State lawmakers got all the headlines this week as they struggled to figure out California’s budget, which was, as TRI has previously reported, “fucked.” After a long week that included late-night power struggles and senatorial sleep-overs that surely brought secret thrills to many of the chamber-members who oppose gay marriage, our fearful leaders came thiiiiiiis close to leaving the budget “fucked, murdered, and buried in the woods.”
Facing a $40-billion-plus deficit, state Democrats came forward a plan that was basically, “We’re gonna have to make some tough cuts and we’re gonna have to raise some taxes,” and the Republicans came back with, “No tax increases! And NO, we do NOT have a better idea! So don’t bother asking!”
Now, anyone who thinks they’re going to close a $40 billion budget hole without increasing revenue (through taxes) has a “math problem,” as our eloquent Austrian immigrant (and Republican) governor Arnold Schwarzenegger put it. But math wasn’t the Republicans’ problem — it was a “pledge” that almost all of them had signed, promising to never raise taxes.
The Republicans’ unwavering commitment to this pledge reminded us of their ideas on sex education, and their “abstinence pledges,” which was probably on our minds because of the recent interview given by Sarah Palin’s lovely daughter Bristol. Then we remembered that a lot of kids who sign those things circumvent by having anal sex. Then we almost got completely off track.
Anyway, we have no idea why our leaders can’t simply pledge to do the right thing for the state in each situation….guess that’s not as catchy as “I’ll never raise taxes.”
The budget was fucked and the Republicans couldn’t budge without risking having their constituencies crucify them for sacrificing their rigid ideology in favor of pragmatic crisis resolution. Instead, they chose to stall, and if they had stalled for just a few more days, the government would have run out of money and basically shut down. Which sounds kind of cool, except if you care about small things like roads, schools, cops, fire departments and healthcare. Small things.
But one guy finally did something about it, and we at the Raw Intelligence are proud to present this guy with our “badass of the week” award: State Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria)!
Now this guy was already somewhat of an outsider within his own party. Last year, when our budget deficit was a paltry $2 billion (and they considered that big at the time), he petitioned hard against closing it through any cuts to education, which seriously rankled his Republican counterparts, who love nothing more than stealing money from schools. (Their kids go to private school.) He’s also pissed them off on issues like gun control, and by being Latino (he’s the only Rebublican Latino in the Capitol).
So Maldonado sat there in the State Senate knowing that his one vote could end the budget crisis, and he decided to play that chip HARD.
In exchange for his vote, he forced onto the ballot a measure that would institute an open primary system in California. This would allow Californians to vote for any candidate they want for state government, regardless of party affiliation. The thinking right now (which could of course prove to be pretty simple thinking) is that this opens the door for more moderate candidates and will make for interesting races in places where the electorate skews so heavily to one party that the primaries have basically been the real elections.
To illustrate why this is a good thing for California, let’s go back to what got us in this fucked budget situation in the first place:
“Governors and legislatures, in good (economic) times, overspent and over-cut taxes and didn't have the courage to make their pandering generosity just temporary.” – George Skelton, LA Times Capitol Journal.
That’s putting it simply enough.
When you put rigid Democratic spenders and stiff Republican cutters together in the same room, here’s what does NOT happen: They negotiate through difficult decisions, deciding where spending is most essential and how much of the cost burden can rightfully be placed on the taxpayer. No. What happens is, these stiffs just cut AND spend, and push the huge fucking problems inherent in that logic into the future — which finally came.
So anyway, we at The Raw Intelligence think having some more moderates like Maldonado in the room will be a great thing, and the open primary system should help make it happen. Both parties HATE the idea; they’d rather just sit on safe seats, keep their party talking points on the straight and narrow, and roll out some standard factory model D’s and R’s for battles in a handful of contested areas.
But somehow this Maldonado guy managed to sneak in and seize his one moment of opportunity to unleash this whole other crazy animal that nobody else from either party wanted to fuck with at all.
Despite the small brown stains on the trousers of some lawmakers, the taxpayers, of course, are the immediate “biggest losers” (in the traditional, negative sense of that phrase). They are going to be paying more taxes for fewer services, all thanks to past dumbfuckery in the state capitol. (Though you can’t say we don’t deserve it a little bit. After all, we lapped up those “pandering” tax cuts and new expenditures that Skelton was talking about.)
But at least we got to see all the politicians, dumb-fuck Democrats and remedial Republicans alike, get it good from Abel Maldonado. They signed their little pledge, and now they’ve got Abel’s dick in their butt.
Hahahahahahahahaha.
