[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
I read Kevin Drum’s endorsement of Jerry Brown’s Prop 30 to raise a few puny billion (which passed Tuesday), which basically said because the California legislature was permanently busted because of Senate supermajority rules (have I seen this movie?) well, this is what we have to take. I don’t agree nothing could have been wrung out of the legislature, but the whole issue has become moot anyway because, very surprisingly, California Democrats were elected to supermajorities in the House and Senate Tuesday night.
We’re in the promised land, we can formulate any taxation scheme or spending and the Republicans can do nothing. Unfortunately the bake on this heavenly cake is not yet quite set, we lost 2 Democratic Senators to Congress and they have to be replaced with special elections.1 No nasty surprises are expected, but still…
Boom, this is serious paradigm shift stuff no one expected, so it isn’t surprising the immediate response from Governor Jerry Brown was irritating and stupid. He’s a confused, cranky septuagenarian amazingly defensive on the role of government and this new mantle of functional democracy chafed badly yesterday.
Brown said he will be guided by a biblical reference to seven years of plenty being followed by seven years of famine, and to the need in better times to save crops for less abundant years.
"We need the prudence of Joseph going forward over the next seven years, and I intend to make sure that that's the story that we look to for our guidance," Brown said.
The prudence of Joseph? Joseph made the hall of fame by being guardian of Jesus, cursory research reveals the attribute of prudence bestowed upon him solely upon his life pattern of never saying a word. Prudence is cool, but we should all be so lucky your path to that grace should come about by the ability to shut up, Governor Brown.
How does prudence segue into famine? Beats me. It doesn’t even make sense, if the little people have been starved and battered by six years of famine, how the hell is it wise and humane to hold back the first few years of plenty?
It’s all good in a way, but of course our opposition Republicans have used the bible in the last 30 years as a brutally ruthless cudgel in a war against our women’s reproductive rights, for an allegedly Democratic Governor of one of the most diverse Republics in the country to quote the bible is unsettling and repugnant, and as usual confusingly cruel in implementation.
[massages eyebrows] I’m sure this isn’t good for me, right, but there is one more area of public pronouncements from our Governor that regrettably requires immediate attention.
“I love to cut!” Governor Brown declared on his ability to gut the Republic with austerity. Previous focus has been on the heinous moral implications this inflicts on our children, but of course this is absolute economic lunacy, the very last thing any governor of any persuasion should be proclaiming is a love to smash our economy into the gutter, especially after all the hell of the last four years.
The Governor of California goes about his day, comes home at night, chugs vodka martinis in an appropriately fluffy pink tutu before performing his favorite fantasies on a blowup doll of Herbert Hoover. Oh…my…God.
Global top 10 Stanford is 20 minutes from here, global top 5 University of California at Berkeley a mere 60. University of San Francisco, University of Santa Clara, San Jose State University, University of Santa Cruz.2 There are enough Econ Nobel laureates and doctorates here who actually enjoy those incredible equations to fill Spartan stadium, there must be a viable communication strategy to somehow deliver to our Governor that emulating Herbert Hoover is the ultimate humiliation and degradation to economics, education and our Republic. If he can’t be taught, bring out the prudence of Joseph to shut him up!
I truly apologize for being personal. I am a pajama-clad undergrad cheeto-eater, I know. Take a look outside at all the wreckage of the last four years and tell me this isn’t a total emergency worthy of your galactic powers of economics. Please, talk to him.
Life can be confusing. Past lessons so easily forgotten in hectic compressed times. One is all set and then outta nowhere, boom, life changes with vast tectonic movements that open up tantalizing vistas of accomplishments never dreamed of before.
Take some time, Governor Brown, the legislature works again. Listen to your econ betters, they are wise and happy for you. Reflect, accept the challenges of surprise, stay blessedly silent for a while in your contemplation of real leadership. It’s all good, I understand, Governor Brown. We all do.
[1] Always worthy of reiteration: special elections are only called for to replace lost officials or to co-ordinate logistics in an unforeseen natural disaster. Special powers and special elections in any other context always means a brutal screwing of the little people in some fashion.
[2] I give up on LA, if they can’t get the NFL they’re not going to get Keynes.