Logrolling lives large in California budget

The $39 million in personal money Meg Whitman has poured into her campaign for governor gets the headlines, but the cash that didn’t come from her own checkbook may be even more important in the 2010 campaign.

Take all the personal money out of the various gubernatorial campaigns and Whitman still leads the money race. The $10.4 million the former eBay CEO raised from contributors in 2009 is more than the $8.5 million Democrat Jerry Brown took in last year and far more than the $2.1 million fellow Republican Steve Poizner collected from donors.

You might want to put an asterisk by Brown’s number, since he’s got another $4 million in the bank that he raised before 2009, when he was stockpiling cash for his re-election as attorney general.

To get an idea of how tough it is to raise the type of money Whitman’s taken in, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had collected $2.3 million in 2009 when he decided to bail out of the Democratic primary because the fund-raising wasn’t there to challenge Brown. And on the GOP side, Tom Campbell shifted his flag to the Senate race when he realized that less than $1 million in contributions wasn’t going to cut it in the Republican race for governor.

I recently finished reading Meg Whitman’s new book “The Power of Many.” This is on top of my reading last fall of Jerry Brown’s “Dialogues” and seven other books about his first governorship. Why did I do this? Pulling out toenails wasn’t enough fun.

There is much talk about the differences between Whitman and Brown. I found, however, similarities. Each has a tendency to speak in aphorisms that can leave listeners scratching their heads.

This put me in mind of that master of aphorisms, Confucius. So, for your spiritual enlightment, I offer the following quiz—a list of quotes. Each of these little pearls was offered to the world by one of three people: Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman or Confucius.

1. “He who will not economize will have to agonize.”

2. “Inaction may be the biggest form of action.”

3. “I really hate waste.”

In my piece last week discussing concerns with the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, I did not dismiss alternative fuels. Yet, David Crane’s response to my article seems to indicate that I was promoting the exclusive use of oil for transportation fuel into the distant future. I was focused on the present. I argued that the LCSF standards would add to the cost of fuel prices in the here and now, especially when alternative fuels are not ready to meet demands.

David argued that my position banks on the scenario that oil prices would not go up. Oil prices will undoubtedly rise with more demand, new taxation, and with limits put on exploration. Altering the attitude against exploration and preventing tax increases on oil production would lessen the pressure to increase costs.

However, there is also no question oil prices will be raised immediately if the CARB regulations take effect. Limiting the importation of oil by affixing a “carbon intensity” measure to the fuel transported to the California market has to affect the cost of the fuel.

Do my eyes deceive me? Did I just read the Los Angeles Times proclaiming not only that the era of big government is over in the City of Angels, but also that non-government organizations – from the business community to civic organizations – must take a stronger role in service delivery and public policy?

Yes, I think I did.

In a startling editorial, entitled “A lean, not mean, City Hall”, the Old Tan Lady concludes, “Even in the best of times, it makes sense to move some city services away from the restrictions of the City Hall payroll and instead tap into the city's underutilized business and nonprofit resources.” So, where exactly were these calls for department consolidation and civil society empowerment during the “best of times”? I don’t remember, but one is left to wonder whether George Will took over the Times’ editorial board, when it recommends, “A successful Los Angeles will have to turn, increasingly, to that model for providing quality-of-life programs while focusing the budget on core functions such as public safety, street services and sanitation.”

The Port of Los Angeles is not only swimming against the tide with regard to depressed cargo volumes and port revenues, it is also about to be penalized by the City of Los Angeles for its inability to balance its budget.

The Port dutifully followed the Mayor’s “Shared Sacrifice” initiative by leaving multiple staff positions unfilled and encouraging early retirement by dozens of employees – all in an effort to reduce costs. In return, the Port is about to become the dumping ground for dozens upon dozens of city employees, adding millions of unanticipated costs because of the LA City Council’s unwillingness to cut back 1,500 positions as part of an effort to reduce the City’s half a billion dollar budget deficit.

All of the Port’s good faith efforts over the past year to reduce its staffing levels and payroll expenses are for naught. The shifting of unwanted and surplus employees by the City to the Port increases the Port’s operating costs at a time when its revenue continues to decline. It penalizes the Port for exercising due diligence in following the Mayor’s policy directives to reduce costs, and it sacrifices the Port’s tideland trust responsibilities to the State because of the lack of political courage by the LA City Council.

I have investigated the situation, and I believe I have found the man responsible for Carly Fiorina’s strange sheep ad and Steve Poizner’s bizarre demand for federal law enforcement investigation of his rival Meg Whitman’s attempts to get him to abandon the race.

The man responsible for this madness is, I am sad to report, me.

Well, not just me, but me and people like me. Journalists with short attention spans, who are bored by most of what goes on in the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races, and have trouble finding editors who want to hear about the relatively routine policy and political debates in both contests. As a result, we rarely write about what’s happening in these races.

That leaves candidates desperate for media attention. And so, quite rationally, they realize that the only way to rouse me from my slumber is to do something a bit bizarre.

A wave is building in American politics. Whether that wave produces a second Republican Revolution, or a more mild course correction for the nation’s politics, remains to be seen. In any case, victory for the GOP in November hinges on the Republican Party’s success in convincing the American people it is a viable, preferred alternative to the leadership and direction offered by Barack Obama’s Democratic Party.

History is clearly on the side of the GOP. In the last 12 mid-term elections, the party not holding the White House has enjoyed a net gain in Congress and state legislatures in 10 of them. The magnitude of the net gain has historically been in inverse proportion to the President’s approval rating, and President Obama’s is in the tank and likely to remain there. Historically Presidents enjoy little improvement in their public approval during the second year of their term.

How best to maximize the party’s opportunity for victory and build on the party’s recent successes in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts was a major focus of last week’s meeting of the Republican National Committee in Hawaii.

One need not be a pollster or political scientist to conclude that with each passing day, California voters have become increasingly wary and frustrated with government's (in)ability to get it right.  Once again, our state faces a multibillion dollar deficit and the news will not get better for many years to come.

How are taxpayers expected to have any faith that the very politicians and bureaucrats that have mismanaged government agencies, departments and budgets time after time would be any more competent assuming and managing something as critically important as healthcare? 

The sad but proven truth is that government-run healthcare will add more bureaucracy and a hefty price tag to California taxpayers, small businesses and jobs.  That is why the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) so strongly opposed a recent single-payer proposal in the form of Senate Bill 810 (Leno).

A new poll by the AB 32 Implementation Group showed voter support for California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) has dramatically declined. After hearing arguments for and against the measure, 56% of voters approved of AB 32 and 40% opposed.

The fact AB 32 won’t have any measurable impact on reducing global warming, its price tag of billions of dollars in higher energy costs and hidden tax increases, and its impact on jobs drove voter opposition to the measure.

Voters were particularly concerned about the conclusions from the California Small Business Roundtable’s study of the impact of AB 32 on small business in California. This study found that AB 32 would cost the average small business in California about $50,000 per year and would destroy more than one million California jobs.

Carly Fiorina’s new anti-Tom Campbell video may be one of the most bizarre (baaa-zare?) campaign hit pieces the state has ever seen, but since it has people talking about the GOP Senate race, it’s mission at least partially accomplished for the former Hewlett-Packard CEO.

But behind the low-end effects, the ovine-metaphor overkill, and the cheesiest red-eyed sheep suit in history, there’s a real gamble taking place, one that could decide who will challenge Democrat Barbara Boxer in November.

Fiorina and her team are betting just about everything on their conviction that California Republicans are so vehemently anti-tax that even a hint of support for new levies spells doom for a GOP candidate.

That’s why the tough-talking three-minute-long video, available on Fiorina’s new website, FCINO.COM, depicts Campbell as “Taxin’ Tom,” a liberal-leaning career politician whose only solution to California’s fiscal problems is more taxes.