California Is Definitely Not Wisconsin

While Wisconsin gets ever closer to fiscal responsibility through its courageous elected Republican governor and legislature, California's governor makes a few dainty cuts around the edges of the state's monumental debt then proposes to put his so-called barebones budget on the ballot. Of course he hasn't even put the proposed budget together, and seems unwilling to act with the legislature to implement the changes recommended by the state's standing fiscal watchdog commission.

The people elect their representatives to carry out the broad wishes of the public, but leave the details to the "professionals" they hired to do the job. California's referendum process has for decades been the escape vehicle for elected officials unable or unwilling to do the tough jobs they were hired to do. They can talk about lofty goals, tightening the government belt, and serious budget cuts, but when it comes time to do what is necessary, they love to kick the ball back to the people. That way, if the solution doesn't work, they can blame everybody but themselves. If the solution does work, they can claim to have been prescient in forming the solution, and "men of the people" by giving the public the right to make the decision.

The referendum is one of those goofy procedures invented by the Progressives back in the Roaring Twenties to emulate direct democracy. But that doesn't mean that it works the same way in each of the states that adopted it. Wisconsin, the first Progressive state, hired a governor and a legislature last November to fix their financial problems and it looks as if that will happen. No referendum there. Californians also elected a governor and a legislature, and now the people are being asked to perform surgery on themselves because the doctors in Sacramento are too stupid or too cowardly to do it for them.

What's the big difference between the two states which both have strong Progressive pasts? Easy. Wisconsin voters elected a Republican governor and a majority Republican legislature. California elected Democrats for the corresponding posts. In order to do their jobs, they could either make draconian cuts in spending for state employees and terminate pie-in-the-sky green/liberal/leftist/cuckoo programs, or wet their pants and send it all back to the voters. The Wisconsin temporary stalemate can't happen in California since the Democrats hold the State House and both legislative chambers, and therefore fleeing to a Motel 6 in Arizona isn't a viable plan.

So Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown and his fellow Democrats dither while California drowns. California has a standing independent citizen fiscal watchdog commission called The Little Hoover Commission. It makes recommendations to the governor and the legislature on the state's budgets. Since about the time that Jerry Brown's chief aide Gray Davis became governor (and got recalled), spendthrift commission members from both parties have merrily wandered down the primrose path with the tax and spend liberals. The commission is comprised of nine members--five appointed by the governor, two by the State Assembly and two by the State Senate. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an alleged Republican, held onto office long enough to have appointed all five of the gubernatorial seats. Three are fiscal conservatives from before Schwarzenegger discovered he was sleeping with a liberal Democrat. The other two are moderate to liberal on tax and spend. Needless to say, the other four members are all liberal to very liberal Democrats.

The crash has hit California extremely hard, and despite its former liberal tilt, the commission found that California's fiscal crisis has many of the same root causes as those of Wisconsin. So it has proposed huge changes to the state's employee pay, benefits and retirement scales. It includes freezing the current plan while creating a sustainable alternative plan. The plan includes specifically capping the calculation of benefits at between $80,000 and $90,000, creating retirement ages and lengths of service which do not encourage early retirement, and requiring employees to pay meaningful contributions to their own retirement.

Said the commission report: "The situation is dire, and the menu of proposed changes that include increasing contributions and introducing a second tier of benefits for new employees will not be enough to reduce unfunded liabilities to manageable levels, particularly for county and city pension plans. The only way to manage the growing size of California government's growing liabilities is to address the cost of future, unearned benefits to current employees, which at current levels is unsustainable."

That means that even the proposals made for future entrants into the public employment sphere will not be enough, and that the governor and the legislature need to take current benefits head-on. But you must remember that the governor is a Democrat, bought and paid for by the unions, particularly the public employee unions and the SEIU. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that any real changes will be made without a referendum, and unlike Wisconsin, right-to-work will never be put on the table.

Rather than analyze and tweak the commission recommendations, the Democrats immediately went into attack mode. Democratic spokesman Steve Maviglio was first at bat, saying "Shocker. Little Hoover Commission stacked with Schwarzenegger appointees wants to cut economic security of civil servants." Well, they aren't very civil, and they serve nobody but themselves. Further, if "economic security" means getting cushy jobs at outrageous rates of pay and catastrophic medical and retirement benefits, I suppose they're right. But if "economic security" means a decent job with decent pay and benefits combined with Civil Service protection, they're wrong and they're lying.

Unlike Wisconsin, California's seminal problem will not be solved any time in the foreseeable future. And that problem is the incestuous relationship of public sector unions and state government. The closest thing to agreement on changes from Governor Brown is that he says "I believe people should be working longer. I think 'institutional memory' is a good thing (and a typical "Brownism"--most of us would have said 'experience'). I don't have a problem extending how long people have to work." That addresses Brown's belief in government, not in reasonable compensation. And it's understandable. Brown was first elected three and a half decades ago as the youngest elected governor in the state's history, and was elected last year as the state's oldest governor. He has spent his entire life in government (including his youth at his father's home, former California Attorney General and Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown).

The official spokesmen for the Brown administration were a bit more restrained, and devious, in their comments about the Little Hoover Commission's report. "Our office is reviewing the Little Hoover Commission's findings. The Governor agrees that California faces serious challenges which is why he rolled out a comprehensive framework to reform pensions during his campaign." Well that's nice. A nebulous "framework." They're "reviewing" the findings. The governor "agrees" that there are serious challenges. But--action is noticeably lacking. And when the bankruptcy clock is close to running out, Brown and the Democrats will punt.