Brown, Skelton should ‘man up’ on unions

April 19, 2012

By John Seiler

Gov. Jerry Brown said the state Legislature should “man up” in making budget cuts to end a budget deficit he now pegs at $9 billion. It was an echo of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger attacking legislators as “girly men” for not passing his budget.

Say, isn’t that politically incorrect, sexist language? Shouldn’t the P.C. Legislature censure Brown and Arnold? Shouldn’t the National Organization of Women begin a recall of Jerry?

Anyway, L.A. Times columnist George Skelton writes:

“there seems to be something inappropriate about proclaiming that it’s manly to cut services for the politically weak: poor welfare moms striving to become self-sufficient and old disabled people who need help at home so they can avoid costly nursing homes.

“Third, if anyone needs to man up in Sacramento it is Brown, who has been hiding behind the voters in trying to raise taxes rather than using the constitutional power granted him to hike them himself with legislative cajoling and coercion.”

But why doesn’t Skelton himself “man up” and call for ending the collective bargaining of the state’s ultra-powerful government-worker unions? That power was given them by the infamous Dills Act, which Brown signed into law in 1977 during his first gubernatorial stint. It effectively allowed the unions to “elect their own bosses,” as one union leader put it.

Or how “manning up” to call for ending the massive pensions that go to retired workers? Begin with the 9,111 members of the $100k Pension Club. The top one is Bruce Malkenhorst, grabbing $509,664.60 a year. Cut that and the others back to $99,000 a year, still plenty to live on. That way, the pension payments taken from the geneeral fund — about $3 billion a year — could be reduced. And the saved money could save programs for the poor.

The same thing with the administrative bloat in the Cal State system, where there are more administrators than professors. Why not cut that bloat and give the money to the poor?

When these things happen, why does Skelton always take a bead on the taxpayers?

Brown pledge

Then there’s Brown supposedly needing to “man up” and push a tax increase through the Legislature. As Skelton pionts out, in his 2010 election campaign, Brown pledged that he would increase taxes only after a vote of the people. If he hadn’t done that, Meg Whitman might have beaten him.

So what’s wrong with carrying out the will of the voters? Shouldn’t we commend politicians on the rare occasions they meet their promises?

Skelton has been writing on state politics for 50 years. So he surely remembers the atmosphere in the state when Proposition 13 passed in 1978. Brown surely does, too. Brown originally opposed Prop. 13, but when it passed in the June primary, embraced it in time for is November re-election bid. Brown even called himself a “born again tax cutter.”

And Brown also remembers how his former chief-of-staff, Gray Davis, was recalled as governor in 2003 to a great extent because Davis increased the car tax.

Brown knows that, even if he somehow cajoled enough Republicans into joining a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature to pass a tax increase, he would generate rage among the masses, maybe even a recall drive.

Moroever, at this late date, a tax increase would hammer the state economy, putting more Californians out of work. Then hundreds of thousands more people would use the welfare services whose cuts Skelton is decrying, making welfare department budgets even worse.

Thanks in part to 50 years of cheerleading by Skelton, California’s government system is top heavy with high taxes, preposterous bureaucracy and mammoth waste. The government-worker unions need to be tamed so that the people, not the unions, again run the state.

But Skelton won’t “man up” and back such reforms. Instead, he takes the easy route of going after the taxpayers that already haven’t gotten out of Dodge, Calif.