The conservative pundit icon of faux intellectualism is at it again. Adding to his blatant lies and outright misrepresentations in his global warming hit pieces this past year, Will conveniently blames liberalism for all that ails California.
Today's nationally-syndicated POS entitled "Students crushed by Liberalism" uses circular reasoning, omits pertinent facts, and draws conclusions entirely rooted in the failed ideology of conservatism. Apparently, being a DC coctail party insider means you are even more oblivious than the average Tea Bagger.
Follow me below the fold for details:
Will posits that all of California's budget problems are the result of more than 50 years of unchecked liberalism. In doing so, he conveniently ignores the passage of Proposition 13 in California which has crippled the state budget since it became law in 1978.
The proposition's passage resulted in a cap on property tax rates in the state, reducing them by an average of 57%. In addition to lowering property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to raise special taxes. Proposition 13 received an enormous amount of publicity, not only in California, but throughout the United States.
Passage of the initiative presaged a "taxpayer revolt" throughout the country that is sometimes thought to have contributed to the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980.
Both the statutory cap on property taxes and the cumbersome 2/3 majority on tax hikes and simple budgetary matters has had a lasting effect on the California educational system.
At one point, both California state schools and community colleges were among the best — if not the best — in America.
A recent Time magazine article noted that:
What has brought California to such a perilous state? How did its government become so wildly dysfunctional? One obvious cause is the deep recession, which has caused tax revenues to plunge for all states. But California's woes have a set of deeper reasons: direct democracy run amok, timid governors, partisan gridlock and a flawed constitution have all contributed to budget chaos and people in pain. And at the root of California's misery lies Proposition 13, the antitax measure that ignited the Reagan Revolution and the conservative era. In Washington, the Reagan-Bush era is over. But in California, the conservative legacy lives on.
Before Prop 13, in the 1950s and '60s, California was a liberal showcase. Governors Earl Warren and Pat Brown responded to the population growth of the postwar boom with a massive program of public infrastructure — the nation's finest public college system, the freeway system and the state aqueduct that carries water from the well-watered north to the parched south. When Ronald Reagan was governor, he actually raised taxes. Then Proposition 13 shot the tires out of Pat Brown's liberal state. Liberal legislative leaders such as Willie Brown and John Burton jerry-rigged repairs and kept the damaged vehicle running for 30 years. Now Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger says there is no choice but to complete the demolition by slashing essential services.
Will apparently did no real research for his article, simply choosing to cherry-pick quotes from conservative intellectuals (a true oxymoron) that were crafted around his flimsy thesis:
Kevin Starr, author of an eight-volume - so far - history of the (formerly) Golden State, says California is “on the verge” of becoming something without an American precedent - “a failed state.” William Voegeli, writing in the Claremont Review of Books, tartly says that “Rome wasn’t sacked in a day, and California didn’t become Argentina overnight.” Indeed.
It took years for liberalism’s redistributive itch to create an income tax so steeply progressive that it prompts the flight of wealth-creators: “Between 1990 and 2007,” Voegeli writes, some 3.4 million more Americans moved from California than moved to California.
Two conservative writers I have never heard of said it is so; therefore it must be because George Will is a Serious Person TM and what he says must be true.
Snip.
Given his past history of lies, why should anyone take the bow-tied Bozo seriously?
Most non-partisan observers acknowledge the role Prop 13 has played not only in California's budget woes but elsewhere too because the Golden State is often a trend-setter and other states have followed, including Mass. where I live which passed Prop. 2 1/2 in 1980. And who was responsible for creating this mess? An obscure man named Howard Jarvis:
Proposition 13 was the brainchild of the late Howard Jarvis. The antitax crusader was a policy genius not unlike Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both shared an affinity for designing deep structural change that, once embedded in the political system, is nearly impossible to alter without a massive change of heart by voters. Social Security is the lasting legacy of the New Deal era because F.D.R. understood that workers who contribute payroll-tax deductions from their paychecks would not want politicians tinkering with their retirement dollars. Conservatives have mounted assaults on Social Security through the years but to no avail.
Jarvis created a similarly impregnable institution.
When he rode the wave of anger over skyrocketing property-tax assessments to pass Proposition 13 in 1978, he included a two-thirds vote requirement for the passage of any new taxes in California — an insurmountable obstacle built on populist allergy to any kind of new levy. Beholden to a tax-averse electorate, the state's liberals and moderates have attempted to live with Proposition 13 while continuing to provide the state services Californians expect — freeways, higher education, prisons, assistance to needy families and, very important, essential funding to local government and school districts that vanished after the antitax measure passed.
The effect of Jarvisism is still apparent today. Anti-tax rhetoric has boiled over into the Teabagger movement. Jarvisism is one of the main reasons why homeowners are reflexively against any property tax increases, disconnected from reality that those essential services dry up or disappear entirely without the revenue source. Raising property taxes is a veritable third rail in local politics as a result of Jarvisism.
This must be news to Will, oblivious to both Prop. 13 and the presence of Republican Governor Arnold Schwartenegger for the past six years, wrote the following obligatory blame the liberals for all of our problems meme:
It took years for liberalism’s mania for micromanaging life with entangling regulations to make California’s once creative economy resemble Gulliver immobilized by the Lilliputians’ many threads.
It took years for compassionate liberalism to make California’s welfare menu contribute to the state becoming an importer of Mexico’s poverty. It took years for servile liberalism to turn the state into what Voegeli calls a “unionocracy,” run by and for unionized public employees, such as public safety employees who can retire at 50 and receive 90 percent of the final year’s pay for life.
Will ignores decades of Republican governors in Sacramento. From Jan. 1983 to the present day, California has been led by a Democratic governor for a mere four years! Gray Davis, who was recalled in the special election which Schwartenegger prevailed (in a plurality), served from 1999 to 2003. Prior to Davis, GOP candidates occupied the corner office for 16 years. Both George Deukmeijian( 1983 91) and Pete Wilson (199199) served two full terms.
Moreover, Davis, was unable to stem the tide of reduced budgets and shrinking revenues after 16 consecutive years of GOP domination had permanently damaged the once-proud California higher education system:
South of Los Angeles at California State University at Fullerton, Nicole Muth, 22, has just finished her junior year with straight A's. Muth grew up in Modesto with "lots of love but no money." Raised by her aunt and uncle, she receives a Cal Grant of $4,500 a year. "It definitely helps," says Muth, who credits the grant with allowing her to focus on her studies. As part of his proposed budget cuts, however, Schwarzenegger says Cal Grants should be phased out and that money promised to the incoming college class eliminated.
"I appreciate the grant very much and I'm concerned about students coming after me not having the opportunities I've had," says Muth. "I'm really sad to see our state in this economic crisis. It's bewildering." Muth is not alone.
The governor has addressed the need for shrinking the state, saying, "We have to go and make certain cuts in health care. We have to make certain cuts in education, in higher education, in all these various different programs, in prisons, law enforcement and so on." But Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a nonprofit advocacy group, says, "These are no longer cuts. These are amputations, and the question is, Which limb are we cutting off today?"
Typical Republican nonsense epitomized by Will. It's the Democrats fault for not giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy. As always, the party of personal responsibility refuses to own up — and the elitist George Will refuses to man up — to problems that they created.
Updated: I stopped to watch my Pats get creamed by Baltimore. They really could have used Welker today.
As much as I ripped Will a new one for this morning's column, you have to give him props for standing up to the naseating nasal nickempoop named Liz Cheney today in a morning talk show.