Back with a Galactic Vengence

The Whopper of the Week is back. I admit one reason I’ve returned to the Left Hook is that San Jose Inside’s interview with Mayor Chuck Reed provided such an irresistible target.

First, let’s check out the whoppers in the Mayor’s discussion of the City Council’s deadlock on the sales tax issue. Chuck and 5 Councilmembers including Republicans Constant and Khamis voted for a special tax.  Four relatively liberal Democrats voted for a General Tax.  What political dynamics, the Mayor was asked, explain the deadlock?

“Needing to get to eight votes made it difficult to do anything,” Reed commented. But he also emphasized he had managed to get the two Republicans to agree to some kind of tax.  Simple arithmetic reveals the whopper here. Without the two GOPer’s, there were 4 Democrats, including Reed. who could have voted for the General Tax. Add those 4 to the 4 who originally supported the General Tax and you get 8, the magic number.  Essentially, Reed is saying he deliberately gave up the votes of the 4 General Tax Democrats to pick up the two Republican votes, and then he blames the inevitable failure on his inability to get to 8. Either Reed chose a strategy designed to fail or he really believes 4 plus 2 equals 8?

But wait.

The Mayor wonders why the four councilmembers who genuinely wanted the General Tax wouldn’t just go along and vote for the Special one.  Maybe they read the memo that Reed, Liccardo, Constant and Herrara submitted. This is some of the language that the four would have had to agree to:

“Passage of a general tax does little to address our residents’ needs.”  This statement is preposterous and untrue. Most of the city’s current revenues are General Tax revenues. If those revenues are providing useful services, why would additional general tax revenues suddenly be of little value?

“Our taxpayers have no assurance that additional revenue from a General Tax will actually improve police or fire services as opposed to paying for more government bureaucracy.” This statement is phony and misleading.  Even a Special Tax will pay for clerks, administrators, secretaries, finance staff and managers (aka bureaucracy).

“…we refuse to authorize any potential ‘bait and switch’ on voters by having them impose a higher sales tax on themselves, only to see the new revenues used to justify a rollback of pension reform.” In other words, the city budget should be kept unnecessarily tight to avoid having the voters decide they really can afford the modifications of Measure B that will lead to recruiting more cops and reducing crime.

Think about the tone of the above statements. Would anyone have put them in a memo if they actually wanted supporters of a General Tax to join them in a compromise?

Secondly, let’s review Reed’s comments on the race to succeed him. The Mayor says of Dave Cortese – “Because of his close relationship with public safety unions, I guess they’re going to close libraries and community centers and give all the money to cops and firefighters.”  This accusation is made right after Cortese supported the General Tax proposal in San Jose – the proposal that would allow new revenue to be spent on libraries and community centers as well as public safety. At the same time Reed backed the Special Tax – which would allow none of the new $35 million to be spent on libraries or community centers or anything but public safety.  Moreover, if another recession and budget shortfall were to occur, the requirements of a Public Safety Special Tax would politically and/or legally (depending on ballot language) direct budget cuts away from cops and firefighters and overwhelmingly towards other services (libraries and community centers).

Josh Koehn from Metro listened to this galactic whopper.  His outraged follow-up question is listed below.  (Hint – don’t bother reaching for a magnifying glass.  You still won’t find it.)

Bob Brownstein is Director of Policy and Research for Working Partnerships USA.

 

 

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