[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

The bet placed by the political camps of John McCain and Hillary Clinton that the voters will hungrily bite into their proposal to suspend the federal gas tax doesn't seem to be paying off. Most voters appear to know it's a sucker pitch in which Clinton is both sucker – for taking up the McCain plan – and panderer for pushing it as a major campaign plank.

But the proposal, first dropped by McCain into a soup of other dubious economic ideas, among them his support for making permanent the 2001 Bush tax cuts he first opposed, is an accurate reflection of a national political culture that's poisoned our public life for the better part of three decades.

One of its anniversaries – or the nearest thing to it – is just a month off: June 6, the date in 1978 when Californians passed Proposition 13. It triggered the national tax revolt and marked the first major triumph of latter-day me-first individualism and market theology over the communitarian ideals and civic concern that moved the country to its greatest achievements during the Depression and the years of World War II.

The list of consequences of the neglect of high purpose is almost endless, both for California and for the nation.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

John McCain has an enviable record to defend. He must begin by convincing voters that what did not happen should be credited to the Bush Administration. We did not have a recession (until now). We did not allow Saddam to produce weapons of mass destruction. We did not allow Iraq to become a radical Shiite state (so far). We did not allow an asteroid to destroy the earth. And so on.

But we did go to war on the basis of either a lie or faulty intelligence. We are now engaged in an endlessly expensive effort to stabilize a regime in Iraq (only to discover that oil revenues from that nation are being diverted to “non Iraqi banks” – Switzerland, perhaps? A war which McCain and the GOP embrace. Do they really think the fact that fewer Americans die each month will justify continued expenditure of trillions there while Americans suffer inflation and unemployment because of this waste of treasure?

Evidently they do.

Do they really think American seniors will forget the effort to ditch social security or the prescription drug fiasco? Does the GOP hope to recoup their losses here by nominating another old man?

Evidently they do.

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Don Perata
President pro Tem
California State Senate

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

About 23,000 homes in Southern California are still threatened by the wildfires, although firefighters have been able to contain many of them, reportsthe San Francisco Chronicle. Families from some evacuated areas wereable to return home yesterday. Head on over to Calitics’ Saturday Fire Thread for information about the SoCal fires, as well as how to donate blood if you’re in the San Diego area.

Home foreclosures have hit an all-time high in California,with a record 72,571 mortgage defaults reported in the third quarter,according to the San Jose Mercury News.  The greatest increasesoccurred in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire, although severalcounties in the Bay Area also experienced a record number offoreclosures.