That little joke, right there, points to the heart of our budget disasters and to the thinking that keeps the disasters in place.

Where is the money? In cuts to public education? In cuts to welfare and childcare? No, the money is in the hands of the super rich. Not in public schools where California’s spending is near the bottom of all the states.

Every single time that you – and all of your colleagues in the huge majority the Democratic Party holds in Sacramento – speak about the budget you have a chance to improve the system, or not. Every time you speak and do not condemn the two-thirds majority required to increase taxes, you are selling out the 99% and pandering to the 1%.

I cannot wait until representatives in Sacramento – the current batch or new ones we will elect – catch up with the rest of us. The social movements have shifted from the plea of “Stop The Cuts” to demanding the solution, “Tax The Rich.”

Statistics are readily available to explain to people who love old Prop 13 and its two-thirds vote requirement that their love is misplaced.

Explain that California has 85 billionaires with a total wealth of $287 billion. Only 3.5% of that wealth would close a state budget gap of $10 billion. And although it would be a hardship for 7 people since they would no longer be billionaires, and would only have $900 million, they would probably get that 3.5% back within a year. And California would not have to cut welfare, childcare, and schools.

Explain facts the California Budget Project gives us every year: when you look at family income, the poorest 20% pay more in state and local taxes than the richest 1%. Those who average $12,600 pay 11.1% and those who average $2.3 million pay 7.8%. That’s where the money is. Wealth like that used to be taxed at higher rates, and in those times people could still get richer.

Explain that a bipartisan budget agreement in favor of the 99% will never be reached when slightly more than 1/3 of California legislators have signed a pledge that they will never vote to raise taxes. The 2/3 requirement gives that 1/3 minority veto power over taxing the rich. The only bipartisan budget agreement operating right now is the silence about the rotten parts of old Proposition 13.

You were Governor in 1978 when Proposition 13, with all of its damaging unintended consequences (unintended by the voters), was voted into law. It is only fitting that you should undo its damage now.

Sincerely,

Laura Wells

Who Should Be Our Champions?

The 99% in California should be championed by the leadership of the Democratic Party. The people voted Democrats into 100% of the statewide offices (Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Controller, Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner, Superintendent of Public Instruction); both U.S. Senate seats; and big majorities in both houses of the state legislature.

Democratic officials should stand together and go to the people who elected them, not to the Republican elected officials who were elected into only 35% of the seats in the Assembly, and 37.5% in the Senate. Almost all of them signed the [Rich] Taxpayer Protection Pledge to never raise taxes no matter what.

What Could Champions Say?

The huge Democratic majority could stand together and tell Californians what politicians have avoided telling us for more than 30 years. Proposition 13 had a rotten part that has hurt California and especially our young people. The 2/3 majority to raise taxes has helped us become a state with 85 billionaires, all the while schools, parks, libraries, water and transportation systems are declining. The 2/3 majority to raise taxes created a situation where the 1% highest income households pay a lower rate of their income in state and local taxes than the bottom 20%.

Education or Excuses?

By education, I mean education both for our youth, and for ourselves so we can improve our situation. By excuses, I mean using the Republican Party as an excuse, instead of using the bully pulpit and all possible power to change the rules and stop granting a small minority veto power over taxing the rich. Will we get education, or will we get excuses and cuts-only budgets, again?

Voters voted in old Prop 13 in 1978. Let’s get educated about the problems Prop 13 brought us and our kids, and let’s vote the rotten parts out.

SOURCES:

85 Billionaires in California

http://www.city-data.com/forum/california/1385158-85-californians-named-among-forbes-400-a.html

Tax rates of the richest 1% vs. poorest 20%

Go to http://www.cbp.org/publications/state_taxes_land.html and click on “Who Pays Taxes?”

Taxpayer Protection Pledge, also called the Grover Norquist pledge

“I, [   ], pledge to the taxpayers of the [   ] District of the state of [   ] and all the people of this state that I will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

That’s a reasonable thought process. Consensus decision-making, with a back-up of super-majority vote, has a long tradition, and is being continued today in the Occupy Movement. It works when a group of people have basically the same agenda, and need to make decisions about how to implement that agenda. However…

How the 2/3 Majority Plays Out in California

California was the only state that required a 2/3 majority to both raise taxes and pass a budget.

The 2/3 requirement to pass a budget was instituted in 1933. Since there were golden years for California’s educational system and employment opportunities in the decades after 1933, apparently the 2/3 majority needed to pass a budget was not a big problem.

The 2/3 requirement to raise taxes was instituted after property-tax-flattening Proposition 13 passed in 1978. A simple majority was kept in place, however, to lower taxes. That resulted in a “ratcheting” effect and a long unlucky streak for California’s schools and opportunities.

In boom years, taxes were lowered with a simple 50% + 1 majority vote. Californians are well aware that the main beneficiaries of lowered taxes in boom years were the 1%, not the 99%. And we’re aware that the 1% is the political donor class, so some of the money kept from taxes went to legislators in the form of campaign contributions. In lean years, we can’t get the revenue back, because it takes a super-majority 2/3 vote.

One 2/3 Majority is Eliminated

In November 2010, a proposition passed to eliminate the 2/3 requirement to pass a budget. A future blog on Bad Budgets Faster will tell behind-the-scenes details about the 2010 movement to eliminate both 2/3 requirements, including how then-Attorney General Jerry Brown impeded the drive to eliminate the 2/3 requirement for raising revenue. We’ll also cover what kinds of taxes do get passed, and which do not, as well as the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” which should of course be named the “Rich Taxpayer Protection Pledge.”

There are solutions, we need to remember that, solutions including publicly-owned banks like a State Bank and getting rid of the 2/3 majority to raise taxes. Thank goodness we have a growing number of people working on the revolution of solutions.

More to come!

Books and articles that focus on the huge problems of California’s government and politics invariably spend a lot of time on good old Proposition 13. I keep trying to come up with a very short phrase to sum up Prop 13 and my latest “slogan” is this: Keep Only the Good of Good Old Prop 13. Here is a two-part definition, the first is more commonly known, even among the youth, who were born after it was passed, and who happen to be on receiving end of its unintended detrimental consequences. That part is “the Good.” The second Part, not so commonly known, is the ugly.

Definition Part I

Proposition 13 was approved by voters in 1978. The voters were sold Prop 13 as a way to solve the problem of seniors losing their homes due to rising property taxes.

Definition Part II – Not So Commonly Known

Proposition 13, in addition to flattening property taxes, “Requires 2/3 vote of Legislature to enact any change in state taxes designed to increase revenues.” (This statement is from the official ballot pamphlet. I point this out because many highly political people do not believe me when I say the 2/3 rule on taxes came in with Prop 13.)

Prop 13 also centralized control of budget and finance, so that cities and localities had less direct control, and Sacramento had more control.

Safeguard?  Governor Brown’s Budget-Busting Role?

These topics will have to be in my next blogs because I’m due at a birthday brunch for me and so I should get going, eh?

Peace and love and all that good stuff,

Laura

One: Begin to get rid of the 2/3 majority vote requirements for raising revenue. My wish is that 2012 will be a banner year for increasing people’s awareness of how the 2/3 requirement has handed a small minority veto power over taxing the rich, and has kept in place an excuse-ridden system that produces cuts-only budgeting in our wealthy state. Voters can fix this.

Two: Begin to implement publicly-owned banks in California. My big wish is for a State Bank to be established, so that it will partner with local banks and credit unions; provide good loans to homeowners, small businesses, and students; and invest in California not Wall Street.

My part in all this? By running for statewide office as a Green Party candidate I’ve become more and more expert on the process of the budget. I plan to share my expertise and insights in every way I can.

Post a Blog-a-Day on the Budget

As we enter January 2012, my goal is to blog frequently on the budget. January is the month the annual budget process (fiasco!) begins in California. The Governor is required to introduce a balanced budget proposal by January 10, and the Legislature is required to pass the annual budget bill by midnight on June 15.

Provide a Voice for Budget Solutions rather than Budget Excuses

We’re setting up speaking engagements and interviews at colleges, on radio and TV, and every other medium possible, How can you help? Post your questions and comments; provide speaking opportunities; and spread the word so people know we can have a “revolution of solutions.”

Another California is possible.

This is a quick response to an open letter about taxes from California Governor Jerry Brown.

I ran for governor as a Green Party candidate in 2010 against Brown, and was arrested outside a debate. But, just like the people all over this state, we may get arrested, but we will not stop.

There are solutions. We need to know that, to keep heart and to keep growing this movement – this Occupy Movement – which is being led by our young people.

For years, people have been calling on Sacramento to stop the cuts, and now we’re calling for the solution: tax the rich. Thirty to forty years ago the richest 1% were taxed much more, and they could still get richer. Just not filthy rich.

In his letter, Governor Brown talks about a ballot initiative that would increase sales tax on everybody, and would increase income tax a little bit on higher incomes. This proposal would hit the vast majority of us – the 99% – by increasing the tax we pay almost every day: sales tax. Already in California it’s almost 10%.

Proposals like this one from Jerry Brown cause the disparity. When you look at all the state and local taxes in California, people in the lowest one-fifth as to family income – with an average of $13,200 per year – spend 11.1 percent of their income on state taxes. The wealthiest 1%, with an average income of $2.2 million, spend 7.8 percent of their income on state taxes.  That’s what this kind of proposal perpetuates.

Let’s look at real solutions, like a state-owned bank to partner with local banks and credit unions, and invest in California not Wall Street.

As to taxes, let’s look at a tax on financial transactions; let’s look at an oil severance tax, like all other oil-producing states; and let’s look at real progressive income taxes.

In order to correct the trend that started 30 to 40 years ago, let’s keep only the good of good old Prop 13. Close the corporate property tax loopholes, and fix the rotten part of Prop 13 that gave a 1/3 minority veto power over taxing the rich. Bipartisanship is the game they play to keep this system in place. Gridlock is their excuse for drastic cuts, and for taxing the rest of us, and not the rich. Only voters have the power to fix it by passing a state proposition.

We will change this system. They can arrest us, but they won’t stop us.

In the Oakland Tribune’s article on Occupy Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan focused on maintaining safe and sanitary conditions, and controlling vandalism.

Maintain and control? After years in city government, Mayor Quan must know the city has been harmed tremendously by the same 1 percent the occupiers are fighting. City Hall is both strapped for cash and handcuffed by restrictions on the ability to create good budgets.

Rather than shut the occupiers down, I wish Quan and every other city official would stand with the 99 percent and let everyone know that voters alone have the power to pass state propositions to keep the good parts of the old Proposition 13 — passed in 1978 to keep people from losing their homes due to rising property taxes — and fix the rotten parts. Prop 13 enabled billionaires to pay state and local taxes at a lower rate than the lowest income families, and enabled majority Democrats and minority Republicans to blame each other while California sinks.

The mayor could provide portable toilets and Dumpsters — they will cost far less than helicopters and police. Then stand with the 99 percent and stop Prop. 13′s terrible effects: upside-down taxes, centralization of decision-making, and gridlocked and excuse-ridden governments.

Laura Wells

Oakland

[Published in Oakland Tribune, 10/28/11, letter to the editor, page A7 and online, http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/letterstotheeditor/tribune/ci_19207280

It reminds me of when I was arrested outside the gubernatorial debate a year ago. The private security guard told me, “You don’t belong here.” That was not the magic phrase to get me to move. Yes, as a Green Party candidate for Governor, I did belong there, and we of the Occupy Movement do belong here.

My crime was “trespassing at a private party.” Perfect. That’s what our democracy had become, a private party. This year people are arrested for disturbing the peace, but as Daniel Ellsberg said, what we’re doing is disturbing the wars.

All the oligarchy is doing with their arrests is to firm up our resolve to keep going. We won’t stop. Even if the movement seems to falter or stall, there’s no need to waste our time and energy wondering if it will continue. It will. We’ll use our time and energy (while maintaining our health and happiness!) to do everything we can to pull out from the oligarchy and their corporations pushing junk and destruction, and we’ll create another way.

Power of a Good Example – that the Oligarchy Does Not Want Us to Believe

There are precedents for the kind of positive change we can achieve in the U.S. Of course the oligarchy has lied to us about good examples. And of course the good examples are not perfect! But just this morning I heard another South American president who was not the U.S. first choice got re-elected. This is excerpted from the British newspaper The Guardian, link:

Since [Cristina Kirchner] and her predecessor as president, her husband Néstor Kirchner, first moved into Argentina’s presidential palace in 2003, the income gap between the country’s rich and poor has been reduced by nearly half. Meanwhile, according to the International Monetary Fund’s numbers for 2002-2011, Argentina’s real GDP has grown 94%, the fastest in the western hemisphere and about twice the rate of Brazil, which has also grown substantially, the economist Mark Weisbrot said.

People Power Formula – that the Oligarchy Hates

In a future blog I will write about the formula for positive change most hated by the oligarchy: People Power = Social Movement + Electoral Movement. Latin America has changed in ways not expected 13 years ago. People most responsible for positive change were formerly disengaged from both the electoral process and social activism. Ironically, they understood the problems of the system the best, because they were the ones hurt by it. Then the breaking points occurred and things began to change for the better. People took to the streets, and began to vote for people and proposals that were not corporate-and-oligarchy backed.

The Occupy Movement will not stop. We will create a new way, and achieve the people power needed to keep it growing into the future.

First thing to remember is California is a wealthy state. For one thing, the number of billionaires in the state has grown to 85 with a total wealth of  $287 billion (10 times the California budget gap – think about that for a minute).

There’s no excuse for California to be in the financial situation it’s in, with bad budgets, terrible credit ratings, high unemployment, reduced educational opportunities, and a growing disparity of wealth.

What Can We Do?

Unlike voters in Wisconsin and other states, voters in California gave Democratic Party leadership big majorities in both houses of the Legislature, and 100% of statewide offices: Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Controller, Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and both U.S. Senators.

Could this group of elected officials stand together and make sure everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what has happened to California? Of course. What if everyone knew with certainty that groups who’ve been blamed are not the root causes of our problems? Groups like welfare recipients, immigrants, school administrators, convicts.

“Honey, I love you, but you’ve got to change.”

That’s my valentine to old Prop 13. Keep the good parts, and acknowledge and fix the bad parts.

Proposition 13 was approved by voters in 1978 to keep people in their homes, especially seniors on fixed incomes. Thirty-plus years later a movement is afoot to fix problems caused by flattening property taxes, and do an even better job of keeping people in their homes.

Prop 13 had another rotten part. This one line in the ballot statement set the scene for the next 30+ years of bad budgets: Requires 2/3 vote of Legislature to enact any change in state taxes designed to increase revenues.

The State Controller, Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner, majorities in the Legislature along with the Governor could show us step-by-step how the 2/3 vote requirement for matters of revenue reduced taxes on the richest, raised taxes on the rest of us, and forced cuts in everything from budgets for schools to budgets for fixing pot-holes. Only voters have the power to fix it, by passing a state proposition.

Years ago California had taxes that were much more fair, and the richest 1% were still able to get richer. We can enact those taxes again when we understand and demand a change in old Prop 13. We can stop the gridlock, stop the excuses, and tax the rich!

Great Information:

California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It, by Joe Mathews and Mark Paul, 2010, 192 pages, http://www.californiacrackup.com/

California Budget Project www.cbp.org. Sign up for their blog, California Budget Bites.

Wealth and poverty are not all about material stuff. More money helps make us happier up to a certain point, a point called “enough.” An increase in happiness affected by money comes from having enough for survival and health, options in life, comforts and even some luxuries.

It’s the Disparity, Sister

Who’s wealthy and who’s poor is not absolute, as we know from seeing how simply people live in most other parts of our world, even Europe. It seems people can be happy with less, if things are more equal.

But things are less and less equal. The global economy came tumbling down and government rewarded Wall Street with more prosperity, and threatened the rest of us with more austerity.

Solutions to the Disparity

A major weapon of mass distraction (on the list with divide-and-conquer, keep-them-busy, and reduce-their-options) is to keep us discouraged. I believe hope is an essential human nutrient, and we need to feed ourselves with hope so we have enough spirit and energy to keep going toward a better world.

The Wall Street bailout was the tip of the iceberg that leaders of our Titanic Parties are steering us into. The iceberg itself is an underwater mountain of government subsidies for the very wealthy.

We can change direction. There are many solutions. Here are three:

1. Create a State Bank, a publicly-owned bank that will invest in our state, not Wall Street. State Banks partner with local banks and credit unions, and make good loans to homeowners, small businesses, and students.
2. Stop subsidizing the rich, and rationalizing it by saying they create jobs. They haven’t, and they won’t. Tell the truth about it. Tax breaks for corporations do not create jobs. Local businesses create jobs.
3. Implement fair taxes for a change. Our current tax system is much more upside down than is commonly realized, both in terms of type of taxes, rates of taxes, how they are administered, and who gets audited. If the richest 1% paid the same percentage of their income in state and local taxes as the lowest 20%, and they got audited as diligently as the rest of us, we would be on our way toward balanced budgets.

The rest of this blog on Disparity, Prosperity and Austerity will be links which are engaging and informing, and I believe, encouraging. There are solutions.

Here’s a link to research on the effects of the disparity.

http://inequality.org/happiness-and-inequality-study/

Here are the “poor” people links, a one-minute video with Jon Stewart, and the full 3-minute piece from Fox TV.

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201108250029

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/wealthy-fox-pundit-stuart-varney-rem

Here is a link to information about state and local taxpayers from the California Budget Project.

http://www.cbp.org/publications/state_taxes_land.html – click on “Who Pays Taxes?”

Here are two books by David Cay Johnston, an investigative reporter.

Free lunch: how the wealthiest Americans enrich themselves at government expense (and stick you with the bill).  David Cay Johnston, New York: Portfolio, 2008.

Perfectly legal: the covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich– and cheat everybody else.  David Cay Johnson. New York: Portfolio, 2003.