By John Seiler

The ghost haunting this past weekend’s California Republican Convention in Sacramento was the steroid-bloated, hulking apparition of ex-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Just eight years ago, in 2005, Arnold was the toast of the GOP. He launched a “year of reform” that led to a Reform Slate of initiatives on the November ballot to rein in public-employee union power, reform teacher tenure and reform redistricting. He was carrying the Republican Party on his shoulders and would bring them back control of the Legislature and more statewide offices.

There even was talk among Republicans of amending the Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to become president.

Then it turned out the Reform Slate was badly organized. Arnold campaigned tepidly for it. And every initiative went down to smoking defeat.

After that, Arnold panicked and dumped his Republican-influenced policies, claiming “the people” had shown him now to go. According to Ian Halperin’s biography, “Governator,” Arnold then effectively turned over his administration to his wife, Democrat Maria Kennedy-Shriver. Maria hired Susan Kennedy (no relation), an activist left-wing Democrat, as Arnold’s chief-of-staff. Kennedy became the “little governor,” while Arnold frolicked among his Hollywood cronies. Republicans in the Legislature claimed they were frozen out of Arnold’s circle of influence.

In 2006, Arnold signed into law the jobs-killing AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Republicans should have worked for his defeat in his re-election bid that year. Instead, they overwhelmingly supported him. They figured he still was “our Arnold” when, in debate, he attacked the tax-increase proposals of Democratic nominee Phil Angelides. And after all, he still was The Terminator, Commando, Predator and Conan the Republican.

He advertised himself as a new kind of Republican, a pro-business moderate, just the kind George Skelton is suggesting the GOP needs to promote today in 2013. He was teamed with Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (now an independent) as a new kind of GOP standard bearer.

Thanks to hefty GOP support, Arnold won re-election with 56 percent of the vote.

In 2007, he proposed a socialized medicine scheme for the state so radical even leftist Democrats in the state Legislature rejected it.

Crash

The economy crashed in 2008, taking the California budget with it. In 2009, Arnold snapped into action: Breaking his pledge not to raise taxes, he increased taxes a record $13 billion. Doing so, as Chuck DeVore has noted, increased state unemployment another percentage point than it otherwise would have been, to 13 percent.

Arnold a promising young, conservative Latino state senator, Abel Maldonado, to provide a crucial vote for the tax increase. Abel was rewarded an appointment to be lieutenant governor; and with an initiative, Proposition 14, which instituted an open primary Maldo thought would help him. It didn’t. He lost re-election as lieutenant governor in 2010 and for a congressional seat in 2012.

In the 2010 election, California Republicans repeated their folly, nominating another “moderate” business person, Meg Whitman, for governor. She was wiped out.

In 2011, Arnold left office in disgrace. In his last days in office, he commuted the murder sentence of the son AB 32 ally and former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez. Arnold’s wife, Maria, ditched him after it became known he impregnated the family maid. It was a new kind of “Republican family values.”

At the end of the movie, “Commando,” Arnold single-handedly invades an island occupied by thousands of the troops of a foreign thug. After Arnold shoots everybody, an American general comes in for the cleanup, and asks, “Leave anything for us?” Arnold quips, “Juszt bodiez.”

After his seven years of misrule of California and attacking his own party, that’s what’s left of the California Republican Party: Just bodies.

By John Seiler

Tony Quinn gets things partly right when he writes in a Fox & Hounds article, “Are Republicans Finally Learning to Count?“:

“But now some Republicans at last want to face that reality and make some changes.  I call them the Republicans Who Can Count.

“The Republicans Who Can’t Count were on full display in 2012. Presidential nominee Mitt Romney ran the most vitriolic anti-immigrant campaign in the primaries; Asian and Latino turnout and straight ticket Democratic voting in the general election was the highest in history. Some GOP legislators in battleground states thought the way to victory was to repress minority voting; African Americans turned out in states like Ohio and Florida at historical records.  GOP pollsters modeled a voter turnout that did not exist and ended up looking like fools on election day when a flood of Democrats showed up and dealt their candidates defeat after defeat.

“Now the Republicans who can count are moving to take over the party with a mission to stop alienating the fastest growing parts of the American electorate, and also to stop running fringe candidates whose only goal seems to be to turn off moderate voters.”

It’s true the GOP is having problems attracting Latino voters. It’s likely to continue to do so no matter what it does. Voting patterns generally are locked in for families and ethnic groups for generations. It’s hard to change them.

And he ignores an even bigger constituency: The Republican “base” that wants not to “reform” immigration, but to end it entirely. If they’re alienated, then the GOP can’t win, either.

The immigration restriction “base” for the GOP is like public-employee unions are for the Democrats in California. They’re the strongest faction. The only way to get around them is to lie to them.

McCain-Kennedy

Hence, Sen. John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Kennedy immigration amnesty in 2005. He downplayed that in his 2008 presidential run. After he was wiped out by Obama that November, then re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, he went back to pushing amnesty.

Just Tuesday, an “angry crowd” confronted McCain over his pro-amnesty agenda:

“Sen. John McCain defended his proposed immigration overhaul to an angry crowd in suburban Phoenix….

“McCain hosted two town hall meetings in Arizona, during which he defended his immigration plan to upset residents concerned about border security….

“During a heated town hall gathering in the Phoenix suburb of Sun Lakes, McCain said the border near Yuma is largely secure, but he said smugglers are using the border near Tucson to pump drugs into Phoenix. He said immigration reform should be contingent on better border security that must rely largely on technology able to detect border crossings.

“McCain said a tamper-proof Social Security card would help combat identity fraud, and noted any path to citizenship must require immigrants to learn English, cover back taxes and pay fines for breaking immigration laws.

“‘There are 11 million people living here illegally,’ he said. “We are not going to get enough buses to deport them.”

“Some audience members shouted out their disapproval.

“One man yelled that only guns would discourage illegal immigration. Another man complained that illegal immigrants should never be able to become citizens or vote. A third man said illegal immigrants were illiterate invaders who wanted free government benefits.

“McCain urged compassion. ‘We are a Judeo-Christian nation,’ he said. McCain’s other town hall meeting took place in Green Valley, south of Tucson.”

That’s the Republican “base,” and it’s not going away. I’m sure the “base” also was amused at getting a Sunday School lesson on “Judeo-Christian” morality for someone who, as noted, hid his position on amnesty during his 2008 campaign and his 2010 Senate re-election campaign. Oh, and he was part of the Keating Five banking scandal crooks.

Can’t win scenario

So, Republicans can’t win with the immigration restriction “base,” and can’t win without ’em. At about half the party’s strength, this “base” is far greater than any potential new Latino votes that might be garnered by embracing amnesty.

McCain himself got a scare. In 2004, McCain had no primary opponent. But in his 2010 Senate primary, challenger J.D. Hayworth grabbed 32 percent of the vote largely by pointing out McCain’s pro-amnesty record (see YouTube below). In pro-military Arizona, war hero McCain is Senator-for-Life. But a 32 percent challenge is serious.

Quinn also should have pointed out, as I often have, that since Reagan left, the GOP has run one dud candidate after another for president beginning in 1988: the Bushes, Dole, McCain and Romney. And their campaigns have been risible. Meg Whitman ran a better campaign than Romney.

The GOP’s only chance is for an overall federal and state government default to be blamed on the Democrats. Which is coming.

By John Seiler

L.A. Times columnist George Skelton continues to amuse as he keeps telling Republicans they could win again if they just became like Democrats. After all, Democrats are winners, aren’t they? As the psychologists say, shouldn’t we “model” winners?

Commenting on its decline that began in the 1990s, Skelton writes, “The California GOP did make a brief resurgence under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was never fully accepted or appreciated by party activists.”

Skelton seems to be the only person in California who believes Arnold’s governorship was anything but a disaster. When Arnold took office in 2003, state unemployment was just above the national average. When he left office in January 2011, it was 3 percentage points above it. Jobs were fleeing the state because of his record $13 billion tax increase in 2009; and because of such regulations as AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

Seven years later, environmentalist extremists don’t even call it “global warming” anymore, but “climate change,” so they can use every bout of bad weather as an excuse to increase government control over the economy.

Skelton enthuses about Jim Brulte, the former Senate minority leader, becoming state GOP chairman. “And the party is dead broke, in hock by perhaps $800,000, Brulte says.” That really is inexcusable in a party that preaches fiscal discipline.

Skelton again: “Yes, a strong two-party system — one that facilitates a problem-solving consensus — is preferable. But a functioning one-party system with competing factions would be better than what we have had in recent years: a liberal majority and a reactionary ‘Party of No’ creating gridlock.”

Party of ‘No’?

What’s he talking about? Party of “No”? Schwarzenegger got enough Republicans to back his tax increase. And he didn’t need them for AB 32 and other attacks on business.

In 2010, voters enacted Proposition 25, majority vote to pass a budget. So the only leverage Republicans had left was that a two-thirds majority still was needed to raise taxes, or put tax increases on the ballot.

In 2011, Republicans did block Gov. Jerry Brown’s desire to put on the ballot, with a special election, a continuation of the Schwarzenegger taxes — that is, Brown wanted to increase taxes $13 billion. He could have gone around them by gathering signatures for an initiative, then calling the special election. But he chose not to do that because he wanted some Republicans on his side for political cover.

Tax increases killed jobs

And there’s evidence Arnold’s tax increases killed jobs. Former GOP Assemblyman  Chuck DeVore explained:

“Starting with the end of the recession in June 2009, there were 19 months where California had higher taxes followed by 23 months of lower taxes. Then, last December, small business owners’ taxes spiked back up. The employment data for this period speaks volumes. During the low-tax months, the number of jobs in California increased by 2.7 percent, the number of jobs in Texas increased by 4.3 percent and the number of jobs in the U.S. as a whole, minus the two biggest states, increased by 2.4 percent. So California did pretty well, slightly outpacing the national average.

“But, during the 20 months of higher taxes, California lost about 1.1 percent of its jobs while Texas, which held the line on spending instead of increasing taxes, added 1.2 percent more jobs while the other 48 states lost 0.4 percent of their jobs.

“So after the recession’s official end, California lost jobs at almost triple the pace of the rest of the nation when it had higher taxes but it gained jobs faster than the national average during the two years when its taxes were lower.”

Californians should be thankful that the “Party of No” created “gridlock,” meaning for once the devouring maw of the California government taxed us slightly less for two years, allowing the private economy to create more jobs.

With Republicans becoming a “superminority,” as Skelton calls them, there is no adult around to say no. Even Brown vetoes could be overridden.

The first several months of 2013 also will tell us how many jobs the Proposition 30 tax increase will kill. As Chris Reed wrote today here on CalWatchDog.com, Brown and his economic guru, Kish Rajan, just don’t care about California’s toxic business environment and its resulting unemployment rate. Ditto Skelton.

The Skelton Plan for GOP Revival

Skelton:

“The GOP needs a different message, especially for Latinos. They’ve been voting heavily Democratic — largely because of Republican demagoguery on illegal immigration — and within months are projected to surpass whites as California’s largest ethnic group.

“The party also needs magnetic messengers — less-scary candidates who run on economic development, education reform and fiscal conservatism while piping down on immigration, abortion and gay marriage.”

But Latinos are more pro-life than Anglos. And the majority of Latinos voted for Proposition 8, which banned same-sex “marriage,” whereas the majority of Anglos opposed it.

So Skelton is confused.

At this point, Republicans are going to have a tough time getting back in the game in California. As Skelton rightly notes, Republicans have had a hard time attracting Latinos, who continue to increase in numbers. He writes, “They’ve been voting heavily Democratic — largely because of Republican demagoguery on illegal immigration — and within months are projected to surpass whites as California’s largest ethnic group.”

But the part on voting patterns is inaccurate. Latinos have voted about two-thirds Democratic for decades. They did so even after President Ronald Reagan granted illegal immigrants a vast amnesty in 1986. Ethnic voting patterns seldom change.

What Republicans really can do

The one thing Republicans can do is to prepare for picking up the pieces after a major economic disaster, for which Democrats will get blamed. And that disaster is coming. It’s not the national debt of $16.6 trillion, which is bad enough.

It’s the $222 trillion in federal unfunded liabilities, as calculated by economist Leonard Kotlikoff of Boston University. The unfunded liabilities include Social Security, Medicare, military pensions and medical care, etc. Reported Bloomberg:

“The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using the Congressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget forecast — the Alternative Fiscal Scenario — is now $222 trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion difference — this year’s true federal deficit — is 10 times larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the entire stock of official debt in public hands.”

That means each American owes $705,000 for these unfunded liabilities Congress and the presidents have run up in our names. For a family of four, that’s $2.8 million.

Even if you taxed rich people at 100 percent, you couldn’t raise the money. And the middle class isn’t going to stand for many more tax increases. So, basically, that money won’t be paid.

That will mean large cuts not just in Social Security and Medicare, but in everything else the federal government does: military, welfare, farm subsidies, corporate subsidies, education, aid to states — everything. The cuts will ripple across the states like an earthquake. State budgets will take big hits.

Those in charge will get blamed. In California, that means Democrats. They’re going to have to do the cutting, and will get blamed for the resulting pain.

Prepare

Republicans should prepare for that day. Instead of running clones of Democrats, as Skelton urges, they should be running candidates who call for cutting waste in government and reducing taxes to attract instead of repel businesses and jobs. Instead of running statewide candidates like Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman, clueless egoists who never were in government, they should be running Rep. Tom McClintock, who with help from the state party would have won some statewide races in the past.

When the federal and state governments go belly up, people are going to be really, really mad at the Democrats. Republicans should prepare for that crisis.

Here’s what that $222 trillion in unfunded liabilities looks like: $222,000,000,000,000.00.

Here’s what your family of four owes: $2,800,000.00.

By John Seiler

Here at CalWatchDog.com, I’ve chronicled L.A. Times columnist George Skelton’s tax obsession.

There he goes again:

“SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown wants to help inner-city schools at the expense of suburbanites. But there must be a better way to assist the disadvantaged than to trigger class warfare.

“And there is. It is to give school districts a better opportunity to raise their own tax revenue.

“That could involve reducing the voter threshold needed for levying parcel taxes from two-thirds to 55%.”

He doesn’t get it. If poor areas raise their taxes, that will drive away businesses, and take more money away from the businesses and people who stay — making the areas even more poor.

“One philosophical problem with the parcel tax is that it’s very regressive. The taxes aren’t levied based on value or wealth, such as with property or income. A parcel that holds a bank building is taxed the same as one with a peeling bungalow.”

One philosophical problem with “progressive” taxes is that they’re just an excuse for the government to enrich itself by robbing the successful. And one practical problem with “progressive” taxes is that the successful flee confiscatory taxes. Look what’s happening in France, where actors and others are fleeing the new 75 percent top income tax rate.

“Another idea being mulled over in Capitol backrooms is to permit school districts to also levy other types of taxes with voter approval — such as a sales tax. The Legislature could allow that simply by passing a bill on a majority vote.

“But the sales tax still would need to be approved by local voters on a two-thirds vote. To reduce that threshold to 55% would require a state constitutional amendment — necessitating a two-thirds legislative vote and approval of the statewide electorate.”

Skelton is the Energizer Bunny of tax increasers: He doesn’t let up. It doesn’t matter how badly the government is run, he’s for more of it. California’s schools are among the worst in the country, yet he wants to give them more money.

And that’s aside from the indoctrination.

By John Seiler

When I was growing up in Michigan in the 1960s, the Democratic Party mostly dominated the state. Kennedy, Johnson and Humphrey won the presidential contests. Democrats controlled the Legislature. And labor unions dominated the Democratic Party. Much like in California today.

One difference was that Michigan’s governors were Republicans, but they were liberal Republicans in the Schwarzenegger mold. In particular, Gov. George Romney, Mitt’s father, imposed the first state income tax and more than doubled the state budget in just six years in office. He was a Democrat in all but name.

But in the 2010s, Michigan’s Republican Party is resurgent — and offers lessons to California’s down-and-out GOP. L.A. Times columnist George Skelton and many others have suggested that the CA GOP would do better if it just became a lot more like the California Democratic Party.

The Michigan experience suggests the opposite. Two years ago, the state was a mess after eight years of Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Canadian born but raised from childhood in California’s Bay Area. Like Schwarzenegger, she also had a career in Hollylwood acting, although hers was brief. She now is teaching at U.C. Berkeley, so California taxpayers are paying for her pay, perks and pension as she teaches impressionable young minds how to misgovern.

Instead of trying to imitate Granholm and other Michigan Democrats, Michigan Republicans did the opposite: They strongly backed major budget reforms and tax cuts. They were rewarded with victory. The party now has large majorities in both houses of the Michigan Legislature. And Rick Synder is the popular, and mostly conservative, governor.

This has occurred even though the state remains mainly Democratic and voted for Barack Obama for president. The last time Michigan backed a Republican for the Oval Office was way back in 1988, the same as California.

A big reason for Republican success is that voters trust them to deal with the state’s financial messes, including effectively bankrupt Detroit. It’s not exactly clear what will happen, but actually dissolving the Motor City is one option.

In a similar fashion, former Mayor Richard Riordan has warned that Los Angeles is headed for bankruptcy.

Taking on the unions

A key part of the Republican resurgence in Michigan is taking on the unions. The Great Lake State was the cradle of the union movement a century ago. But now it has become a liability, with unions impeding reforms — the same as in California.

In the November election, the unions placed on the ballot Proposal 2, called by the unions the “Save Our Jobs” initiative. It would have given unions almost total authority over the state. Critics charged that it even would have protected unionized public-school teachers that were drunk or dealing drugs in the classroom. (That’s close to how California’s unions succeeded in defeating in our Legislature SB 1530, by state Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles. It would have made it easier to get rid of teachers that use sex, drugs or violence against students.)

For Michigan’s union-backed Proposal 2, according to Ballotpedia, the unions massively outspent opponents by 22-to-1.

But Proposal 2 lost anyway, 57 percent to 43 percent.

Aggressive GOP

In the past, Republicans would have sighed in relief and gone back to their country clubs. (That’s certainly what Republicans did in California in the mid-1990s during their brief period of ascendance in the state Legislature.)

Not this time. As you may have heard, the Michigan Legislature just passed right-to-work laws, which Snyder signed into law. Payback time.

The reforms guarantee workers the right to join a union — or not join a union. The unions have boiled over with hatred. For them, “freedom” means forcing others to join their union. Here’s a typical response (note: bad language in the YouTube):

But here’s what it really means. An old journalistic comrade of mine, Patrick McGuigan of Oklahoma, described what happened when his state passed similar legislation:

“Congratulations, Michigan.

“In 2001, after decades of debate and a multi-million dollar campaign, voters in Oklahoma approved a ballot question enshrining the right to work in the state Constitution.

“Today, Oklahoma City has the lowest unemployment rate of any large American city. The state has outperformed much of the nation even during the depths of the Great Recession, and is projected to become one of the top states for job creation in the first quarter of 2013. Per capita personal income growth is outpacing the nation.

“Ultimately, the same results will come to Michigan.

“Monday, President Obama said the fight over Michigan’s right-to-work proposal is about politics and ideology, not economics.

“Politics is indeed part of the equation in any major policy shift in any American state — and that was certainly the case in Oklahoma in 2001, and in Indiana last year.

“But in the end, the proof is in the pudding: Oklahoma is evolving from its longstanding status as a poor, bottom-tier state into a steadily growing economy with a bright future — and that’s all about economics. Still, the strongest arguments for right to work are moral, rooted in rights of voluntary association and personal liberty.”

Audacity!

California desperately needs political competition. A one-party state never turns out well, whether in California or Cuba.

If Republicans want to get back in the ring and compete in California, the wrong strategy would be to mirror the Democrats.

Instead, they should look to the feisty Michigan GOP. They should take direct aim at the powerful unions. Make it a David vs. Goliath contest.

For starters, how about a right-to-work initiative on the ballot in 2014? Make sure it’s not a compromised initiative, like Proposition 32 was this year. The California unions ran ads attacking the loopholes for “special interests.”

Instead, get the ballot language from Oklahoma’s initiative, Question 695, which now is Section 23, Article 1A of the Oklahoma Constitution (text below). Make the new initiative about the unions themselves. Make it about union power. Because then the very exercise of that power — spending tens of millions of dollars in attack ads — itself is turned against the unions.

And every Republican in the state should make the right-to-work initiative the center of his campaign. No Democrat would dare buck the unions and back it. So it would be a clear contrast.

That also would help win Latino voters to the GOP. Because even many Democrats, such as former state Sen. Gloria Romero, are sick of how the the teachers’ unions care less about Latino students’ poor performance than about maintaining spiked pensions for teachers who aren’t even teaching any more.

When California state finances fall off a cliff, as they soon will, voters will look for the culprits. And as in Michigan, those culprits will be obvious: The Democratic Party and its union string-pullers.

For California Republicans, the key to victory is the same as when Danton exclaimed to the French Assembly in 1792: “Audacity! Audacity! Always audacity!”

————————

Here’s the language of Article 23, Section 1A of the Oklahoma Constitution:

SECTION XXIII-1A.

Right to work.

A.  As used in this section, “labor organization” means any organization of any kind, or agency or employee representation committee or union, that exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning wages, rates of pay, hours of work, other conditions of employment, or other forms of compensation.

B.  No person shall be required, as a condition of employment or continuation of employment, to:

1.  Resign or refrain from voluntary membership in, voluntary affiliation with, or voluntary financial support of a labor organization;

2.  Become or remain a member of a labor organization;

3.  Pay any dues, fees, assessments, or other charges of any kind or amount to a labor organization;

4.  Pay to any charity or other third party, in lieu of such payments, any amount equivalent to or pro rata portion of dues, fees, assessments, or other charges regularly required of members of a labor organization; or

5.  Be recommended, approved, referred, or cleared by or through a labor organization.

C.  It shall be unlawful to deduct from the wages, earnings, or compensation of an employee any union dues, fees, assessments, or other charges to be held for, transferred to, or paid over to a labor organization unless the employee has first authorized such deduction.

D.  The provisions of this section shall apply to all employment contracts entered into after the effective date of this section and shall apply to any renewal or extension of any existing contract.

E.  Any person who directly or indirectly violates any provision of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Added by State Question No. 695, Legislative Referendum No. 322, adopted at Special Election held on Sept. 25, 2001.

By John Seiler

As the smoke and the rhetoric have settled, you know pension reform is weak when: a) It’s criticized by an analysis in the Los Angeles Times. c) Ridiculed by the paper’s liberal columnist George Skelton. And c) praised by the California Public Employees Pension System.

The plan was crafted by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers in the state Legislature and announced Tuesday. The main aspect of it is that there’s no move — at all — toward 401(k)-style pensions for public employees. Brown’s original 12-point proposal, from October 2011, called for a “hybrid” plan for non-safety employees that would be half continuing the current system, called “defined benefit,” in which benefits are guaranteed by taxpayers; and half a 401(k)-style plan called “defined contribution,” because it would guarantee a certain payment into the plan, but payouts would depend on market performance.

Without such a reform — or, better yet, a 100 percent “defined contribution” plan — any reform is a Band-Aid on a knife wound through the heart.

The Brown-Legislature “reform” does contain some minor good elements, reported the Bee, including “higher contributions from existing employees and imposes pension caps and raises the retirement age for new workers.”

The main problem is that it would save, at most, $60 billion. Yet the state’s unfunded pension liability is $500 billion, according to a Stanford University study headed by Joe Nation, the former liberal Democratic assemblyman but an honest man good with numbers. So the “reform” would fill just 12 percent of the pension black hole, leaving 88 percent unfilled.

Reform 2043

“This should more accurately be called the ‘Public Employees Pension Reform Act of 2043,’ since it will be at least three decades before it even begins to have any effect on state or local finances,” Jack Dean told me; he publishes PensionTsunami.com, which reports on national public pension news.

“I printed out a hard copy of the first summary I received by email and then circled every instance of phrases like ‘for new employees’ and ‘going forward’ — because all of those items fail to address the huge unfunded liability that has already started to drown local governments. Unfortunately, one of those phrases appeared in just about every item on the list.

“Banning retroactive pension increases is a sound move but doesn’t help, either, since most unions have already gotten the maximum increases they sought — all of them retroactive.

“And finally, the University of California system with its huge unfunded liability isn’t even included in the legislation.

“If I were to grade this legislation I’d give it an A for creativity and a D for lack of substantive content.”

Times analysis

The Los Angeles Times’ sober analysis of the “reform” found:

“SACRAMENTO — Even by the most ambitious forecasts, the plan Gov. Jerry Brown and fellow Democrats are championing to contain government worker pensions in California could leave state taxpayers awash in debt to public employees.

“The governor’s plan, announced Tuesday, is unlikely to save cities on the brink of bankruptcy. The relief his proposal would provide to the strained state budget is modest.

“Analysts who study the issue say far more aggressive action — including reduction of benefits for hundreds of thousands of current employees left untouched by Brown’s proposal — will be needed to get runaway retirement costs under control.

“Taxpayers still face the prospect of major bailouts to cover retirement promises made to public employees whether lawmakers pass the plan as expected Friday or not.”

By John Seiler

Just a couple of months ago Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher was being hailed as a new kind of “postpartisan,” “non-ideological,” “bipartisan” politician we need more of in the state Capitol. He had quit the Republican Party after it dissed him during his failed attempt to become mayor of San Diego.

The inimitable tax-obsessive George Skelton wrote in a column, “A telling GOP defection”:

SACRAMENTO — Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher coulda been a contender, to borrow the classic Marlon Brando line from “On the Waterfront.”

He could’ve been somebody.

He still could, conceivably — somebody who wins the prize of high public office, a senator, a governor — but it apparently won’t be while wearing the Republican colors. He tossed them.

We’ll never know, but many believed the San Diego legislator — young, photogenic, articulate, an Iraq combat vet — had the potential to help lead the California GOP out of the darkness, out of its deep funk.

But last week he bolted and became a no-party independent, fed up, he said, with partisan pettiness in the state Capitol.

The analogy doesn’t hold up. In “On the Waterfront,” Brando faced down powerful unions. Fletcher sold out to them.

As my colleague Steven Greenhut reported right here on CalWatchDog.com:

“In reality, Fletcher is by no means independent. He was a life-long Republican hack who ditched the party when it rebuked him and endorsed Carl DeMaio [for mayor]….

“Consider that Fletcher had burnished his GOP credentials as he sought the party’s endorsement, but after the party endorsed someone else, he suddenly did some soul-searching and ditched the GOP. So he went from GOP loyalist to Independent in about 5 minutes, political time-wise.

“Fletcher would love to be attacked by conservatives and libertarians — more proof that his martyrdom was for the greater cause of standing up against right-wing extremists, except it’s not true. In reality, Fletcher is simply a self-serving political climber without serious ideas, someone who will seemingly say or do anything to advance his political interests. He touted his Republican credentials when it helped him and now he blames the GOP — which long tolerated his focus-group-tested voting record. He has long been an ally of public-sector unions.”

Voting for a tax increase

Yesterday, Fletcher voted for a tax increase on businesses. Reported the Bee,

“By a razor-thin margin, the California Assembly passed legislation today to raise a billion dollars annually for middle-class college scholarships by altering tax law for numerous out-of-state corporations.”

Of course, the tax increasers say it will “help” California businesses. But this is rank protectionism — attacking businesses in other states — that will suck money from the California economy because its gives businesses another reason to shun doing business here.

The other vote needed to pass the bill was Assemblyman Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert. He has to know that this will not help him in Republican politics.

Supposedly, according to the all-knowing, all-powerful Skelton and others, only Republican “extremists” oppose massive tax increases. In fact, after Proposition 25 dropped to a majority from two-thirds the threshold for passing a budget, the only power Republicans have left in the Legislature is over tax increases. Opposing tax increases is their “brand.” Selling out on tax increases is like New Coke: it’s not going to sell.

The tax increase now goes to the state Senate. Let’s see if any Republicans sell out there.

By John Seiler

California Republicans are gathering this weekend for their convention in Burbank. For inspiration, they should look to what is happening in neighboring states.

Two years ago, Republicans nominated for governor Susana Martinez in New Mexico and Brian Sandoval in New Mexico. Both favored cutting government and reducing taxes. Both won.

Last week, Texas Republicans nominated Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate. He also favors cutting government and reducing taxes. He’s a favorite to beat the Democratic nominee, Paul Sadler, in November.

Contrast that with the two Republican Latinos on the California statewide ballot in 2010. Abel Maldonado, the sitting lieutenant governor, was wiped out by Democrat Gavin Newsom. And Mike Villines was defeated for insurance commissioner by an outright socialist, Dave Jones (who’s sending the California insurance industry to his locker).

Both Maldonado and Villines started out with promising careers. Then they sold out to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the record $13 billion tax increase of 2009. Maldonado’s reward from Arnold was an appointment as lieutenant governor, then the passage of the Top Two system for elections, which supposedly favored “moderates” like him. Thanks to Top Two, Maldo now is facing incumbent Democrat Lois Capps in the 25th U.S. Congressional District. He likely will lose. So all the selling out to Arnold will have meant nothing.

Of course, the pundits and Arnold keep saying “moderates” like Maldo and Villines are the key to attracting Latinos to vote Republican. Then why is the opposite tactic — running conservatives — working in neighboring states?

Cruz control

Cruz’s case is instructive. The typically clueless GOP establishment opposed him. Reported FoxNews, “Gov. Rick Perry and much of the rest of the Republican establishment lined up to endorse [primary opponent David] Dewhurst for their party’s nomination….”

According to Lubbock Online, Dewhurst, the sitting lieutenant governor, “also had a $200 million personal fortune he could dip into and did, loaning his Senate campaign at least $24.5 million.” Dewhurst outspent Cruz by three-to-one. So Dewhurst was a typical moneybags moderate the Republican establishment adores, like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina in California, or Mitt Romney for president.

But Cruz was strongly supported by the Lone Star State’s Tea Party activists. Lubbock Online wrote, “Cruz has a fiery stage presence that made Tea Party supporters across the state swoon, and received millions from national, conservative organizations which targeted Dewhurst as too moderate.”

Cruz also was backed by my favorite, Sarah Palin. On this video of her post-election comments, Palin points out that Dewhurst spent his money on the usual losing Republican consultants. But Cruz listened to the people.

According to critics, the Tea Party is supposed to be a bunch of cracker racists who hate Latinos and blacks. But in Texas, the Tea Partiers provide the electricity that put the candidate on Cruz control.

In other words, Cruz is an anti-Maldonado and anti-Villines. Of course, if Cruz gets elected, we’ll have to wait to see what he actually does in office. But his political stances certainly are what’s needed, and what voters crave to endorse.

Even the liberal Atlantic magazine has noticed how Cruz exemplifies how Tea Party candidates are winning:

“Time and again, the Tea Party has been declared moribund, splintered, and ineffective. And time and again, it has pulled off surprising upsets. The insurgent conservative moment won a significant victory Tuesday in Texas, where attorney Ted Cruz scored a stunning 13-point win over David Dewhurst in a Republican primary for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. The margin of victory exceeded even recent polls that showed Cruz leading by around 10 points.”

Moderation

Yet in California, “moderation” still is supposed to sell. George Skelton, the Los Angeles Times columnist celebrated for his 50 years of reporting on the state, recently attacked state Republicans for not supporting moderates, but instead continuing to support such things as the “no tax” pledge. Basically, Skelton and others think Republicans in California would win more offices if they just embraced Democratic policies. The opposite is true.

If Republicans in California have any sense, they’ll cultivate young Latinos who are conservative or libertarian — favoring cuts in budgets and taxes. They’ll get candidates who can give a good speech, fire up a crowd. And they’ll run these candidates for local offices to get some experience, and to see which is best. Then run them statewide.

By the way, did you know that, although Latinos are a majority of the Democratic Party in California, in 2010 not a single Latino was nominated for a statewide office by the Donkey Party? Same thing this year, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein running for re-election. The Democratic Party still is ruled by three septuagenarian Anglos, Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Feinstein.

With the Democrats running everything in the state, they’re going to get blamed as the state crashes into the Pacific Ocean. So…get ready.

There’s opportunity there for Republicans — if they can seize it.

By John Seiler

George Skelton is Shocked! Shocked! that his beloved liberal, high-tax, big-waste Democrats are manipulating the initiative system. Did he expect they were going to run California like Switzerland?

He writes writes about Proposition 25, which allowed a budget to be passed with a majority in each house of the Legislature, instead of two-thirds of members:

“SACRAMENTO — This wasn’t the deal. Californians thought they were only allowing the Legislature to pass a budget on a majority vote. They wanted to unclog the capitol.

“They didn’t intend it as a license for Gov. Jerry Brown to rig the election ballot to benefit his tax-increase proposal.”

Skelton recently was feted for writing about state politics for 50 years, and is friends with Gov. Jerry, and he’s still surprised at this?

Skelton:

“You may remember how Prop. 25 was sold: California was suffering from budget gridlock. State vendors, healthcare providers and schools were being stiffed because of late budgets. State credit ratings were falling. Only two other states required a two-thirds vote for budget passage. It was a seller’s market for votes in the Capitol. Special interests were the brokers.

“All true.

“Prop. 25 has been a good thing. We’ve had two consecutive on-time budgets. No more summer-long Capitol squabbling, no more state-issued IOUs.”

No, we haven’t. Last year’s budget, for fiscal 2011-12, was so unbalanced that Controller John Chiang suspended the spendthrift legislators’ pay, as is required by Prop. 25. After that, a phony “balanced” budget was passed, and met Chiang’s approval, even thought it assumed $4 billion in increased revenues that never materialized because of the state’s tax and regulatory assault on the private sector depressed production, and hence tax revenues. The revenue shortfall triggered cuts.

This year, the budget for fiscal 2012-13, which began July 1, assumes Brown and Skelton successfully hoodwink voters into passing an $8.5 billion tax increase. It’s like basing your family budget on winning next Saturday’s lottery. Voters are in a foul mood at how badly this state is run. The tax increase won’t pass.

Skelton:

“But recently Prop. 25 was shamefully abused by Democrats at the behest of Brown, who paradoxically rode to power four decades ago on a platform of political reform.”

And last year, Brown rode into office promising, in his inaugural address:

“In seeking the Office of Governor, I said I would be guided by three principles. 

“First, speak the truth. No more smoke and mirrors on the budget. No empty promises.”

But his whole career, beginning four decades ago, has been nothing but smoke and mirrors and empty promises.

Skelton:

“Bear with me, because this makes almost no sense.”

Well, Brown, the state government, Prop. 25 and Skelton make as much sense as anything else in this state of insanity.

By John Seiler

Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton recently was feted by liberal journos and others for reporting on California for 50 years. Actually, usually he’s been just a rubber stamp for the centralized tyranny known as the California government.

His latest outrage: Misrepresenting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cancelling the car tax increase back in 2003, one of the few things Arnold right. The much-awarded Skelton wrote an article ridiculously titled, “Overspending isn’t California’s problem: Face it: More budget cuts won’t pay for everything the state needs.”

“Everything the state needs” means the greedy pay, perks and pensions going to his buddies in the government. Here’s the misleading part:

“Sacramento, for example, still is spending way too much money on former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s showboating car tax cut.

“Yes, that crowd-pleasing slash in the vehicle license fee — which had existed for many decades without a public fuss — resulted in a $6-billion annual spending burden on the state treasury. That’s because the car tax revenue had gone to local governments. When Schwarzenegger cut it in 2003, he kept sending an equivalent amount of money to the locals anyway.”

“spending … money” on a “tax cut”? What a revealing phrase. Skelton assumes that government owns you and everything you produce; you’re its slave. It then “spends” money on education, roads, prisons, cops, pensions, etc. — and “spending” includes dribbling back to you a little of what it stole from your slave labor to use for your own family.

What happened

Now, here’s what really happened, as Skelton should remember, or as anyone with an Internet connection can find out:

1. Gov. Gray Davis illegally tripled the car tax. Then-state Sen. Tom McClintock wrote at the time, right in Skelton’s own L.A. Times in 2003 just after Arnold was elected to replace Davis and canceled the illegal tax increase:

“Five years ago, a series of legislative enactments reduced the car tax by two-thirds. Local governments, which pay for firefighters, never lost a penny of funding because the law fully reimbursed them from the state’s General Fund. The law even provided that if the state should go bankrupt, funds would still flow to local governments through a temporary, month-to-month car tax increase directed by the state controller.

“In June, Gov. Gray Davis tripled the car tax by fiat while cutting off reimbursements to local governments for three months. His action cost cities and counties $1 billion in lost revenue and cost motorists an additional $4 billion in unauthorized taxes. The only time local governments have lost money from the car tax is when Davis raised it.

“The official legal office of the Legislature has already opined that not one of the conditions required to raise the tax has been met. If the courts agree, the illegally collected tax — plus interest — must ultimately be returned, blowing a new multibillion-dollar hole in a future state budget.”

2. Davis’ illegal tripling of the car tax was the casus belli of the recall against him. Other factors, such as his dithering during the 2001-02 electricity crisis, contributed to his being booted from office. But his illegal tax increase enraged voters during that summer of their discontent. Still, only 55 percent voted to send him into retirement. Without his carjacking of car drivers, Davis probably would have beaten the recall.

3. Schwarzenegger won the recall election on a strong promise to rescind the illegal car tax tripling. Shouldn’t politicians keep their promises? He never would have won the recall with that promise, because Davis, as noted, would have stayed in office. And Arnold’s solemn pledge to “terminate” the illegal tax increase guaranteed he would win first place among the replacement candidates.

4. If Arnold had not rescinded the illegal car tax, he would have started his new governorship by breaking the pledge that bonded him to voters, possibly sparking his own recall. Of course, Arnold ended up being a terrible governor because, after two years, he started listening to liberals like his wife, Maria, and Skelton. He imposed the dictatorial, anti-jobs AB 32 in 2006. And in 2009, he imposed a record $13 billion tax hike that slammed the state economy during the start of the weak recovery.

5. If Arnold had not rescinded the car tax, McClintock was readying both court challenges and a papers to file a repeal initiative, which would have passed overwhelmingly in 2004. So the tax hike would have disappeared anyway.

6. By canceling the tax cut, Arnold demonstrated — for two years, anyway — that it was safe again in California to run a business or be a worker who paid taxes; that people like Skelton wouldn’t automatically be allowed to paint a bull’s eye on you back just because you held a job an drove a car.

7. The middle class was given a little reprieve. But Skelton doesn’t care about the middle class, the folks who toil long hours for their families and pay the massive taxes to live in the most dysfunctional state in the land just because it has good weather. And Arnold, after he became Benedict Arnold in 2006, also didn’t care about the middle-class folks who mistakenly put him into power in 2003 instead of the great McClintock.

Fortunately, Californians no longer need to depend on the old, Main Stream Media, like the L.A. Times and Skelton. Alternatives like CalWatchDog.com now exist to let people know what’s really going on.