Washington, We Have A Jobs Problem

The jobs report for August showed another 216,000 losses. That's far less than previous months, in fact the smallest in a year, but still not very good. The unemployment rate jumped up to 9.7%, and it'll basically be a matter of time before we're at 10%.

The AFL-CIO released a stunning report about young workers, showing their struggles in the past decade, where they have less jobs, worse jobs and no security.

Some of the report’s key findings include:

31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago, and 79 percent of the uninsured say they don’t have coverage because they can’t afford it or their employer does not offer it.
Strikingly, one in three young workers are currently living at home with their parents.
Only 31 percent say they make enough money to cover their bills and put some money aside—22 percentage points fewer than in 1999—while 24 percent cannot even pay their monthly bills.
A third cannot pay their bills and seven in 10 do not have enough saved to cover two months of living expenses.
37 percent have put off education or professional development because they can’t afford it.
When asked who is most responsible for the country’s economic woes, close to 50 percent of young workers place the blame on Wall Street and banks or corporate CEOs. And young workers say greed by corporations and CEOs is the factor most to blame for in the current financial downturn.
By a 22-point margin, young workers favor expanding public investment over reducing the budget deficit. Young workers rank conservative economic approaches such as reducing taxes, government spending and regulation on business among the five lowest of 16 long-term priorities for Congress and the president.
Thirty-five percent say they voted for the first time in 2008, and nearly three-quarters now keep tabs on government and public affairs, even when there’s not an election going on.
The majority of young workers and nearly 70 percent of first-time voters are confident that Obama will take the country in the right direction.

At the low end, workers are often paid under the minimum wage and cheated out of overtime pay.

This is just not sustainable. A thin layer of the super-rich exploiting a permanent underclass, with many out of work or unable to gain independence, will not result in a workable society. Social unrest is a more likely outcome.

We cannot forget this. The Democratic Party is becoming reliant on the professional class instead of the working class, and it leads to policy that doesn't help workers. The shrinking unionized sector, and the inability to create policy to reverse that trend, will come back to hurt the so-called "party of the people."

Labor's lack of clout to pass EFCA in even the most overwhelmingly Democratic -- and progressive -- Congress in decades is an indication that we already have a successful progressive movement in which labor plays only a modest role. Union support was less crucial to Obama's nomination and his general election victory than it was to any previous Democratic president, which is why he's not obligated to twist arms to pass the bill. Many Democratic victories in 2008 were in states and districts where labor is weakest, like Virginia and North Carolina. And I know dozens of engaged liberals who have no idea why EFCA matters.

The new progressive coalition follows the lines of the "emerging Democratic majority" that Ruy Teixeira and John Judis predicted in their 2002 book of that name: minority, professional, and younger voters, with help from a large gender gap. This is a coalition that can win without a majority of white working-class voters, whether union members or not. (Those who were union members were always solid Democrats.) In many ways, that's good because it helps to bring an end to the culture wars that limited the party's ability to speak clearly about matters of fundamental rights and justice.

But it's also dangerous. A political coalition that doesn't need Joe the -- fake -- Plumber (John McCain's mascot of the white working class) can also afford to ignore the real Joes, Josés, and Josephines of the working middle class, the ones who earn $16 an hour, not $250,000 a year. It can afford to be unconcerned about the collapse of manufacturing jobs, casually reassuring us that more education is the answer to all economic woes. A party of professionals and young voters risks becoming a party that overlooks the core economic crisis--not the recession but the 40-year crisis--that is wiping out the American dream for millions of workers and communities that are never going to become meccas for foodies and Web designers.

I think the lack of connection between Democrats and the working class reflects itself in all these jobless recoveries we're seeing. Policy just isn't made for the median income, but of, by and for the rich. It's a very dangerous situation.

70 Cents An Hour

As the final phase from a bill passed back in 2007, today the federal minimum wage rises to $7.25 an hour from $6.55 for workers across the country. This brings the federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, back to where it was in the 1990s. It's hard to determine how many minimum-wage employees there are out there, but the best guess is that five million people get a raise today. Here's one of them.

While those workers include thousands of financially secure students still living with Mom and Dad, they also include thousands of the most impoverished and vulnerable members of the workforce – those who sink further into debt each month as ordinary expenses outweigh their meager paychecks.

April Greer, 36, is one of them.

Her troubles began in December, when her husband was sent to prison for a parole violation, leaving her the sole provider for her three teenage children who live with her.

In January, she was fired from her job at a cellular provider. She said she was late for work because her sister-in-law commandeered her car.

She spent early spring trawling East Dallas for a new job, but, like millions of Americans, she found none.

In early May, Greer's electricity provider finally turned out the lights. A few days later, her landlord changed the locks. She and her children crowded into the South Dallas bungalow of her husband's parents.

She finally caught a break two months ago, when a nonprofit agency helped her land a part-time, minimum-wage job at T.J. Maxx, taking home about $800 a month.

Two weeks ago, after she started having dizzy spells at work, she collapsed and spent two days in the hospital.

Doctors aren't sure what's wrong with her. Maybe diabetes. Maybe her heart. Maybe just stress.

Greer knows she can't afford $434 a month for the medication her doctor says she needs. She can barely afford the $100 a week she's been paying her in-laws to cover their ballooning utility bills.

She wants to find a second job, but doesn't know if her body can take it.

"Since I'm the only one right now for my kids, I have to take care of my health," she said.

Those with the lowest incomes are often those who have the most health issues. That comes from stress, overwork, the lack of a nutritious diet, living in low-income environments where more pollution exists, and a variety of other factors. In this most cruel of American landscapes, the poor and the sick often are the same person.

But what we'll hear today is how adding 70 cents an hour will bankrupt businesses. In actuality it will act as a mini-stimulus, giving the poor about $28 more a week for necessities that will almost certainly get spent and cycled into the economy.

What we certainly won't hear about is how the struggle of these minimum-wage workers fits into the health care debate. Many are probably already on Medicaid, but a provision in the bill would limit out-of-pocket costs for everyone, and expanding access would help make sure nobody who needs health coverage slips through the cracks. The air-blown press corps may have thought Obama's press conference was bor-ring, but the issues discussed directly affect the lives of people like April Greer. It would be nice if they could take up the debate with some inkling of concern for her, rather than acting like theater critics critiquing how folsky or animated the President was during his press conference.

Republicans and fiscal scolds say we just cannot afford to help someone like April. She ought to just get a job with the government. But Krugman says something important today - contrary to conservative belief, access and cost control are complementary.

Why does meaningful action on medical costs go along with compassion? One answer is that compassion means not closing your eyes to the human consequences of rising costs. When health insurance premiums doubled during the Bush years, our health care system “controlled costs” by dropping coverage for many workers — but as far as the Bush administration was concerned, that wasn’t a problem. If you believe in universal coverage, on the other hand, it is a problem, and demands a solution.

Beyond that, I’d suggest that would-be health reformers won’t have the moral authority to confront our system’s inefficiency unless they’re also prepared to end its cruelty. If President Bush had tried to rein in Medicare spending, he would have been accused, with considerable justice, of cutting benefits so that he could give the wealthy even more tax cuts. President Obama, by contrast, can link Medicare reform with the goal of protecting less fortunate Americans and making the middle class more secure.

As a practical, political matter, then, controlling health care costs and expanding health care access aren’t opposing alternatives — you have to do both, or neither.

April Greer probably just wants the peace of mind that she can get treatment when she needs it, without going deeply and overwhelmingly into debt in the process. Long-term budgetary constraints and bending cost curves matter less to her. But Krugman is right that the two are not in conflict, and must be packaged together.

I'm happy April is getting a small raise for her troubles today. I want her to get a health care system that honors her struggle and provides her security. But Senators need a three-week recess, so she'll have to wait.

The Shining Solis In The Distance

Just because I don't want to give the impression that I'm unhappy about the Solis pick, though I think her skills would've been put to great use in the California governor's race and maybe saved the state, here's a great appreciation by Harold Meyerson, who has followed Solis' career for some time.

In 1996, when she was a back-bencher (and the first Latina) in the California State Senate, Hilda Solis did something that no other political figure I known of had done before, or has done since: She took money out of her own political account to fund a social justice campaign. Under California law, the state minimum wage is set by the gubernatorially-appointed Industrial Welfare Commission, and California’s governors for the preceding 14 years, Republicans George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson, hadn’t exactly appointed members inclined to raise that wage. So Solis dipped into her own campaign treasury and came up with the money to fund the signature-gatherers to put a minimum wage hike initiative on the California ballot. The signature gatherers gathered the signatures, the measure was placed on the ballot, it passed handily in the next election, and California’s low-wage janitors and gardeners and fry and taco cooks, and millions like them, got a significant raise.

While in the legislature, Solis also became the chief proponent in state government for the environmental justice movement that was bubbling up in various working-class communities around the state, steering to passage bills that reduced airborne carcinogens in industrial areas and that created parkland alongside the rivers that run through some of Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods. She took a leading role in promoting domestic violence awareness in the state’s communities of color.

And in 2000, she did something liberals always talk about doing and almost never do: she challenged an incumbent Democratic congressman with a piss-poor record in that Spring’s Democratic primary, and defeated him soundly. Marty Martinez, a 9-term incumbent seeking his 10th, had voted for NAFTA, opposed gun controls and abortion rights, and backed the extension of a freeway into a residential area -- managing to estrange labor, enviros, feminists and liberals of all descriptions. Still, Democrats virtually never run against incumbents, from the left or from anyplace. But Solis, with the encouragement of L.A. County AFL-CIO chieftain Miguel Contreras, did just that. She not only won, but defeated Matinez by a whopping 69 percent to 31 percent margin.

These are all the reasons I've found her California's most compelling politician. And there's also her unyielding advocacy for green jobs, a bill which she authored and passed (though it still hasn't been funded). She understands that the new economy will include the participation of a broad working class in good union jobs working for a new energy economy. What's not to like?

Update On State Worker Salary Slash - Chiang Outflanks Arnold Again

You may remember that Arnold Schwarzenegger sued John Chiang in state court to follow his order, and his dream, of cutting all state worker salaries to the minimum wage while we wait for a budget. The court date was set for September 12, which salvaged the salaries for the month of August. Chiang's next move was to partner with some labor allies and move the lawsuit into the federal courts. This not only would delay the question of whether or not Chiang needs to follow the order, but removes a serious liability problem for the state, because if they slashed salaries per a state court order and then had it overturned by the feds, they would be on the hook for expensive penalties and payments.

Now, this has become complete, with the state canceling the September 12 court date.

This afternoon, controller spokesman Jacob Roper delivered this bit of news via e-mail to the State Worker:

Since the case has moved to the Federal court, the Sept 12th superior court hearing will not be held. A group of labor organizations has filed a motion to move the case from the Eastern Federal district to the Northern district, and a hearing on that motion is scheduled for October 31.

Roper also restated the controller's position that cutting salaries to minimum wage would be a massive, time-consuming reprogramming task, "so there is no reason to believe that minimum wage checks would be issued anytime soon."

While the lingering budget crisis is still incredibly painful for all manner of Californians, with missed payments sure to come if nothing is settled by the end of the month, at least the state workers have John Chiang in their corner, fighting for their interests. And this is mirrored by the stirring testimony of everyday workers who are losing their benefits and the control of their lives as the Yacht Party turns up its nose and turns its back on the people. John Chiang is doing his part, and Republican rank and file citizens are putting on the pressure in selected districts; the only way to ultimately win this fight is at the ballot box.

John Chiang's Leadership

One of the few bright spots of this 8-week budget roller coaster has been the leadership of State Controller John Chiang, who stood up and simply said "no" to the shock doctrine tactics of the Governor and his attempts to slash state worker salaries to the minimum wage and eliminate the jobs of thousands of others. Schwarzenegger's talk of compromise among the legislature and right-wing Republicans didn't extend to state workers, and he took Chiang to court to force him to uphold his executive order. As a result of Chiang at least offering resistance, the workers have a reprieve for August.

State workers targeted by a gubernatorial order to cut their pay to federal minimum wage have dodged that bullet - at least for August.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge Wednesday set a hearing to decide the pay dispute for Sept. 12, too late to affect this month's state payroll.

Judge Timothy Frawley's timetable ensures that 145,000 state employees and an additional 30,000 managers and supervisors will receive full pay for August.

This doesn't happen unless Chiang goes to back for those employees. And the grassroots in California is grateful. Frank Russo reports on a meeting in Oakland:

California Controller John Chiang spoke to the Alameda County Democratic Lawyer’s Club yesterday at a small restaurant in Oakland and had a lot to say about the state employee pay order. But he had a lot more to say, about his approach to government, helping average Californians, and his values and philosophy about government while speaking for over a half hour without notes and then taking questions.

From the beginning, he was treated as a rock star—introduced by club President Meredith Brown, as “the man who stood up to the man.” He covered a lot of territory—and was paid rapt attention as he challenged this body of lawyers to continue their good work for the betterment of society. He even worked in themes from the Obama campaign, as he prepares to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and appear on the national stage. Josh Richman, a reporter and “blogger” for the Oakland Tribune attended this meeting and you can see his write up for a feel of what transpired as well.

Read the whole thing for Chiang's comments, which are great. Hopefully he'll repeat them at the DNC this week. Amazing what can happen to Democrats if they stand up for themselves, isn't it?

Let's Everybody Go To Court

Just a quick update on the latest on Gov. Schwarzenegger's slashing of state worker salaries. After John Chiang refused to carry out the executive order, today Arnold sued him.

Schwarzenegger's Department of Personnel Administration filed a lawsuit against Chiang late Monday in Sacramento County Superior Court. The suit says the state Constitution and several sections of law prohibit the state from paying full wages without approval of a budget.

“Except where payments are self-executing under the California Constitution, the state has no authority to pay state employees their full salaries where it does not have an appropriation such as in this case, where there is no budget for fiscal year 2008-2009,” the lawsuit says.

Chiang, a Democrat, has balked at making the pay cuts, saying the state has enough money to cover its needs into October.

“The governor has created a solution to a problem that does not exist...,” Chiang said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed.

This has become less about fiscal responsibility during a budget crisis and more about an authoritarian demanding his way. As for the original intention of the order, to force a compromise on the budget, that's, er, not happening.

Schwarzenegger met Monday with the Legislature's Democratic leaders to try to reach a budget compromise.

“We're still talking. We haven't thrown anything at each other,” Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said after emerging from the governor's office.

The Decline And Fall Of Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't just vow to keep taxes low, he ran an entire campaign in 2006 based on scaring people into believing that his opponent would raise taxes by $18 billion dollars. None of it was true, but he hammered away at it. In the one and only debate he chided Phil Angelides, saying "you love taxes" and other nonsense. Dan Weintraub even remembered this spiel:

"They get into their car, they're taxed. They go to the gas station, they're taxed. They go for lunch, they're taxed. This goes on all day long. Tax, tax, tax, tax, tax. Even when they go to bed, you can go to bed in fear that you are going to be taxed while you're sleeping, that there is a sleeping tax."

The admission of defeat, that there's no way to balance this budget without revenue increases, is truly astonishing. What's more, the broad-based sales tax he's proposing, the most regressive imaginable, really would tax Californians at virtually every point of the day. He's become a caricature (if he wasn't one already).

The proposal amounts to an admission of failure. Running in 2003 as a novice politician after careers as a bodybuilder and actor, Schwarzenegger thought he could cut taxes, control spending and balance the budget, ending what he called "those crazy deficits." But the fiscal and economic problem was more complicated than he knew, and the politics far more vexing.

Schwarzenegger did cut taxes. He campaigned on a pledge to roll back the vehicle license fee, or "car tax," which his predecessor, Gray Davis, had tripled. And on Schwarzenegger's first day in office, the new governor issued an executive order reducing the tax by two-thirds.

But controlling spending proved far more difficult, as, ironically, that first tax-cut order foretold. The car tax against which Schwarzenegger had railed, while controlled by the state, was actually a source of revenue for local governments. And so when Schwarzenegger reduced it, he also made good on a pledge to pay cities and counties what was then $4billion a year to make up for what they lost when he cut the car tax.

The state, however, did not have that money to spare, and the payments to cities and counties added to the deficit Schwarzenegger had vowed to eliminate. That obligation to local government has since grown to $6 billion – not coincidentally the same amount that would be raised by the sales tax increase Schwarzenegger now supports.

The VLF was the original sin here, but not the only one. The problem is structural and the VLF would have only delayed the inevitable. The truth is that the state is only built for success, never for a downturn like we're currently having. And so this results in gimmicks like slashing state employee salaries and putting them in the middle of a budget spat, or borrowing more and more to pass the deficit on to our children and grandchildren.

(The latest on the wage cuts, by the way, is that the governor is demanding that his order be followed, which John Chiang will refuse, leading to a likely lawsuit. Chiang really is a hero in all of this, and he's filling a leadership vacuum. Marcus Breton has a nice profile today.)

Schwarzenegger has never concerned himself with the business of governing - he preferred slogans to policy. And with the policy going to crap, the slogans sound more hollow - especially the one that goes "tax, tax, tax, tax, tax."

California: The Ultimate In Dysfunction

It's really the ultimate way for this state employee wage cut to end up - turns out that the payroll generation is so antiquated, they can't change it to reflect the new salary structure for months.

State Controller John Chiang said Monday an antiquated state computer system makes it impossible to adjust the state payroll quickly to issue minimum-wage checks to state workers. He said it would take at least six months to make the change.

The Democratic controller has vowed to defy Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's executive order directing the state to pay workers the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour until a budget agreement is reached. He has previously asserted that the Republican governor's order is based on an untested 2003 state Supreme Court legal opinion and that he will continue issuing full paychecks to state employees.

But in a meeting with The Bee Capitol Bureau on Monday, Chiang said that even if Schwarzenegger's legal reasoning were sound, the state could not logistically retool its outdated payroll system in a matter of weeks, as the governor has asked. If the change were eventually made, Chiang also said it would take an additional nine to 10 months to issue checks to employees for their full back pay.

We've seen this in LA County with errors in paychecks to teachers, which resulted in major repayments and "treble" damages, which require the government to pay three times as much in damages to those affected.

Of course, the state could always update their payroll systems - which would require more revenue. Or they could just throw more manpower at the problem - which would require hiring those state workers that Arnold tried to fire (which agencies are promptly not firing).

It's really a tragicomedy over there in Sacramento.

Fraying At The Edges

I was on a conference call earlier with State Controller John Chiang and Rep. Hilda Solis about the Governor's callous executive order, and both delivered predictably strong comments. Chiang, who has told the governor he will refuse to comply with the order, blasted Schwarzenegger, saying "state workers shouldn't be put in the middle of a political battle," and that this was a nakedly punitive attempt against California's state employee unions, which the whom the Governor has always held a grudge (they helped deep-six his "reform" agenda in 2005). Rep. Solis was even more outraged, saying "let's put him on the federal minimum wage, and get rid of the special interests paying for his hotel room across the street from the Capitol, and see how he likes it." She rocks.

Chiang has made his decision, and now only litigation can force him to carry out the Governor's order (and Chiang discouraged litigation as a "waste of time.") But we expect these kind of statements from Democrats. Take a look at this one from Republican Greg Aghazarian:

"While I appreciate the Governor's leadership on this budget crisis, I cannot support reducing the salaries of our state employees to minimum wage.

If our state workers had the power to pass a budget, then it might be appropriate to hold them accountable, but that's not where the responsibility lies according to our State Constitution. I cannot predict when a budget will be passed, but I do know this, when it does happen it will be because we worked to achieve bipartisan solutions.

I understand what the Governor is trying to accomplish with this action, but I must respectfully disagree and urge the Governor to reconsider his executive order."

Now, Aghazarian is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He's trying to win a Senate election against Lois Wolk in SD-05, and he wants to be seen as some kind of moderate when his record suggests the opposite. But the fact that he's gone off the reservation means that there's a lot of pressure to come out against the Governor on this one, putting him alone on an island of his own making. It's important to keep pounding away and make him completely unpopular and unable to help his party in the fall as a result of this stupid, heartless action.

The Governor has set up a Web site to answer employee questions about the wage cut. Predictably, it has no interactive function. If he allowed comments on it the server would be down.

Priceless

OK, so check this out. Arnold signs the executive order slashing state employee salaries to $6.55 an hour, the federal minimum wage.

At the same time, he's agreed to host a fundraiser in three weeks with Oregon Senator Gordon Smith (R). Here's the invite, courtesy his Democratic opponent Jeff Merkley:



The bottom of the invite says "Host and Photo Opportunities at $10,000 give/raise."

The annual salary for a state worker under the federal, based on a 40-hour work week and a 50-week year, is $13,100.

So Arnold thinks the cost of getting a picture with him is roughly equivalent to the cost of working for an entire year running his state government.

Priceless.

Senate To Arnold: Say That To Our Face

As we brace for the Governor's executive order slashing state employee salaries, the Senate Governmental Organization committee wants some answers.

Anticipating that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today will sign an executive order to cut state worker pay and terminate about 22,000 temporary, part-time and contract jobs, the Senate's Governmental Organization committee has called on Schwarzenegger to explain his rationale. The committee, chaired by Senator Dean Florez (D-Schafter), has scheduled the hearing for Monday at 10 a.m. Schwarzenegger is invited. Controller John Chiang and leaders of state worker unions will testify, according to a press advisory.

Florez, who sought the advisory opinion from the legislative counsel about this move (which showed that John Chiang has more than enough constitutional authority to deny the wage cut from going through), said in his press statement: "I think the Governor owes the public a full explanation as to why he has singled out the state's workforce with his executive order to cut their salaries."

Right on. Which is why you should keep calling Arnold and ruin his birthday by demanding an explanation of your own.

This is a good move by Florez, both from the standpoint of policy and politics.

Arnold and Them

Bravo to the Courage Campaign for putting together this excellent video, in the "Roger & Me" style, about trying to deliver petitions to Governor Schwarzenegger from over 28,000 constituents who don't want to see state workers get shafted with a slash in salary to the federal minimum wage because the lawmakers can't come up with a budget. They also would like you to call Arnold.

On the same day that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger received 28,016 petition signatures from the Courage Campaign, True Majority, and CREDO Mobile, Arnold announced that he would delay signing an Executive Order slashing the wages of over 200,000 state workers to $6.55 an hour, the federal minimum wage.

That's the good news. The bad news is that Arnold delayed the Executive Order signing to Thursday.

That's 24 hours from now. Which means we still have time TODAY to pressure Arnold to stop holding state workers hostage to his political budget negotiation games.

As a community of concerned citizens, we've got just a few hours to take action together. On behalf of hundreds of thousands of state workers, please pick up your phone right now and call Arnold.

Let's flood the Governor's phone lines. Here are several numbers for Arnold -- call one, call some or call them all:
Sacramento: 916-445-2841 (press 1, 2, and 0 to speak to a live person)

Fresno: 559-445-5295 (a live person should answer your call)

Los Angeles: 213-897-0322 (a live person should answer your call)

Riverside: 951-680-6860 (a live person should answer your call)

San Diego: 619-525-4641 (a live person should answer your call)

San Francisco: 415-703-2218 (a live person should answer your call)

Washington D.C.: 202-624-5270 (press 0 to leave a general message)

This is great citizen activism - it's not necessarily going to stop Arnold from this callous action, but it'll raise awareness to exactly what he's doing. Meanwhile, John Chiang has vowed not to carry out the policy, and he'll need backup.

Democratic Leadership On Arnold's Worker Scam

The CDP sent out a message from Controller John Chiang about the proposed wage cut to state workers:

When I received word that Gov. Schwarzenegger was proposing to use California's state workers as pawns in the budget battle by cutting their pay to the federal minimum wage of $6.55, I said civil servants should not bear the brunt of the budget stalemate.

Since then, thousands of Californians have joined with me to protest the Governor's proposed -- and needless -- order to slash the pay of California's public servants. I want you to know I will stand strong against the Governor's threats.

Show Gov. Schwarzenegger that you stand with me by signing the California Democratic Party's petition at www.cadem.org/supportcaliforniaworkers.

Forcing public servants to involuntarily loan the State cash by foregoing their hard-earned paychecks puts an untenable burden on our teachers, health care workers and those who provide critical public services. That is just wrong.

Excellent. Chiang is really coming out like a hero in this.

Taking another tack, Lt. Governor John Garamendi sent a letter to the Governor (via the SacBee's new state worker blog:

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

I write to you today regarding the proposed executive order to reduce the minimum wage of 200,000 of California's state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour.

As you contemplate signing this executive order, please ask yourself - how would you feed and care for your family on $262 per week ($1,048 per month)? How would your hardworking staff fare on these minimal earnings? Could you and your family do it for one week?

It is our duty, as elected officials of this great State, to find solutions to the many challenging problems that face California, such as the state budget. Those solutions should always look to improve the quality of life for all Californians, not impede it.

Please walk a week in a state worker's shoes before you sign this executive order and imagine yourself and your family surviving on $262 per week.

This is reminiscent of the SEIU's "Walk A Day in My Shoes" program, as well as the challenge taken by members of Congress earlier this year to live on a food stamp budget for a week. It gets replicated because it works. Garamendi is taking the right approach to humanize the budget crisis.

John Chiang: Working Class Hero

It does appear that our state Controller has basically said "No Dice" to the governor's plan to punish state workers for his own leadership failures.

While the governor is poised to order the cuts on Monday, state Controller John Chiang, who is responsible for disbursing state workers' paychecks, said Thursday that he will refuse to go along with the governor, setting up a political standoff and a possible legal fight.

"The authority to issue people's paychecks is mine. I have both constitutional and statutory authority," said Chiang, a Democrat. "Frankly, (the governor) is just trying to make me do something that's improper and illegal."

The same exact thing happened in 2003, with Steve Westly refusing to cut salaries as then-Gov. Gray Davis requested. And Westly got his way until the budget was eventually signed on August 2. This basically throws the whole issue into the courts and delays the implementation of any salary cut. And that's a legal fight I relish having. For too long the chief executive of the state - and in some cases, the legislature - has absolutely overstepped their authority with regard to fiscal matters. The most egregious example is their raiding municipal government and transit funds to fill in the cracks of the budget deficit, which leads to ridiculous outcomes like cutting bus service at a time when mass transit should be expanding.

But Chiang standing with workers and holding on to his authority as a statewide elected official is just as important. We elect a governor, not a king, and this encroachment on the jurisdiction of other constitutional officers is illegal and increasingly dangerous. State workers who are rallying against the proposed cuts should understand that they have a champion in John Chiang, and that his decision deserves their support. The California Democratic Party has a petition you can sign to stand with the Controller in this effort.

The Terrible Politics of the Iraq Funding Debacle

More than anything, what upsets me about this out and out cave-in from the Democratic leadership on the Iraq bill is how poor they played it politically. If the leadership quickly realized that they didn't have the votes for withdrawal or to sustain a veto for any kind of timeline, and they reasoned that they couldn't be seen as denying the troops money - and they had their minds made up about both of these very early, by February - why not give in early and press the domestic agenda instead of getting everyone's hopes up, only to set a self-imposed deadline of Memorial Day and then cave, in the process derailing the other legislation that was critical to electoral success in 2006? Not only are the headlines tomorrow going to be awful, but they lost MORE, far more than they gained in fighting the President to this point. Consider this, via Steve Soto, who I think is one of the sharpest minds in the business when it comes to things like this:

Both Harry Reid and Steny Hoyer stated the obvious today: that the Democrats don't have a veto-proof majority in either house. Yeah, so? You knew this back in February, as did most everyone else. It was your job and everyone else in the Democratic leadership to fashion a strategy that made the GOP pay a price for rubber-stamping Bush's surge while still pushing your agenda. And you and your Beltway consultants failed. So stop your whining and get back to the drawing board [...]

Instead of shifting the burden onto the GOP leadership for finding the votes for a “no-strings” funding bill back in February, and moving ahead with the Democrats’ domestic agenda, Reid and Pelosi got sucked into a futile battle to change course without the numbers or messaging to force such a change. Now, they both will face a hostile Democratic base over the summer while the GOP leadership quietly works towards a face-saving break with Bush late this year. And all the Democrats have to show for it are declining poll numbers, just like Bush.

The worst part of this was imposing this Memorial Day deadline for no good reason. Bush played it the way he goes on about how the terrorists would play a timeline - he waited the Dems out and they panicked. They should have said "our work is done, sign our bill or round up a majority for your own bill" and forced the minority to whip up the votes to rubber-stamp Bush's war. Instead we did the work for them.

AND, if a deal is reached, it'll be the GOP in Congress who "stopped the war." After all, THEIR benchmarks are what made the final bill. THEIR timeline of September is the working assumption in Washington of when the dynamic will change. How could a self-respecting Democratic Party, politically speaking, give away the ability to end an unpopular war and break with an unpopular President?

The domestic agenda has been lying fallow for months while the leadership played a game of chicken that they knew they weren't about to push to win. And adding the minimum wage bill and those Katrina/farm relief programs to this package was doubly stupid. Most true antiwar progressives, like Feingold, aren't going to support a toothless Iraq bill. So now you've put them all in the outrageous position of having to vote against the minimum wage increase, a cruel little trick designed to keep those who don't want to see "Congressman X voted against the minimum wage" ads in their districts next November. And any benefit from FINALLY enacting one piece of the "100 Hour" agenda will be largely forgotten in the wake of the stories about how the Dems conceded and Bush won.

Here's Soto again:

So, four months of bruises leaves the Democrats with perhaps only a minimum wage increase to show for it. In the hopper and still to come is a trade bill written by K Street, a weakened ethics bill, a cave-in on Medicare Part D reform, and nothing yet on an expansion of the SCHIP or implementing fully the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Yes, they are investigating everything that they should, but they still haven’t started the court challenge over White House rejection of congressional subpoenas.

There was a window of time back in early February when the Democratic leadership had split the GOP caucus with the domestic agenda, and that moment has been lost, a casualty of the war funding debates and the Democratic leadership’s willingness to resume its love affair with corporate cash.

It's enough to make you sick. This Congress was elected solely to challenge Bush on Iraq. The other popular pieces of the domestic agenda were nice side benefits. Now the Congress has delivered neither, and their way forward looks completely muddled. (somebody want to tell me why we're debating a crappy IMMIGRATION bill that nobody likes in the Senate right now, when there's so much of the 100 Hour agenda still unpassed?)

Chris Bowers isn't wrong that we've come a long way in the progressive movement (7 years ago our VP candidate was Joe Lieberman) and that we still need to grow our majority of the majority. But all of that was well-known a while ago. It's the horrible politics of this action that irks me. There was a time when I thought Harry Reid was a decent gambler as a leader. He just folded a straight flush while Bush had aces high. He's failed, and so has Pelosi.

Speaking of Caves

I'm trying to figure out what universe makes it sensible to do this, if in fact this is what the Democrats are planning.

In grudging concessions to President Bush, Democrats intend to draft an Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs, officials said Monday.

The legislation would include the first federal minimum wage increase in more than a decade, a top priority for the Democrats who took control of Congress in January, the officials added.

Didn't the minimum wage increase pass with overwhelming support? Why would you need to throw it in the Iraq bill (and mute the political benefit) if it's veto-proof anyway? Wouldn't you want a big signing ceremony with a bunch of low-wage workers at the press conference? That's bad politics.

And the policy is, well, abominable. And any Presidential candidate who votes for it is going to have a hard time squaring with primary voters. I don't understand why Democratic leaders would make timetables FOR THEMSELVES in this debate by claiming that they have to give Bush a bill he can sign by Memorial Day? Isn't intransigence the proper response to intransigence? Especially when submission means more death, more destruction and less hope of any possible solution in Iraq?

This is essentially a "see you in September" maneuver, and I just don't buy the premise that the Republicans are going to head for the exits at that point.

While details remain subject to change, the measure is designed to close the books by Friday on a bruising veto fight between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the war. It would provide funds for military operations in Iraq through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Democrats in both houses are expected to seek other opportunities later this year to challenge Bush's handling of the unpopular conflict.

Why you would give in to a lame duck President who's approval ratings have been in the 30s for well over a year is beyond me. The President's team has already disrespected the process by offering no compromise of their own. Yet the Dems are listening to the voices of High Broderism, claiming that they must copromise at all costs because it would simply be messy to do otherwise. I submit that a little messy is just what we need right now.

For the record, Democratic leaders are not confirming the story. I should hope not. It would be astonishingly stupid to do this.

We Need Some Accomplishments.

People in the blogosphere have called this a hit piece, but there's some substantive truth to it, and you can't just reference polls showing that nobody likes George Bush in order to rebut it. The fact is that the Democrats did run on a specific agenda that has vastly broad public support. And half of that agenda has been passed by both houses of Congress, and has been waiting for a conference report for several weeks. I'm getting a little antsy:

The "Six for '06" policy agenda on which Democrats campaigned last year was supposed to consist of low-hanging fruit, plucked and put in the basket to allow Congress to move on to tougher targets. House Democrats took just 10 days to pass a minimum-wage increase, a bill to implement most of the homeland security recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, a measure allowing federal funding for stem cell research, another to cut student-loan rates, a bill allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and a rollback of tax breaks for oil and gas companies to finance alternative-energy research [...]

The minimum-wage bill got stalled in a fight with the Senate over tax breaks to go along with the wage increase. In frustration, Democratic leaders inserted a minimum-wage agreement into a bill to fund the Iraq war, only to see it vetoed.

Similar homeland security bills were passed by the House and the Senate, only to languish as attention shifted to the Iraq debate. Last week, family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, gathered in Washington to demand action.

"We've waited five and a half years since 9/11," said Carie Lemack, whose mother died aboard one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. "We waited three years since the 9/11 commission. We can't wait anymore."

House and Senate staff members have begun meeting, with the goal of reporting out a final bill by Memorial Day, but they concede that the deadline is likely to slip, in part because members of the homeland security committees of both chambers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the two intelligence committees all want their say. The irony, Lemack said, is that such cumbersomeness is precisely why the Sept. 11 commission recommended the creation of powerful umbrella security committees with such broad jurisdiction that other panels could not muscle their way in. That was one recommendation Congress largely disregarded.

The Medicare drug-negotiations bill died in the Senate, after Republicans refused to let it come up for debate. House Democrats are threatening to attach the bill to must-pass government funding bills.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has proposed his own student-loan legislation, but it is to be part of a huge higher-education bill that may not reach the committee until June.

The House's relatively simple energy bill faces a similar fate. The Senate has in mind a much larger bill that would ease bringing alternative fuels to market, regulate oil and gas futures trading, raise vehicle and appliance efficiency standards, and reform federal royalty payments to finance new energy technologies.

I think a lot of people have assumed that those House bills were passed into law already, so I'm skeptical of the conclusion that Democrats are paying the price for this... yet. And a lot of this can be attributed to the fact that legislation moves much more slowly in the Senate, where you have to have 60 votes to get anything passed, and that's just a fact of life. But the tax breaks on the minimum wage bill have been reconciled. The 9-11 Commission recommendations bill has been passed. And so has a stem cell bill which Bush has vowed to veto (but we're very close to an override there). There needs to be some political capital spent on getting these bills to the President's desk. I know Democrats can be an unruly lot and everyone wants their say. But Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have garnered tremendous party unity this session, and some of that must be expended to shepherd these bills through. You can add the hate crimes legislation that passed the House to that as well.

Here's the alibi part of the story:

Democratic leaders remain hopeful that a burst of activity will put the doubts about them to rest. They have promised to pass a war funding bill and a minimum-wage increase that Bush can sign, to complete a budget blueprint and to finish the homeland security bill by Memorial Day. The House wants to pass defense and intelligence bills, its own lobbying measure and the first gun-control legislation since 1994, which would tighten the national instant-check system for gun purchases. The Senate hopes to complete a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws.

That's a tall order. I hope they're up to it.

Get the Minimum Wage Bill to the White House already

OK, I'm going to slam the Democratic leadership again. In general I think they're doing a good job, but this one baffles me.

So the House and Senate decided on a compromise on how much money in corporate welfare it'll cost to give poor people a $2/hour pay raise (turns out it's $5 billion. They also had to throw out a limit to deferred compensation plans, which are a major corporate giveaway.

So, the bill's done, and the President has incdicated that, with these welfare payments to corporate America in place, he'll sign it. So the Democrats threw it into the Iraq spending bill?

The White House has indicated support for the minimum wage increase, but the measure is attached to an emergency spending bill for the Iraq war that President Bush has threatened to veto. Should he follow through on the threat, Democrats are likely to revive independent minimum-wage legislation.

Look, everybody's already on the record on this legislation. Those who voted against it will alredy be clubbed by negative ads. I sort of get that you can club those who voted for it in the first place with a "Congressman X voted against the minimum wage" ad when the Repubs vote against the final Iraq bill en masse, but here's the thing. Somewhere in America tonight a family is going hungry. They have to figure out if they're going to buy medicine or pay the rent. They have to figure out which child gets a Christmas gift this year, or if they don't. They actually need this pay raise, without delay. The House is for it, the Senate is for it, the President is for it. But the Dems just want to play a little bit more politics with it before these people can get their money.

Even if that's not a consideration, because the wage increase are gradual and timed and those timings won't change with a delay in passage (I'm not convinced), Democrats need to get a piece of their agenda to the President's desk. Most of the other 100 hours legislation has been bottled up in the Senate or in conference. Nothing's become law. The minimum wage is low-hanging fruit, and even though I detest the fact that you have to give rich businessmen money to let a poor guy make $7 an hour, this would be a major accomplishment. It should happen immediately.

Some Carrot To Go With That Stick

While the Senate simply must lead on Iraq and Iran, I do have to give them a world of credit for overwhelmingly passing a minimum wage increase today. It includes some tax breaks for small business but not nearly as many as the Republicans initially wanted. The working poor just got a major boost today, and they have deserved it for a decade.

Special thanks go out to Ted Kennedy, who worked tirelessly for this for years.

Tom Coburn (R-OK), Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), on the other hand, hate working people.