[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
Despite all the primal triumphant blaring from the Governor’s office about relatively modest administrative fiscal accomplishments in our sorry, clanking state of State this is the most important observation in all the chatter, how some of the most fanatical liberal-hatin’ tax-cuttin’ Republicans in all the Republic are saying such nice things about that hippie moonbeam traipsing-through-the-tulips Democrat. What gives?
As the wise Digby of Hullaballoo instantly noted, don’t fall for a second for the blather in Republican quotes about fiscal responsibility, meeting monetary obligations and paying off debt. Total bullshit, Republicans don’t care about balancing books, they care about using whatever political lever is presently handy (deficits and debt in our times) to lower taxes for their rich benefactors and brutally endorse whatever authoritarian means possible to keep those hippie feminist liberals in their place. Plus those Al Gore environmentalists, Jesus, shut them up so exploitation of our earth can continue. So why all the love for Mr. Brown?
Governor Brown and the Democratic legislature are in the shining, beatific promised land of supermajority, they could instantly, tangibly deliver liberal and progressive goals to millions of Californians, locking in their votes and the reality that government works for the little people. So what is Assembly Speaker Perez going to do with this awesome potential power?
Nothing, Assembly Speaker Perez said.
My job is to say no, Governor Brown said.
High fives, champagne and whoo-hoos! from the cranky tax-cutting authoritarian Republicans, we couldn’t have screwed the little people and liberal politics better ourselves!
Millions of California children live in abject poverty with woefully underfunded schools. We have mercilessly screwed our university students over the years to the point of where public education is a joke, UC and State are now essentially private institutions. Prop 13 desperately needs to have its business loophole fixed. What pittance we gave to the disabled and grievously sick we’ve cut like some super-ruthless Scrooge cousin of Satan. What, pray tell, could be done about our neglected roads, bridges and parks?
Nothing.
My job is to say no.
This is where electing a centrist becomes a disaster for the Democratic Party and the little people, they spend their political careers dis-avowing liberal values and causes, yet of course they proclaim no allegiance to Republicans either. If the world where a relatively benign place with all our problems solved this wimpy embrace of stasis could somewhat be tolerated, but with so much pain and neglect in all of California’s screaming issues and problems this triumphant chest-beating of fiscal victory is revolting. The Republicans are happy, yes.
Appropriately described political chumps like Brown and Perez got away with their inconsistent centrism most of their careers because the legislature was crippled, they never expected a supermajority to deliver such real political power. Never be fooled for an instant, California isn’t back worth a damn, the place is reeling and broken with screaming inequality, lousy Prop 13 taxation, grossly underfunded schools and neglected infrastructure. For Christ’s sake, a supertrain and new tunnels to steal delta water doesn’t do shit for the little people!
With leadership failure like that there isn’t much hope for the young, hurting and unemployed among us, the Republicans were hopeless against anyone in 2014 and Jesus they’re blissfully happy with our Democratic governor now, we easily could get six more years of shining Democratic centrism, what say, you want a decent education with an affordable university degree so you can have a life like the State provided for previous generations?
Nothing.
My job is to say no.
Given their corporate restraints and format San Francisco Chronicle journalists Marinucci and Garofoli did an excellent job of presenting California’s terrible problems and the inconsistencies of centrism in this story. “We are in an era of limits,” Garofoli quoted from a cruel UCLA professor, totally oblivious to screaming human pain and shuttered hopes for the futures of millions of Californians.
No, my dear asshole sir, we live in an era of centrist Democrats who have forgotten their duty to the little people, if they ever had any in the first place. Simply fix the business loophole in Prop 13 and use every cent to lower UC and State fees, the little people never demanded a socialist nirvana, they just want a government that works so they can have a chance. With everything that’s gone wrong and all the howling wreckage around the State can’t fix Prop 13 for our students, could Perez and Brown just do that one small absurdly simple popular good thing, just anything?
Nothing.
My job is to say no.