supported the propositions scheduled the election...they knew what the likely turn out would be
2) Prior propositions which locked in certain allocations share some of the blame
3) The commercials and media articles are perceived as scaremongering or poison pills

The reality is that the people of California have no faith in their politicians or media. Nothing major will change until the people believe their leadership.

There are a lot of people who work for the state and genuinely want to make it better. There's a few legislators from both parties, and even the governator is sincere about caring for California - he's done things I don't agree with, but he's also fought hard to preserve our environmental standards and suchlike; he's a mild enough republican that the state GOP (a bunch of extremist idiots) are heartily pissed off with him. Many of our newspapers aren't worth the paper they're printed on and our TV news is tailored for the 6th grade and below.

It's high time we adopted a new constitution, one that's clear enough to be taught in schools and cannot be debased into a political bargaining chip as has happened to our existing one. Californians are not going to regain respect for our civic institutions until they are upheld by a constitution based on principles instead of the current bowl of legal spaghetti.

We can't run a budget deficit, even in a recession...because our state constitution forbids it.

We can't raise taxes...because the state constitution requires a 2/3 legislative majority, which is pretty much impossible because our districts are so gerrymandered (although this will start to end in 2010).

We can't pass a budget that balances cuts and revenue increases...because the state constitution has another 2/3 rule, which gives the Republicans in the legislature an effective veto.

Now we don't have a state rainy day fund when we're running a surplus...because the voters just rejected the idea.

California's problems are deep an complex. Our constitution is one of the longest and most convoluted, it pretty much ensures gridlock, most of our legislators and federal representatives (of both parties) are bench-warmers who've used redistricting to maintain safe seats in perpetuity, the governor wants to be an independent but can't bring himself to leave the GOP, and many of the voters are lazy and selfish.

Fuck the WSWS - bunch of self-righteous, self-serving, dishonest wankers. If they're so great, where was their attempt to organize a progressive alternative for the ballot? All they ever do is reinterpret the days news and spin everything as 'an attack on the working class'. They can take their blinkered dualistic dialectic and shove it. Strangely, when I was campaigning in 2003 for Matt Gonzalez (a green party candidate, and a genuine progressive) to become mayor of San Francisco, the various socialists were nowhere to be found. They're at every protest, but you'll never see them organize to help anyone at election time, whether on state or local ballot issues.