Starving the beast, California style
by digby
Scott Walker may have led the way, but never let it be said that California Tea Partiers aren’t going to play the game. I’ll be interested to see how this one works out:
At a recent talk to a roomful of “tea party” supporters, Orange County Republican Party chairman Scott Baugh excitedly described how the next big GOP movement could be taking root in their own backyard.
In Costa Mesa, home to South Coast Plaza and the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the City Council has proposed cutting its workforce in half and outsourcing many of those jobs to private contractors.
The radical cutbacks are being led by new councilman and longtime GOP activist Jim Righeimer, who says the layoffs are necessary to deal with rising government pension costs for employees.
But Baugh and other Republicans see Costa Mesa as the beginning of something bigger. They hope other cities around California that are dealing with rising pension costs will take the same action.
On blogs and in speeches, local Republicans are framing it as a historic struggle against what they call “Obama’s union bosses.” On its website, OCGOP.org, the party urges other cities in Orange County to “stop the taxpayer rip-off.” Officials are urging other Republican council members to take similar stands.
The rhetoric is similar to that used by the GOP in Indiana and Wisconsin, where Republican governors have been battling to roll back the collective bargaining powers of state employee unions. The GOP is hoping to use public pensions as an issue against President Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 election. And the push in Orange County takes the battle to the municipal government level.
“Costa Mesa is ground zero for cities,” Baugh said.
It remains to be seen how far the GOP can spread the Costa Mesa labor fight. Cities around California are struggling with budget problems fueled at least in part by rising pension costs. But no others have proposed the dramatic cuts embraced by Costa Mesa.
I wonder how many teachers, firefighters and cops live in Costa Mesa?
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