TODAY'S LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTS the latest move in the budget wars, which the Republicans seem to be winning.
If you haven't been tracking the twists and turns of power in California, you can go here for a briefing. Otherwise, you probably know that in spite of a Democratic majority in our legislature, the current state of California law allows Arnold and the Republican minority to block any sensible budget.
The result explains why it is that the culture wars are more than politics—why they are a spiritual issue about the kind of people we want to become.
The California government had a very simple choice before it this budget year:
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We could raise taxes minimally on the very richest among us (back to levels in force under Ronald Reagan) and close some corporate loopholes. This would have allowed us to keep essential government resources available during a recession, and diminish the impact of the recession on California by keeping the government payrolls going to fuel our local economy.
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We could balance the budget on the backs of abused, neglected, disabled, and poor children, victims of domestic violence, the elderly, and state workers, and by shutting down state parks. This would, of course, make the recession worse for Californians in general and have the added advantage of cutting back on services just when they are most needed.
Guess which one the Republicans chose?
They used their political power to protect the wealthy at the expense of the weak, the poor, and the average citizen.
And that, in the end, is what conservatives have become. Worse, it's what we all have become.
If you're a regular citizen, not rich or powerful, and vote Republican these days, you need to wake up and look around you.
You're being taken for a ride.
The average middle class conservative would never choose to take medicine away from a poor child.
He or she would not choose for their government to ignore a wife-beater, or refuse services to an old person.
They certainly would not want their government to make fiscal choices which will drive the state deeper into recession. (Which, by the way, will lower tax income further, and possibly make even deeper cuts necessary.)
There isn't all that much difference between a conservative and a liberal on these basic issues.
But Republican legislators regularly make, and justify, those kinds of decisions, as Arnold just did.
There was another way, and it was not all that hard.
Ronald Reagan took it.
So did Pete Wilson.
Raise the taxes on the rich a tiny bit. Get rid of some of the deep tax cuts Republicans have pushed through since Reagan.
But the state's Republicans, faced with a sick child on one hand and a negligible tax increase for people who make over half a million each year on the other, saw it as a no-brainer.
Dump the kid, and grandma as well. Dump the economy and let the middle class suffer.
They aren't important.
They aren't rich.
They don't finance my campaign.
That, in the end, is what the culture wars are really about.
They're about what kind of people we want to be: toadies to the rich and powerful, or sensible, caring human beings, in charge of our own destiny.
Our government is simply the tool we use, in a democracy, to get things done. It represents us.
When it sacrifices children and old people on the altar of wealth, we are the ones responsible.
If we allow our government to make these kinds of choices, then the suffering we cause is a reflection of who we are.
Maybe it's time we looked in the mirror, and start cleaning up this state.
At least, that's what I think today.
