Opinion: In today’s pages: Troubles in Iran, California and Los Angeles
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The Op-Ed page revisits the turmoil in Iran, with Stuart A. Reid, an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs magazine, endorsing President Obama’s ‘muted response’ to the regime’s blatant election-stealing. Reid’s piece offers a counterpoint to yesterday’s Obama-torching column by Jonah Goldberg, but he appears to have been overtaken by events -- note how the president sharpened his rhetoric Tuesday, possibly after considering Goldberg’s ever-helpful words of advice. Meanwhile, columnist Tim Rutten writes about the ‘hybrid journalism’ coming out of Tehran, i.e., the blend of grass-roots reporting and professional analysis. It’s a perceptive piece about the impact of new technologies for gathering and sharing information, especially coming from a guy who neither blogs nor Twitters.
Elsewhere in Op-Ed, journalist Harold Meyerson promotes the indefensible position that the federal government should bail out California:
The feds should approach California as they did General Motors -- demanding a fundamental restructuring of state finances as a condition for loans. In return for proffering, say, $8 billion in loans, the White House should demand $8 billion in tax hikes and $8 billion in cutbacks. It should also demand changes to the state’s Constitution that would upend California’s dysfunctional system of finances, sweeping away the two-thirds requirement for passing budgets and raising taxes, restoring local governments’ ability to fund themselves through property taxes and putting a stop to budgeting by initiative. The feds’ loan could be conditional on the state’s voters ratifying these changes in November.
Jeez, where to start? Do we really want the Treasury Department deciding the appropriate mix of tax hikes and spending cuts? Should Tim Geithner hold an $8 billion gun to the head of California voters, insisting they abandon the major provisions of Proposition 13 as well as the potential for future initiatives about government funding? And if this is such a good idea, shouldn’t Meyerson be just as comfortable if a Republican administration in Washington were setting the terms? (For the record, the Times’ editorial board has already weighed in against even a limited a federal bailout.)
Finally, baseball historian Zev Chafets sees trouble ahead for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the eligibility of numerous star Latino ballplayers who’ve been tarnished by steroid allegations.
On the editorial page, the Times board blasts a bill in Sacramento to increase the maximum payday loan from $300 to $500, and bemoans how a dispute over gun control has derailed a bill to give the citizens of Washington, D.C., a voting member in the House of Representatives. It also welcomes the full attention of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa back to our fair city (for the second day in a row!), just in time to deal with a thorny budget problem and an electorate that wants more for less cost:
Three out of four Angelenos polled rated the city’s budget difficulties as a serious problem, but majorities oppose slowing down police hiring, laying off city workers or raising fees for city services. Two-thirds oppose a tax hike to pay for fire services, and nearly 60% oppose increased taxes for other services.
But hey, that’s why they pay the mayor the big dollars.
-- Jon Healey