Shared Sacrifice? Prop 1 D & 1 E More Like Business as Usual

Prop's 1D & 1 E on California Special Elections ballot 

I don’t really miss the boys in the Bush/Cheney/Rove cabal.  Sure, their foibles were always good copy, but in their last year, writing about them was almost too easy, kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.  And the reality is, the price of the entertainment was too high.  As the torture memos revealed in the past few days have shown us, these guys had the ethics of Nazi prison guards. They were doing real damage.

Still, if anybody is missing the selfish, immoral, thoughtless kind of behavior that made the Republicans the Republicans these past few years, its on full display in the political travesty called California’s special election, which is scheduled for May 19.

 Lacking the juice to deal with California’s budget crisis, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a budget deal predicated on the passage of a series of state initiatives requiring voter approval.  Most odious of these are props 1 D and 1E, which would raid hundreds of millions of dollars raised and set aside for children’s and mental health services, and use them to patch the budget.

 Schwarzenegger and his rich pals call this approach to the budget “shared sacrifice." But before you buy into that line, you might want to ask just who’s sharing, and who is sacrificing?

 It’s not the fat cats at Chevron oil.  Despite record profits of $24 billion last year, they helped beat back an oil extraction tax that could have pumped more than a billion dollars of oil industry revenues into California’s coffers.  And you might notice that the big boys in the booze business somehow managed to avoid any increases in alcohol taxes in the new budget deal.

I guess its just coincidence that these same industries and other usual suspects just happen to be among the largest contributors to the governor’s campaign for the budget initiatives. Chevron is at the top of the list, giving $500,000 to the Governor’s campaign for the measures.  I guess that’s their sacrifice.

 

No one can deny that California faces real and very difficult budget problems. But the reality is that the budget measures on the May ballot are little more than a sop to California’s republican legislators who refused to go along with any tax increases that might have helped to ease the budget crisis.  Instead, they chose to protect their powerful friends like Chevron, and are instead seeking to balance the budget on the backs of California’s least powerful residents – children and the mentally ill. That’s not shared sacrifice, that’s business as usual. Karl Rove himself couldn’t have done better.

Check out the Shared Sacrifice? video at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CQnCvGj0GY

Comments

[air yeezy]

Time is an extremely high use of the law..

[Steve Smith]

I am tired of all the Obama bashing being generated from the right wing of this country. We are at the point where even the Burak Obama supporters are questioning his competence and the direction in which he is driving America. Why is our president more popular in Europe and Asia than he is in the U.S.? Because the GOP media and politicians, who act like spoiled brats, kick and scream louder than majority. They have no platform other than to disagree with Obama, to avoid being marginalized. These blowhards including Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, even though so much of what they holler about has no merit.
My question is…Where are all the people that were apart of the greatest political and social victory in the history of our country? One year ago African Americans were basically vindicated and released from 300 years of oppression and segregation by the conservative shackles put upon them. This was not only a victory for them but for all Americans of color or those with a social conscious. Our American brothers and sisters that were all for change, that come from India, Africa, China, Japan, South America, Central America and on and on, this was a victory and redemption for all of you. This was the moment in time when all of these citizens were given the opportunity to be a legitimate piece of the American fabric, to take what has always been rightfully yours, and take action to help advance our country back into the global leader that we had once been. Not from a military standpoint but from a social, economic and humanitarian standpoint.
When I look at what is going on through the media, in communities, social networking, to see what is going on with the Change that we all wanted, supported and won, I see much more effort and discussion spent on figuring out why Oprah is canceling her show or if Lebron is going to NY or Miami.
I realize times are tough and so many of us are worried about jobs, medical insurance and losing our homes, but what is happening is that the imperial warlords that want their bombs and power back are taking advantage of the diversion to our problems, to kick our guy out of office.
Remember what got us here. Stop eating that bag of Cheetos in front of the TV, and make something happen. “Ask not what our county can do for you…”. YOUR country is working for you, now help our president achieve the things we all gathered around and supported, and let’s build this country into what we always dreamed it could be, the reason we all came here or live here in the first place.
If you don’t, you will have wasted a monumental opportunity that will probably not come back to you in your lifetime.

Steve Smith
http://www.StevesCelebrities.com

[Nude Chubby Boy]

i'm gonna make my own blog m

[tothebest]

http://www.blogtoilet.com/2009/10/08/the-recession-has-only-just-begun-h1b-visas-can-find-work-though

[tothebest]

yeah , i could see this happening.
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