Overshadowed by the antics of the Kentucky Senate race is the fact that we have some fine men running for the Congress this year in the Bluegrass State. Ed Marksberry, John Waltz, and Jim Holbert are all great Democrats and deserve our support. John Waltz conducted a tour across his district and found out one thing. Folks are pretty scared about their retirement security with the talk of benefits being cut and retirement ages being raised. While Waltz believe budget cuts are inevitable, he has the right mindset to do it rationally.
On Thursday, September 24th, an estimated five thousand people attended a rally on Sproul Plaza at the University of California, Berkeley. The rally and subsequent march through campus and downtown Berkeley-scheduled to coincide with and planned in support of the University of California (UC) Faculty Walkout that took place on all ten UC campuses-brought together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, university workers and alumni to protest the budget cuts at Berkeley and stand up for public education across California.
Because Governor Schwarzenegger is impotent at brokering a budget, the state will be out of money on February 1st - and will start issuing I.O.U.'s. That means no tax rebates, no financial aid and no other means of assistance. Now we are looking at a statewide special election to get out of this mess. If all we get is more Arnold gimmicks to delay the problem another year, it will be a tragically wasted opportunity. Because now, more than ever, the public is willing to consider tax reform to get us out of the right wing fiscal straitjacket. Beyond the Democrats' effort to scrap the archaic two-thirds budget rule, legislators must consider placing ballot measures to amend Prop 13 (by exempting commercial property) - and eliminate Prop 218's onerous requirement that local revenue measures get a two-thirds vote by the electorate. With the recession wreaking havoc on our fiscal health, the public has finally woken up to the horror of right-wing tax policy. For the first - and possibly only - time, voters might approve progressive ways to raise revenue.
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