Dirty Don, done dirt cheap
By Josh Richman
Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 3:06 pm in California State Senate, Don Perata, Sacramento.
(…with apologies to AC/DC…)
State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, spoke during today’s floor debate on a package of cost-cutting measures trimming $1 billion from this year’s budget and about $1.2 billion from next year’s, with schools and MediCal taking heavy hits. The seven bills passed with broad bipartisan support, but Perata sure didn’t sound too happy:
“It is a statement that California is going in the wrong direction…”
Read more excerpts after the jump…
“For too long, we have in this body denied and even defied reality. That is that California lacks a governance structure capable of managing its future.”
“We all want a better future. That is undeniable. A future where all residents have an opportunity to live responsibly, without fear and with hope. Today’s budget belies that goal. It is a statement that California is going in the wrong direction, all of California is going in the wrong direction.”
“We cut education funds, yet we say that education is the cornerstone and foundation of our democracy. We want health care access and reform, yet we cut the very meager services that we now provide. We pride our nation at protecting its huddled masses and yet we deny the most needy in our society. None of us came here to destroy or to dismantle government.”
“There cannot unfortunately be a nice antiseptic formula or automatic triggers for increases or decreases.”
“We were elected to set standards and make choices. No one born in this state or who has moved to this state, wants it to be second class. And we won’t accept second class. I believe that that is a bipartisan, nonpartisan point of view.
“Democrats and Republicans do not want a second-class state. We won’t accept a second-class educational system. We won’t accept seniors who are left alone and children who are left out. We won’t accept having more people in prison than we do in our universities. We will not allow our environment to decay when we know we can prevent it.”
“I find hope in today. I looked and watched that budget committee spend those 30 hours debating and enlightening each other. . . . But by working together, we came up with a budget. Nobody likes it and nobody here is going to posture on this budget. No one can run for another office or the same office on this budget and get much enthusiasm from constituents – I don’t care where you live. But we did work together. All of us.”
“Now maybe in the past we didn’t have the opportunity to look and see across the range. This year we will. We’re going to continue to do it in this manner. That’s why all of us are here. We are here to make lives better, to make the future brighter, to maintain the integrity of this institution, which we are simply visitors in maintaining for the greater good of this state.”
“We are a people, not a party. We are individuals only to act collectively. We are part of history, so let’s get on with making it and making it better.”
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February 16th, 2008 at 9:04 am
So Perata, you worked with your fellow Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats at the state level to throw disabled people and poor people out onto the streets increasing crime because taxing the rich and wealthy and corporations is against career politicans religions? And you feel a sense of accomplishment because a bunch of corrupt politicians made a very difficult decision to pass a budget hurting people? This is what counts for “difficult” in Sacramento as in Washington. You immoral bankrupts are clueless. Why don’t you live on the present disabled stipend and stop driving your pimpmobile and give up the state guard outside your house. You will not even known what difficult. The people did the right thing retiring you.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:11 am
There isn’t enough money in the state to subsidize all the worthy causes or all the dysfunctions of its citizens. The best solution is for people to start behaving like adults and making intelligent decisions in their own lives. That would reduce the tax burden immediately. Then we could deal with the really deserving.
It’s not corrupt for Perata to make difficult choices, it’s part of being an elected official. He has to balance the needs of many constituencies. More businesses are leaving the state seeking lower costs and more taxpayers leave seeking a lower cost of living. He knows things will get tighter as the economy slows so the people and the government will have to live within their means.
You can whine all you want about people getting hurt but all CA citizens are feeling some kind of pain.
I agree, though, that the legislators should give up the perks. In the grand scheme of things it wouldn’t help the budget but it would be a good gesture.
February 16th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Yeah, all the affluent people in California with super yachts and second vacation homes are going to leave the state and move to Texas if the STate taxes their yachts and second vacation homes! Yeah, right! And the oil companies and refineries that take their oil out of California and coast are going to leave too! And all the big corporate businesses of the Pacific Rim, finance capital, that make their home in SF are going to flee too if we re-structure Prop l3. That is such an old saw about businesses leaving. As for folks seeking cheaper homes, well they could simply make the banks lower the interests rates and home prices can deflate and become more affordable and then people won’t have to leave. Meanwhile, we pay for $35 million for security for Arnold and rural counties begging for a mil or two are about to go bankrupt in Calif. Don’t tell me everyone is feeling the pain. It simply ain’t so. Never has been, never will be. But to keep businesses in America the Prez and Congress have got to stop one NAFTA after another. They’re not simply leaving our state, they’re leaving the country period.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Also the conservative cliche about living responsibly is old and meaningless for minimum wage workers who have to choose between heating costs and food in the overinflating housing and rental market. Meanwhile, the speculators and bankers don’t have to be responsible, sensible or prudent. We have bailed out the banks to the tune of at least $l00 bil over the past 4 months and we’re about to give billions more to speculators in California so they can dump their properties in 2008 with a higher Fannie Mae ceiling. After they do, then Fannie Mae will go bankrupt and those who truly need loans to get homes and not speculate will never get the chance. The government works for the irresponsible rich who have thousands to fritter away. Not the poor.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Those businesses employ a small minority of Californians. New, small businesses in CA are the seed corn of the future economy. If businessmen don’t start businesses here, forget income tax growth. If we don’t get that growth, who will pay for all the handouts the state wants to give out and still pay down the debt? No one, hence, Perata’s choice. The state is no different from a household. Gotta live within your means or suffer the consequences.
Can the state force a business to stay in business? My company has to compete and has to make a profit. If a competitor can bring in cheaper product from overseas (or other states) and local consumers value low prices more than they value my value proposition, how do I keep sales up? Sales decline is inevitable and the business will have to close. Just to stay in business now, I have to tightly control my labor cost and source my materials from low cost vendors. Otherwise, I shut the doors and my people are looking for work.
Socialists seem to think that you hang out a shingle and then start raking in cash. It’s tough out there and most of what government does simply distorts the market and works only temporarily. Our economy is a system and you can’t tweak one part without affecting the others.
I suspect you don’t run a business.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:14 am
It comes down to supply and demand. Housing prices reflect demand. I don’t care what you do with the interest rate. You could have 0% interest and the bottom third of residents won’t be able to afford a house here anyway. In a good economy, a decrease in the interest rate will INCREASE the cost of houses because people will have more money to apply to the house itself. Seen it happen here over and over.
You want low housing prices? Throw the entire area into depression or build high density housing. Either way, you’ll see prices drop. When we limit the height of buildings and require excess green-space, we limit the developers in the numbers of units they can build so the people who can buy homes have to pay much more for what they get. What does the government care? Drive up the cost of a house and you drive up the price and the property tax. Fewer people can afford to live here? Well then, less infrastructure from government is required. It’s all good to Sacramento. Especially when they can increase our taxes to subsidize other people’s rents which goes to the landlords who then can maintain their high prices. It’s the government that distorts the market and causes this problem.
I wouldn’t bail out a single bank. I’d let the housing market tumble, even though I’ll lose some money. The pain will be shorter and it’ll be cheaper than bailing out greedy buyers and lenders. Make them responsible for their own problems. Maybe they’ll be more careful next time. If not, we’ll soon be subsidizing car loans.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:16 am
BTW, I was a minimum wage worker. I did the obvious things, put up with the lousy living conditions, missed a lot of fun, lost a lot of sleep, worked too much but got a degree and a skill. Success is something one gets by increasing one’s value to others. It can’t be given by parents, employers, or the government. People who wait for that are going to be very unhappy.
Isn’t it interesting that successful people tend to live responsibly and those who tend to be less successful abhor the use of the “R” word? And are mostly Democrats? And want to tax the successful? I detect a pattern.
February 17th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Gnubi, i agree with you about not bailing out lenders but I think it’s better to make the banks adjust their rates to keep people in their houses. Ultimately, social dislocation will cost us more as a society. But I’m not for raising Fannie Mae ceiling. That will sustain prices.
No, I don’t have a business but have worked for small business people and helped them organize,and become more efficient and profitable.
I agree too that you cannot patch the “system” but it’s false that it’s welfare that’s causing our problems. Welfare payments represent a miniscule part of our federal budgets. Big corporate agricultural growers in California get something like billions in farm aid for taking land out of circulation and price “supports”. Even Bush was against this but he let it go thru at the end. Corporate fatcat farmers along with banks are the biggest source of welfare. Our economy is made up of huge parasitical sectors that don’t contribute a darn thing to society and just feed off of working people–namely the insurance sectors, mortage sectors, etc. etc. Then when people need to claim insurance, they get screwed.
I agree too that small businesses are probably employing more people but they are usually service-oriented and hence serve a geographic area as opposed to overseas or overstate customers and this market won’t flee. But it’s the large companies who are laying off tens of thousands of workers right now due to the recession and if too many people lose jobs or work at low wage jobs there is no more buying power in the economy.
Even Nixon controlled wages and prices. Uncontrolled fuel costs due are driving businesses out too. You cannot simply the situation. It’s complex and needs a complex cure.
BTW, there has never been such thing as a “free market”. There have always been bailouts for corporations and “special interests”. Remember Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex, a self-perpetuating sector, which has come true. And he was a Republican, not a socialist.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Also, Gnubi, we could use some Swedish style socialism in this country. Those people live much better than Americans. Our country is going backwards towards the raw, unfettered capitalism of l9th century England and America. And its destroying our land and our people.