Apparently after too many years of insane, irreality-based budgeting the media is ready to accept any budget that agrees on simple principles like services cost money and California has a deficit will be greeted with hosanas.
Seriously, it's time to refuse to cut education and social services unless there will be an actual cut to prison budgets. For years, Governors have assumed unspecified cuts to prisons. These cuts never materialize; prison funding is not down (it's up AND we have a brand-new death chamber!). Yet schools, elder care, Medi-Cal and CalWORKS take specified hit after hit.
These cuts have an impact on the need for prison financing. And the state of the budget presently says something rather ugly about our priorities. We apparently value punishment over people.
Schools will now spend the next six months in a state of lowered morale - layoffs and budget worries bring no good to anyone. A lot of energy will be put into trying to avoid the worst.
And the Bay Area CEO Council currently can't get behind continuing even the tiniest temporary tax. It's a job-killer, they intone without evidence. Apparently their member CEOs do bang-up business among the incarcerated.
Moreover, while this budget may prove something to the middle class, it's worth noting that scorched-earth tactics mean someone gets scorched. In this case, AS ALWAYS, it will be the poor who get burnt so we can learn a lesson. Whether we will learn that lesson or blame them for their inability to hire better lobbyists is an open question, I think.
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