agincourt (1,791 posts)
Will the GOP try to sabotage the California economy?
I remember (1) when Bush/Cheney got in in 2001, that (2) Texas based power companies gouged California bad on electricity rates, it was flagrant market manipulation. People were getting outlandish bills and (3) it added to the budget shortfall of the golden state. (4) I think it had some role to in the Gray Davis recall. My question to fellow DUers is (5) what the GOP might pull now to hit California? I'm sure they're going to target Jerry Brown just like they did Gray Davis. I don't think there would be any recall, but I'm sure the GOP would love to hit Jerry Brown if they can
(1) GWB came into office in January, 2001. Enron went bankrupt in December, 2001, and had ceased operations months earlier. IOW the attempt to link CA electricity prices, Enron, and the Bush Presidency is an anachronistic fail.
(2) I've got an idea! Let's place the blame for CA's high electricity rates on the root cause, CAs' failure in the late 1970s and beyond to expand electricity and and transmission capacity!a failure that started with - you knew this was coming - Jerry Brown's first gubernatorial regime.
(3) What in Hades is (s)he talking about! CA's budget deficits - and accounting flummery to conceal it - have been vastly larger than the State of Californias' electricity bills. Now, the 2000-2002 bursting of the DotBomb bubble, that was relevant to CA's budget issues. Also CA's twin bad habits - habits yet unbroken, BTW - of spending money it didn't have and starting ongoing programs using one-time money.
(4) That is correct, as far as it goes. Governor Brown's anti-growth policies of the 1970s were never reversed - even when Deukmejian and Wilson were Governor the Ds controlled the legislature. So, that CA was in a position of needing to buy power out of state traces back to CA Ds, Jerry Brown especially. Further - "agincourt" failed to mention this, possibly due to ignorance - contracting purchases of power was under the control of Governor Davis. Rather than purchase a long-term need/commodity on long-term contracts, Davis chose to buy CA power on the "spot market", whatever the market price happened to be at the moment of purchase. A very stupid move paid for with CA rate-payers' money, in the midst of an bad recession!
(5) "agincourt" here reveals his/her abject ignorance of CA's political and economic situation. First, Jerry Brown will be leaving the Governors' office in 2018. That's the end of his present term in office, and he is out, due to CA's term-limit law. The Rs wouldn't spend the $$, even if they had it, to kick Jerry Brown out of office 12 or 18 months early. Second, CA political reality is that the Ds own CA, a veto-proof majority in both houses of the legislature. That means that even if Brown faced a Recall election, he'd win, easily; the Rs know this very well. Third, CA's legislature, Envirocrats, and regulocrats are driving businesses out of CA. Tech has been slow to start moving engineering, marketing/sales, and management out of CA, but I think even that is starting to happen. Once a tech exodus gets underway, tech will no longer mask the prior exodus of so many other businesses. IOW, the GOP - whether at the state or Federal level - could scarcely do more harm to CA than CA's legislature, Envirocrats, and regulocrats have been doing for decades.