In a debate over Britain's membershipin the then-emergent European Union, Margaret Thatcher accused Labor LeaderNeil Kinnock of being a toady for the European interests, and playing alongwith their demands "for the purpose of being little SirEcho and saying 'me too!'"
Now, nearly 20 years later, it seems thatCalifornia is hosting anothersuch "little Sir Echo" in the form of Lieutenant Governor JohnGaramendi. Like Kinnock before him, Garamendi is apparently too busy lickingthe boots of special interests whose confluence with the desires of California'spopulation is limited at best. A story in the Sacramento Beereports that Garamendi has asked the state's leaders to "block Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger'sproposed $4.5 billion in spending cuts" and has "called foradditional taxes, including raising the state's vehicle license fee."
And what is the reason for Garamendi'sdesire to flush the wallets of California'speople? "We've already devastated the essential services that weneed," he says. According to the Bee, these "essentialservices" include such things as "schools, public employees andservices for the elderly and disabled."
Now, Garamendi's rhetorical asseverationwould hold water in times of economic prosperity, but in the middle of therecession thatCalifornia is enduring at the moment, such an argument evinces a frighteninglevel of profligacy with other people's money, not to mention a total lack ofeconomic understanding. Let's proceed through the logic of Garamendi'sargument, if indeed the word "logic" can be used in any sense otherthan the merely colloquial:
Presumably, both Garamendi andSchwarzenegger acknowledge unquestioningly that Californiais in the midst of a recession. Schwarzenegger proposes a $4.5 billion spendingdecrease to offset the deficit, as well as a $0.015 sales tax increase.Garamendi counters that the $4.5 billion cut would further"devastate" the "essential services" that we need, andproposes raising more taxes to cover the $4.5 billion which Schwarzeneggerwants to cut, rather than actually cutting it. Reasonable enough, one might say– after all, the money comes in anyway.
Except for one problem: where doesit come from? The answer is from the wallets of California'speople, much like Schwarzenegger's 1.5 cent tax increase. One inevitableproblem of removing peoples' money is that they can't spend it to keep theeconomy going, which means that at some level, Garamendi's plan wouldexacerbate the recession. However, that's not all that's wrong with his plan.The only area where the Bee suggests that Garamendi would raise taxes iswithin the vehicle licensing fee. Whatever one does with this fee, the resultwill be surely disastrous.
Let's suppose Garamendi's plan goesthrough. What then? One of two things will happen; either citizens willconsider their ability to drive to be enough of a necessity that they will payhis new fee, in which case it will amount to another tax and will drag downconsuming power among California'scitizens. This would obviously be problematic, but compared with thealternative, it is preferable. The alternative is that certain people will finddifferent ways to get around other than driving, which would lead to decreasedconsumption of gas, which in turn would give California'sgas station owners and workers less consuming power. Worse, given the fact thatillegal immigrants have no incentive to pay licensing fees at the point wherethey've already broken the law, this fee might drive native Californian workersout of the market and lead to an increased dependency on illegal labor. All ofthese situations are undesirable, and the fact that even one minor piece ofGaramendi's tax plan could produce all of them should give pause.
But this assumes that Garamendi's plan isactually tailored to better California'seconomic prospects, and given his supporters, it quite clearly isn't. Thepeople who oppose Schwarzenegger's bill are all members of either private or government unions, both of which havea history of sabotaging their respective industries for short-term personalgain. Teachers unions especially would be hit by this budget cut, which isarguably a good thing, considering that these unions especially enjoy pushingfor higher wages and lower standards for their work. A budget cut might forcethe schools to start considering quality over cronyism, and might also breakthe stranglehold of unions on industries which would now require cheaper labor.Schwarzenegger's tax increase is a mistake, but at least it's a minor onecompared with Garamendi's leviathanproposal.
Of course, none of this will stopGaramendi from continuing his nonsensical behavior. Little Sir Echo rarelybothers to pay attention to the resonance of his cries.