State's Future At Stake In May 19 Vote

If California voters reject a package of budget measures in next week's special election, it will set off a fiscal free-for-all that could set the state's course for years to come.

Defeat of the measures on the May 19 ballot would chop nearly $6 billion in expected revenue from next year's budget, on top of a projected $8 billion deficit left by shrinking tax collections.

Proposals by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and others to close that gap are driving a wildfire of criticism across the state.

Deep cuts in school and law enforcement budgets, billions of dollars less for local government and slashes in state programs all will be on the table as legislators look for the least painful alternatives.

"There are no good choices," said Tim Gage, former state finance director under Gov. Gray Davis. "There are options, but they're all really ugly."

After billions of dollars in budget cuts in the past two years, the easy trims have been made. Schwarzenegger, Democratic legislative leaders and unions such as the California Teachers Association are using television ads to lay out what they say are the dire consequences of voting down the budget measures.

"If these measures fail, Plan 'B' on May 20th involves even more cuts to education, health care and public safety," Jeannine English, California president of AARP, said in a statement Wednesday.

Papers prepared by the governor's financial team paint a grim picture of a post-May 19 budget, calling for deep cuts in school spending, prisons and fire protection, along with redirecting $2 billion in local property taxes to the state.

Although the property taxes would be repaid in three years, that's small solace to cities facing desperate budget problems of their own.

You hit it!

Strategy for forcing political change through orchestrated crisis

First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty” in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called “crisis strategy” or “Cloward-Piven Strategy,” as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes used welfare to weaken the poor; that by providing a social safety net, the rich doused the fires of rebellion. Poor people can advance only when “the rest of society is afraid of them,” Cloward told The New York Times on September 27, 1970. Rather than placating the poor with government hand-outs, wrote Cloward and Piven, activists should work to sabotage and destroy the welfare system; the collapse of the welfare state would ignite a political and financial crisis that would rock the nation; poor people would rise in revolt; only then would “the rest of society” accept their demands.

The key to sparking this rebellion would be to expose the inadequacy of the welfare state. Cloward-Piven’s early promoters cited radical organizer Saul Alinsky as their inspiration. “Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1972 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judaeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one.

The authors noted that the number of Americans subsisting on welfare — about 8 million, at the time — probably represented less than half the number who were technically eligible for full benefits. They proposed a “massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.” Cloward and Piven calculated that persuading even a fraction of potential welfare recipients to demand their entitlements would bankrupt the system. The result, they predicted, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level.”

Their article called for “cadres of aggressive organizers” to use “demonstrations to create a climate of militancy.” Intimidated by threats of black violence, politicians would appeal to the federal government for help. Carefully orchestrated media campaigns, carried out by friendly, leftwing journalists, would float the idea of “a federal program of income redistribution,” in the form of a guaranteed living income for all — working and non-working people alike. Local officials would clutch at this idea like drowning men to a lifeline. They would apply pressure on Washington to implement it. With every major city erupting into chaos, Washington would have to act.

This was an example of what are commonly called Trojan Horse movements — mass movements whose outward purpose seems to be providing material help to the downtrodden, but whose real objective is to draft poor people into service as revolutionary foot soldiers; to mobilize poor people en masse to overwhelm government agencies with a flood of demands beyond the capacity of those agencies to meet. The flood of demands was calculated to break the budget, jam the bureaucratic gears into gridlock, and bring the system crashing down. Fear, turmoil, violence and economic collapse would accompany such a breakdown — providing perfect conditions for fostering radical change. That was the theory.

Cloward and Piven recruited a militant black organizer named George Wiley to lead their new movement. In the summer of 1967, Wiley founded the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). His tactics closely followed the recommendations set out in Cloward and Piven’s article. His followers invaded welfare offices across the United States — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law “entitled” them. By 1969, NWRO claimed a dues-paying membership of 22,500 families, with 523 chapters across the nation.

Regarding Wiley’s tactics, The New York Times commented on September 27, 1970, “There have been sit-ins in legislative chambers, including a United States Senate committee hearing, mass demonstrations of several thousand welfare recipients, school boycotts, picket lines, mounted police, tear gas, arrests - and, on occasion, rock-throwing, smashed glass doors, overturned desks, scattered papers and ripped-out phones.”These methods proved effective. “The flooding succeeded beyond Wiley’s wildest dreams,” writes Sol Stern in the City Journal. “From 1965 to 1974, the number of single-parent households on welfare soared from 4.3 million to 10.8 million, despite mostly flush economic times. By the early 1970s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city’s private economy.”As a direct result of its massive welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975. The entire state of New York nearly went down with it. The Cloward-Piven strategy had proved its effectiveness.

The Cloward-Piven strategy depended on surprise. Once society recovered from the initial shock, the backlash began. New York’s welfare crisis horrified America, giving rise to a reform movement which culminated in “the end of welfare as we know it” — the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which imposed time limits on federal welfare, along with strict eligibility and work requirements. Both Cloward and Piven attended the White House signing of the bill as guests of President Clinton.

Most Americans to this day have never heard of Cloward and Piven. But New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to expose them in the late 1990s. As his drive for welfare reform gained momentum, Giuliani accused the militant scholars by name, citing their 1966 manifesto as evidence that they had engaged in deliberate economic sabotage. “This wasn’t an accident,” Giuliani charged in a 1997 speech. “It wasn’t an atmospheric thing, it wasn’t supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare.”

Cloward and Piven never again revealed their intentions as candidly as they had in their 1966 article. Even so, their activism in subsequent years continued to rely on the tactic of overloading the system. When the public caught on to their welfare scheme, Cloward and Piven simply moved on, applying pressure to other sectors of the bureaucracy, wherever they detected weakness.

In 1982, partisans of the Cloward-Piven strategy founded a new “voting rights movement,” which purported to take up the unfinished work of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Like ACORN, the organization that spear-headed this campaign, the new “voting rights” movement was led by veterans of George Wiley’s welfare rights crusade. Its flagship organizations were Project Vote and Human SERVE, both founded in 1982. Project Vote is an ACORN front group, launched by former NWRO organizer and ACORN co-founder Zach Polett. Human SERVE was founded by Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, along with a former NWRO organizer named Hulbert James.

All three of these organizations — ACORN, Project Vote and Human SERVE — set to work lobbying energetically for the so-called Motor-Voter law, which Bill Clinton ultimately signed in 1993. The Motor-Voter bill is largely responsible for swamping the voter rolls with “dead wood” — invalid registrations signed in the name of deceased, ineligible or non-existent people — thus opening the door to the unprecedented levels of voter fraud and “voter disenfranchisement” claims that followed in subsequent elections.

The new “voting rights” coalition combines mass voter registration drives — typically featuring high levels of fraud — with systematic intimidation of election officials in the form of frivolous lawsuits, unfounded charges of “racism” and “disenfranchisement,” and “direct action” (street protests, violent or otherwise). Just as they swamped America’s welfare offices in the 1960s, Cloward-Piven devotees now seek to overwhelm the nation’s understaffed and poorly policed electoral system. Their tactics set the stage for the Florida recount crisis of 2000, and have introduced a level of fear, tension and foreboding to U.S. elections heretofore encountered mainly in Third World countries.

Both the Living Wage and Voting Rights movements depend heavily on financial support from George Soros’s Open Society Institute and his “Shadow Party,” through whose support the Cloward-Piven strategy continues to provide a blueprint for some of the Left’s most ambitious campaigns.

“Deep cuts in school and law enforcement budgets,”

Right. Nowhere to cut but cops, teachers and firefighters. The state government is lean and mean,

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State Agencies Directory

Access for Infants and Mothers
Accountancy, Board of
Acupuncture Board
Administrative Hearings, Office of
Administrative Law, Office of
Adoptions Branch, Department of Social Services
African American Museum, California
Aging, California Commission on
Aging, Department of
Agricultural Labor Relations Board
Agriculture and Environmental Stewardship, Office of
Agriculture, Department of Food and
AIDS, Office of
Air Resources Board
Alcohol and Drug Programs, Department of
Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board
Alcoholic Beverage Control, Department of (ABC)
Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority, California
Analytical Chemistry, Center for
Animal Health and Food Safety Services
Apprenticeship Council
Apprenticeship Standards, Division of
Arbitration Certification Program
Architects Board
Archives, California State
Arts Council
Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus
Assembly, California State
Assembly Democratic Caucus
Assembly Republican Caucus
Athletic Commission
Attorney General
Audits, Bureau of State
Automotive Repair, Bureau of
Barbering and Cosmetology, Board of
Bay-Delta Authority, California
Behavioral Sciences, Board of
Binational Border Health, California Office of
Biodiversity Council
Biogeographic Data Branch
Blind, Office of Services to the
Board of Equalization (BOE)
Boating and Waterways, Department of
Braille and Talking Book Library
Building Standards Commission
Business, Transportation and Housing Agency
Cal Boating (Department of Boating and Waterways)
California Exposition & State Fair
California Business Investment Services (CalBIS)
Cal/EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
CAL FIRE (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection)
CalGOLD (Business Permit Information)
California Broadband Initiative
California Coastal Commission
California Commission for Jobs and Economic Growth
California Council for the Humanities
California Cultural and Historical Endowment
California Digital Library
California Geological Survey
California Highway Patrol (CHP)
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts
California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS)
California Science Center
California State Association of Counties (CSAC)
California State Fair
California State Library
California State Parks
California State University (CSU)
California Tahoe Conservancy
California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs)
CaliforniaVolunteers
CalJOBS
Cal-Learn Program (Department of Social Services)
CalOHI (California Office of HIPAA Implementation)
Cal/OSHA (Division of Occupational Safety & Health)
CalSTRS (California State Teachers’ Retirement System)
Caltrans (Department of Transportation)
CalVet Home Loan Program
CalWORKs Program (Department of Social Services)
Career Resource Network
Cemetery and Funeral Bureau
Central Valley Flood Protection Board
CERES (California Environmental Resources Evaluation System)
Charitable Trusts, Registrar of
Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Chief Information Officer Archives, Office of the (OCIO)
Child Abuse Prevention, Office of
Child Support Services, Department of
Children & Families Commission
Children and Family Services Division
Children’s Trust Fund, California State
Chiropractic Examiners, Board of
Citizens Compensation Commission
Climate Change Portal (Energy Commission)
Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy
Coastal Conservancy
Colorado River Board of California
Communicable Disease Control, Division of
Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office
Community Services and Development, Department of
Conservation Corps
Conservation, Department of
Constitution Revision Commission
Consumer Affairs, Department of
Contractors State License Board
Contracts Register Program, California State
Controller, California State
Corporations, Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation, Department of
Cosmetology, Board of Barbering and
Court Reporters Board
Courts, Administrative Office of the
Courts of Appeal
Crime and Violence Prevention Center
Cyber Safety for Children
Dams, Division of Safety of
Data Exchange Center (Department of Water Resources)
DataQuest (Department of Education)
Deaf Access, Office of
Debt and Investment Advisory Commission
Delta Protection Commission
Delta Vision
Dental Auxiliaries, Committee on
Dental Board of California
Denti-Cal
Developmental Disabilities, State Council on
Developmental Services, Department of
Disability Insurance, State (SDI)
Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Certification Program
DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles)
Education Audit Appeals Panel
Education, Department of
Education, Office of the Secretary for
Education, State Board of
Educational Facilities Authority
Elections Division (Secretary of State)
Electronic and Appliance Repair, Bureau of
Emergency Medical Services Authority
Emergency Services, Governor’s Office of
Employment Development Department (EDD)
Employment Training Panel
Energy Commission
Engineers and Land Surveyors, Board for Professional
Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, Office of
Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA)
Equalization, Board of
eServices Office
Fair Employment and Housing Commission
Fair Employment and Housing, Department of
Fair Political Practices Commission
Film Commission
Finance, Department of
Financial Institutions, Department of
Fire Marshal, Office of the State
Firearms Division, Department of Justice
Fiscal Services (Department of General Services)
Fish and Game Commission
Fish and Game, Department of
Fleet Administration, Office of
Food and Agriculture, Department of
Forestry and Fire Protection, Department of
Franchise Tax Board
Gambling Control Commission
General Services, Department of
Geographic Information Systems (GIS), California
Geologists and Geophysicists, California Board for
GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Council, California
Government Claims and Victim Compensation Board
Governor’s Committee for Employment of Disabled Persons
Governor’s Mentoring Partnership
Governor’s Office
Governor’s Office of Homeland Security
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Board of
Habeas Corpus Resource Center
Hastings College of the Law
Health and Human Services Agency
Health and Safety & Workers’ Compensation, Commission on
Health Care Services, Department of
Health Insurance Plan of California (PacAdvantage)
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Implementation, California Office of
Healthy Families Program
Hearing Aid Dispensers Bureau
High-Speed Rail Authority
Highway Patrol, California (CHP)
HIPAA Implementation, California Office of
Historic Preservation, Office of
Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation, Bureau of
Homeland Security, Office of
Horse Racing Board
Housing and Community Development, Department of
Housing Finance Agency
Independent Living Council, State (SILC)
Indoor Air Quality Program
Industrial Relations, Department of
Infants and Mothers, Access for
Information Center for the Environment
Information Security and Privacy Protection, Office of
Infrastructure & Economic Development Bank (I-Bank)
Inspector General, Office of the
Institute for Education Reform
Institute for Regenerative Medicine
Insurance, Department of
Integrated Waste Management Board
Interagency Ecological Program
Judicial Council of California
Judicial Performance, Commission on
Justice, Department of
Juvenile Justice, Division of
Labor & Workforce Development Agency
Labor Market Information Division
Labor Standards Enforcement, Division of
Labor Statistics & Research, Division of
Land Resource Protection, Division of
Land Surveyors, Board for Professional Engineers and
Land Use Planning Information Network (LUPIN)
Lands Commission
Landscape Architects Technical Committee
Latino Legislative Caucus
Law Revision Commission
Learn California
Legislative Analyst’s Office
Legislative Black Caucus
Legislative Counsel
Legislative Information
Legislative Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Caucus
Legislature, California State
Legislature Internet Caucus
Library, California State
Library of California
Lieutenant Governor, Office of
Little Hoover Commission
Lottery, California State
Managed Health Care, Department of
Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board
Mandates, Commission on State
Maritime Academy, California
Measurement Standards, Division of
Mediation & Conciliation Service, State
Medi-Cal Managed Care Health Care Options
Medi-Cal Provider
Medical Assistance Commission
Medical Board of California
Medical Care Services
Mental Health, Department of
Military and Aerospace Support, Office of
Mine Reclamation, Office of
Mining and Geology Board
Motor Vehicles, Department of (DMV)
Museum Resource Center
National Guard, California
Native American Heritage Commission
Natural Community Conservation Planning Program
Naturopathic Medicine, Bureau of
New Motor Vehicle Board
Nursing Home Administrator Program
Ocean Protection Council, California
Occupational Safety & Health Appeals Board
Occupational Safety & Health, Division of (Cal/OSHA)
Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board
Occupational Therapy, California Board of
Ocean Resources Management Program
Office of Emergency Services (OES)
Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources, Division of
Optometry, Board of
Osteopathic Medical Board of California
OTAN (Outreach and Technical Assistance Network)
PacAdvantage (The Health Insurance Plan of California)
Park and Recreation Commission
Parks, California State
Parole Hearings, Board of
Patient Advocate, Office of the
Peace Officer Standards and Training, Commission on (POST)
PERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System)
Personnel Administration, Department of
Personnel Board
Pesticide Regulation, Department of
Pharmacy, Board of
Physical Therapy Board of California
Physician Assistant Committee
Planning and Research, Governor’s Office of
Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services
Podiatric Medicine, Board of
Pollution Control Financing Authority
Postsecondary Education Commission
Printing (Office of State Publishing)
Prison Industry Authority
Privacy Protection, Office of Information Security and
Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, Bureau for
Procurement Division
Professional Fiduciaries Bureau
Psychology, Board of
Public Defender, Office of the State
Public Employment Relations Board (PERB)
Public Health, Department of
Public School Construction, Office of
Public Utilities Commission (PUC)
Publishing, Office of State
Railroad Museum, California State
Real Estate Appraisers, Office of
Real Estate, Department of
Real Estate Services Division
Recycling, Division of
Refugee Programs Branch
Regents of the University of California
Regional Water Quality Control Boards
Registered Nursing, Board of
Registered Veterinary Technician Committee
Rehabilitation, Department of
Resources Agency
Respiratory Care Board
Risk and Insurance Management, Office of
Rivers Assessment, California
Rural Health Policy Council
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
San Gabriel & Lower Los Angeles Rivers & Mountains Conservancy
San Joaquin River Conservancy
Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy
Science Fair, California State
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Secretary of State
Security and Investigative Services, Bureau of
Seismic Safety Commission
Self Insurance Plans (SIP)
Senate, California State
Senate Office of Research
Sierra Nevada Conservancy
Small Business & Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Certification Program
Small Business Development Centers
Smart Growth Caucus
Smog Check Information Center
Social Services, Department of
Spatial Information Library, California
Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board
Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR)
State and Consumer Services Agency
State Architect
State Bar of California
State Chief Information Officer (CIO)
State Compensation Insurance Fund
State Disability Insurance (SDI)
State Fair
State Independent Living Council (SILC)
State Mandates, Commission on
Statewide Health Planning and Development, Office of
Status of Women, Commission on
Structural Pest Control Board
Student Aid Commission
Summer School for Mathematics and Science, California State (COSMOS)
Summer School for the Arts, California State
Superintendent of Public Instruction
Superior Courts
Supreme Court of California
Systems Integration, Office of
Tax Service Center
Teach California
Teacher Credentialing, Commission on
Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS)
Technology Services, Department of (DTS)
Telecommunications Division
Telephone Medical Advice Services Bureau
Toxic Substances Control, Department of
Traffic Safety, Office of
Transportation Commission
Transportation, Department of (Caltrans)
Travel & Tourism Commission, California
Treasurer, State
Unclaimed Property Program
Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board
Unemployment Insurance Program
Uniform Construction Cost Accounting Commission, California
University of California
Veterans Affairs, Department of
Veterinary Medical Board
Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board
Vital Records, Office of
Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, Board of
Voter Registration (Secretary of State)
Water Quality Control Boards, Regional
Water Resources Control Board
Water Resources, Department of
Welfare to Work Division
Wetlands Information System
Wildlife Conservation Board
Women, Commission on the Status of
Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board
Workers’ Compensation, Division of
Workers’ Compensation Medical Unit, Division of
Workforce Investment Board

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