Three Cheers for the Founding Fathers and California on President's Day

The State of California has the lowest credit rating of any state.  We have a $42 billion deficit and no budget to ameliorate it.  In fact, we haven't had a budget for four months [Bloomberg.com].  Every Friday, employees of the State go on unpaid leave.  A breakdown in republican democracy?  Hardly.

Sure, none of these things are desirable.  But they do prove the vitality of our democracy.  The deterioration of democratic processes is evidenced not in the budget crisis, but in Congress' acquiescence in the invasion of Iraq, the apparent lack of any desire in Washington to criminally investigate the Bush Administration, and the legions of Obama-fixated citizens content with any and everything Obama is and has been doing.

I'm not at school today because of President's Day, a day for commercial sales, reverence for past Presidents, and for me, doing lots of homework (and sneaking in some blogging).  This tradition concerns me however, because the nature of democracy is that of the rule of law exercised by an elected government, not of the benevolence or good nature of our rulers.  While it's safe to revere dead statesmen (they can't come back and tyrannize us), we must be careful not to give this same reverence to our current politicians, most notably to the Office of the unduly-powerful President of the United States.  No good can come out of faithfully adhering to what public officials tell us we should think.  We can adhere, but only if we've critically examined what they've said and know it's valid.  And even then.  In 2003, the WMDs seemed to be valid.  

Nor should Congress really listen to Obama's pleas that the apocalypse will be upon us if they don't blindly pass the stimulus.  We're in a recession.  Solidly.  And a few days or weeks or a month will not make such a big difference.  The stimulus is not going to bring us out.  Period.  Quote me on it.  Sure it'll help, but the survival of America sure doesn't depend on it.

California's legislative issues are much closer to the precipice and also much more tied up.  For four months they haven't figured out what to do.  Though they are close.  But this is precisely what our Founding Fathers, the men we celebrate today, had in mind.

Why do you think they created "separation of powers" between the three branches of government?  Or the delegation of authority between states and the Federal government?  It surely wasn't to speed things up.  The framers of the Constitution were afraid of the abuses they had just escaped with their Revolution a decade earlier.  So they purposely pitted the government against itself in order to slow it down, make it inefficient, and thus make it harder for the government to become despotic.  

This doesn't mean it can't and won't become despotic.  Witness the Alien and Sedition Acts, slavery, Jim Crow, our domestic Holocaust, Californian eugenics, and torture under Bush.  That's what happens when the American public and press sits on its hands and relies on the well-meaning of our officials.

California's budget problem is not a constitutional crisis.  It's a byproduct of comfortable elected officials (redistricting), a result of the global economic recession, and the legacy of our Founding Fathers.

What's Up With the Stimulus?

The first version of the $819 billion economic stimulus package (aka the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) was passed by the House on the 28th, by a vote of 244 in favor and 188 against (our Congressman, Jerry McNerney, was in favor).  Not one Republican voted for the bill (one abstained) and eleven Democrats went with the Republicans in a vote almost entirely along partisan lines.  The eleven against the bill were largely Blue Dog Democrats--an official coalition of Democrats who proclaim economic conservatism.  The full record of votes can be found here.  The Republicans as a bloc completely spurned Obama's attempts at compromise--but it was expected.  This has provoked a fair amount of outrage.  It has become quite fashionable among liberals to trash Obama and the Democrats for watering down the bill (adjustment of the alternative minimum tax, removing family planning funding, and cutting National Mall renovation).  But that's a really myopic viewpoint.

The House of Representatives is bigger and less likely to compromise than the Senate, which is where we'll see some bipartisanship (hopefully).  The aforementioned liberals are angry that the Democrats compromised since as they see it, there are no moderate Republicans anyway.  Actually, the House Republicans had nothing to gain by going with the stimulus the first time around.  It didn't meet their criteria (lots of tax cuts, less spending), so voting in favor would have looked weak to their constituents, especially to a party that prides itself on strength.  Furthermore, by going with it, it would have weakened the case of the Senate Republicans who will endeavor to develop the bill more in favor with their tastes.  And if they can't work something out, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell always has the filibuster option to stop a vote from happening since the Democrats are just tantalizingly short of a filibuster-proof supermajority (60, whereas the Democrats have 58, and should have 59, Al Franken, on the way).  

By compromising with House Republicans even when they showed no real commitment to the bill, Democrats have built up some good ol' faith with the Grand Ol' Party.  Also, if Republicans get too aggressive in their opposition, they'll run the risk of appearing as obstructing the necessary business of the country in favor of party politics--which is the partisanship we need to be afraid of.  Right now, however, we're just seeing the natural, virtually harmless political maneuvering that no amount of change will ever end.