UPDATED: Excerpts of what Council members said at the bottom.
And they'll say or do anything to get their hands on it.
Here's a 10-minute movie I made from comments made by each of those who spoke in support of a motion that would put the City of Los Angeles on the record as backing any and all measures that would reduce the threshold needed to approve a state budget from the current two-thirds
The City Council -- policy making body of the City of Los Angeles -- voted unanimously Friday, Democrats and Republicans alike in the non-partisan unity, to support getting rid of Proposition 13 and its taxpayer protections.
And they supported using any means necessary to get their way and repeal Proposition 13.
Missing just a couple of votes in the Legislature, and often just a couple of points at the polls, to raise taxes, your elected officials will be happy to settle for anything less than two-thirds -- 50 percent, 55, 60, why they'd even take 65 percent and still be able to raise taxes and approve a budget locally or at the state level.
All they want is your money.
The billions in dollars of government deficits could be wiped out just like that.
The tens of billions in unfunded pensions to public employees, the sweetheart contracts, the sinecures for former politicians, the patronage, the back room deals, the sellout of the public interest -- just like that your tax dollars let them go on same as always, business as usual.
I know it's asking a lot but I hope you'll watch this 10-minute movie. It might help you to make up your mind about which side you're on:
Just to be helpful for those who didn't watch the video, here's excerpts, with an interpretation, from each Council member who spoke Friday.
Koretz: Blame the Republicans: "It's a disaster of epic proportions. It's purely caused by the two-thirds budget (requirement)."
Huizar: It's not our fault: "Here we are now looking at some dramatic cuts...when we've already passed our own budget and we may have to go back to the table to make some changes because the state has not passed its budget."
Parks: Limited tyranny of majority: "Prior to Prop. 16 there was a caveat of 5 percent ..as long just as we are here today in the council nonpartisan we get to vote on what we choose to vote on. We have no one that's punishing us one way or another."
Garcetti: Selective tyranny of majority: "Californians are angry...the rules that we have passed have to change in order forf California to repair itself...It's ironic in this state as we saw with the vote on Prop. 8 you can take someone's civil rights away with a majority vpte but it takes a two-thirds vote just to pass a budget."
Rosendahl: No term limits, no Prop. 13: "No. 1 we need to restructure the budget and the budget process...this six-year term-limit is insane...the initiative process is totally dysfunctional...we need to do deal with political reform. I'm talking about clean money."
Wesson: Demoracts good, Republicans Bad: "We in Los Angeles i don't think we have a lot in common with the state of Arkansas..or Rhode Island...The entire system needs to be changed. The majority party is the Democratic Party. So you would think the agenda in the state government would be led by the majority party."
Alarcon: Who needs reform? "There's a lot of problems with the state. There's a lot of problems with Los Angeles. Anywhere in between would be better than 66 and two-thirds percent. They say... we have to do all these other radical things to fix state government... To me democracy is about the majority ruling."
LaBonge: Huh? What? Vote Aye! "Whatever is this about?: "What are we recommending?...I ask you for an aye vote."
Zine, as presiding officer: Just trying to help: "12 ayes, that matter passes. Hopefully that will help the state and the budget."
And they'll say or do anything to get their hands on it.
Here's a 10-minute movie I made from comments made by each of those who spoke in support of a motion that would put the City of Los Angeles on the record as backing any and all measures that would reduce the threshold needed to approve a state budget from the current two-thirds
The City Council -- policy making body of the City of Los Angeles -- voted unanimously Friday, Democrats and Republicans alike in the non-partisan unity, to support getting rid of Proposition 13 and its taxpayer protections.
And they supported using any means necessary to get their way and repeal Proposition 13.
Missing just a couple of votes in the Legislature, and often just a couple of points at the polls, to raise taxes, your elected officials will be happy to settle for anything less than two-thirds -- 50 percent, 55, 60, why they'd even take 65 percent and still be able to raise taxes and approve a budget locally or at the state level.
All they want is your money.
The billions in dollars of government deficits could be wiped out just like that.
The tens of billions in unfunded pensions to public employees, the sweetheart contracts, the sinecures for former politicians, the patronage, the back room deals, the sellout of the public interest -- just like that your tax dollars let them go on same as always, business as usual.
I know it's asking a lot but I hope you'll watch this 10-minute movie. It might help you to make up your mind about which side you're on:
Just to be helpful for those who didn't watch the video, here's excerpts, with an interpretation, from each Council member who spoke Friday.
Koretz: Blame the Republicans: "It's a disaster of epic proportions. It's purely caused by the two-thirds budget (requirement)."
Huizar: It's not our fault: "Here we are now looking at some dramatic cuts...when we've already passed our own budget and we may have to go back to the table to make some changes because the state has not passed its budget."
Parks: Limited tyranny of majority: "Prior to Prop. 16 there was a caveat of 5 percent ..as long just as we are here today in the council nonpartisan we get to vote on what we choose to vote on. We have no one that's punishing us one way or another."
Garcetti: Selective tyranny of majority: "Californians are angry...the rules that we have passed have to change in order forf California to repair itself...It's ironic in this state as we saw with the vote on Prop. 8 you can take someone's civil rights away with a majority vpte but it takes a two-thirds vote just to pass a budget."
Rosendahl: No term limits, no Prop. 13: "No. 1 we need to restructure the budget and the budget process...this six-year term-limit is insane...the initiative process is totally dysfunctional...we need to do deal with political reform. I'm talking about clean money."
Wesson: Demoracts good, Republicans Bad: "We in Los Angeles i don't think we have a lot in common with the state of Arkansas..or Rhode Island...The entire system needs to be changed. The majority party is the Democratic Party. So you would think the agenda in the state government would be led by the majority party."
Alarcon: Who needs reform? "There's a lot of problems with the state. There's a lot of problems with Los Angeles. Anywhere in between would be better than 66 and two-thirds percent. They say... we have to do all these other radical things to fix state government... To me democracy is about the majority ruling."
LaBonge: Huh? What? Vote Aye! "Whatever is this about?: "What are we recommending?...I ask you for an aye vote."
Zine, as presiding officer: Just trying to help: "12 ayes, that matter passes. Hopefully that will help the state and the budget."
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
Yes, I saw it live on Ch. 35, not surprising but disgraceful nonetheless. Especially ironic that it's being pushed hardest by "progressives" because the low-income elderly who have owned their homes for years and seen sharp declines in v value of these "nest eggs" which may be all they have to borrow against, would be the first to lose their homes because they can't afford the higher taxes.
Even IF there were some low-income threshhold that could be exempt or have a reduce increase - something they're not even talking about -- it would be embarrassing to have to plead poverty to keep your own home. For the rest of us who wouldn't necessarily lose our homes but can't put our own kids into LAUSD anyway, and have to pay the exhorbitant private school fees (for schools that are often inferior to good public schools elsewhere), and with state colleges from the community colleges to UCState having programs drastically cut/ enrollment limited/ fees soaring, we'd keep getting less and less for more. All of California would suffer and create even more of an incentive for people to move out of state, but homeowners in LA with our huge burden of poor and illegals would lose most.
Zine and Smith went along too as you note. Zine in particular loves to make a lot of noise about certain issues that hit the hot buttons of his west valley constituents, like bashing Bratton and SO40 and illegals, and AEG as a "downtown giveaway interest." (While voting WITH Alarcon, Huizar and Garcetti to use the national government to push through immigration reform, i.e. legalization without consequences for having broken the law in the first place, and before there is a national policy limiting aid to illegal immigrants or requiring them to be deported after serving their time and making sure they don't come back, as the jamiel's Law he supports wants. The rest have never seen a tax they don't like but hypocrites are worst.)
To call this "budget reform" instead of "tax increase" is a sham to fool the public.
The one person who said something to think about was Koretz, that right now, with a Republican minority able to veto every tax or move by the Democrats, they get millions of dollars of pork for their often rinky-dink towns in order to go along and buck the anger of their party. I recall Stockton for example getting far more in anti-terror funds and infrastructure improvement than its size or importance would merit, because it's Republican. Maybe we should simply forbid that kind of extortion instead of reducing the 2/3 threshold.
It’s a very telling piece of video. Every one of the council speakers spoke of taxes as if they were an entitlement for any cause of government.
Garcetti spoke of the need for more money for schools but ignores the failure of LAUSD even when it continued to throw money at the problems including dropouts and achievement. Maybe the “management” choices made in how money is spent would improve performance; more spending is not the answer. And if you saw choices in LAUSD spending for lavish campuses like H.S. #9 on Grand and the Hollywood Freeway in the range exceeding $230 million, and Beaudry aka “Roybal Learning Center,” even more wasteful, you can see how comparisons to flushing cash down a toilet can be made for all the benefits that arise. Garcetti needs to exclude the school system as any reason that justifies increasing taxes.
Back to the video- they are bickering over the inability to impose MORE taxation and they are bickering over the State taking what they, the city council members, consider as THEIR entitlement to certain tax money.
They are fanatical in their single-mindedness in getting into a position to overcome ANY obstacles to grabbing your dollars as taxes.
No one spoke of a small factor in the mix and that is “GOVERNMENT SPENDING,” and the practice of spending beyond sustainable levels.
There is not any consideration of contracting the expenses in any way. Were they financially sustainable spending habits, there would be no need to get more money now. And then you have no one talking about the consequences to fixed income property owners, and some tenants, too, of the adverse impact they would suffer by removing existing restrictions on the ability to increase taxes. Wasn’t it that very situation that was part of the motivation for Prop. 13 to be created in the first place?
If rent control is considered so vital to the financial well being of renters, why isn't tax control on owned housing considered exactly the same?
This is to say nothing about voted indebtness, parcel taxes, and the other taxes that litter my annual property bill.
I know: I am a home owner; I must be rich. I am getting really tired of paying for other people's bad life choices.
Finally Ron, you show your colors. You are a Republican who always goes back to the usual anti tax ideology that is the one unifying principle they all agree on. Even Arnold S.
So you support the present system which is a tyranny of the minority. It only takes 1/3 of the State Senate or Assembly to block passage of a budget. Only 3 states do their budgets this way.
This is really helpful Ron. Why not advocate no taxes? This is the simple answers your readers would love and you'll be well on your way to getting on talk radio, where you can make even less sense.
Phony!
What a disgrace. Not one voice raised to demand parity, at least some spending reform to offset proposed tax bailouts.
Have Villaraigosa, Koretz, Wesson, Alarcon and Cardenas found religion? Weren't they part of the Sacramento crowd that was stealing from our City and LAUSD?
When are the rights of the minority important? Property owners cannot be the ATM machine for bad government.
Thanks, Ron, for making the video and transcript remarks available for all of LA to see and hear. It saddens me as a pre-boomer, born in 1936, to think that all the years I worked and saved in order to have a comfortable retirement will be going down the drain.
First, the recent financial melt-down left me with a third less money in my investments. The stimulus spending will have to be paid through either higher taxes or by printing more money,which will bring on inflation. Cap and trade will mean I'll pay more for energy; and the cost of the products I buy will increase, because manufacturers will pass on their increased costs to consumers. Health care reform is going to restrict the medical care seniors like me will receive and add to my tax burden as well. I don't know what else Washington can do to hurt those of us who have helped buid this country to its once strong position, but if the politicians can find a way to make us pay more and get less they will.
Sacramento is in such a mess, they'll have to depend on Washington to bail them out. But our fine City Council isn't waiting, they decided that home ownership will be a right for those who can't afford it and a very expensive privilege for those not on the dole. This must be stopped before the middle-class and retirees are forced to abandon this sinking ship. Prior to killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, the council might take a look at the city employees -- their salaries, benefits and their retirement packages -- it's time to re-evaluate budgets and time to say, "Enough is enough."
I don't know if this is the appropriate venue, but I'd like to help this awareness effort by offering my twice weekly blog as a forum for concerned pre-boomers (folks born between 1930 and 1945). If you're interested, please log on to pre-boomervoices.com and express your thoughts about what you believe our generation can do collectively to stop the madness that has infected politicians at all levels of government.
At the State level, we need to keep the 2/3 threshold and bring back hard caps on annual spending increases that used to yield annual surpluses. That is the only thing to prevent the runaway spending from speeding even more out of control.
Those that advocate modifying Prop 13 to affect commercial property might as well say goodbye to jobs as the remaining businesses move to Nevada.
What we need is limited government. Let’s start with the Sate legislature then Los Angeles Lack of Leadership Council, City Legislature, including the Mayor.
Citizens for CA Reform
Petitions are ready!
Join CCR in the Citizen Legislature Project and help The People of California bring Accountability to Sacramento by returning our state to a Part Time Legislature!
Let's get this thing passed! Now you can start signing petitions!!!
http://www.kfiam640.com/pages/johnandkenshow/index.html
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Bruno will have to forgive me not watching the video because, according to him, it will either bore or nausiate me to death, which ever comes first, or I will find it hysterically funny, which I doubt.
Besides, I've already lined up on the 2/3 side. Keep it the way it is or make it even harder for them to raise taxes by making it 80% to pass; 66-2/3 percent seems to be too easy for them to get these days.
"By Anonymous on July 19, 2009 8:36 PM
Finally Ron, you show your colors. You are a Republican who always goes back to the usual anti tax ideology that is the one unifying principle they all agree on. Even Arnold S.
So you support the present system which is a tyranny of the minority. It only takes 1/3 of the State Senate or Assembly to block passage of a budget. Only 3 states do their budgets this way.
This is really helpful Ron. Why not advocate no taxes? This is the simple answers your readers would love and you'll be well on your way to getting on talk radio, where you can make even less sense. Phony!"
The reason you do not understand Ron is because
you are a LIBERAL, not a patriot. Patriots are
either Democrats or Republicans and they believe
in honesty and service to our country, not in greed and winning!!! Shame on you.