Once upon a time, our local and state government agencies would be the ones who proposed public works projects based on their own assessments of need and the comments, suggestions, and data received from the general public, business interests, and other stakeholders. Those projects would be conceptualized and reviewed publicly, vetted by various impacted agencies, designed with public input, and their costs would be estimated before moving forward. If general funds were insufficient to undertake the project and public financing was required, government agencies would make that determination and propose how to close the gap.

At the local level, this generally remains the case. But in the San Francisco Bay Area, we now have a new form of government, run by and for unelected, private corporate interests. They call themselves “stakeholders” but, more and more, operate under the banner of “regional government.” This new iteration on tax and spend government is a for-profit version of regional planning, at the taxpayer’s expense.

We should note that regional government is a term without a legal definition. It does not exist anywhere in state law. But this hasn’t deterred regional government advocates from assuming it does.

Under this new quasi-regional governmental system, heavily promoted by unelected state agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), instead of plan first and figure out how to fund it, the new method is to raise funds first and ask questions later.

This new system has brought us things like Plan Bay Area 2050. And since this new way of doing business has no real accountability to voters, it basically eliminates the problem of cost overruns because the whole thing is, essentially, a cost overrun. 

A recent article in the San Jose Spotlight was entitled, “Silicon Valley Leadership Group appeals to business leaders on $100 billion transit ballot measure.” The title got my attention. $100 billion?! 

The article describes this scheme as follows, 

“The [ballot] measure, called FASTER Bay Area, is backed by The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Bay Area Council, and nonprofit urban planning think tank SPUR, and would increase sales taxes in the nine county Bay Area by 1 percent to raise $100 billion over 40 years for transportation projects.” 

The article’s title would have us believe that a proposal is being made to Bay Area “business leaders” by proponents of the idea, and that those business leaders still need to be convinced. However, the truth is that the organizations promoting this new tax scheme are funded by the same major Bay Area “business leaders” they are pitching it to. 

The members of the Silicon Valley Group, for example, are the who’s who of major San Francisco Bay Area corporations. Ditto for the Bay Area Council. And the same for SPUR, albeit that their funding stream comes in the form of nonprofit grants through the corporate and private foundations of those same stakeholders. 

In other words, this is all a charade to appear to have “community” support for their proposals. 

So, just what is the proposal? According to Wikipedia (updated Dec. 15, 2019), 

“Proponents of Faster Bay Area have provided few details on which projects the tax increase would actually fund, though high-cost highway and rail transit expansions have been the most frequently cited. The only "project list" so far provided at any public meeting is in fact a short list of project categories, presented by Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Policy & Community Relations Manager Scott Haywood at the June 21 VTA Board of Directors. That list envisions $36 billion, mostly highway traffic capacity expansion projects, for Santa Clara County, and does not consider any projects in other Bay Area counties.” 

The FasterBayArea.org website provides nothing but a colorful, conceptual Powerpoint slide show and a two-page marketing brochure to describe the "plan." 

Put simply, the idea is to get Bay Area taxpayers to pay for a variety of public transportation schemes (none of which will apparently be defined until after the ballot measure is passed and the taxes are assessed) that will primarily benefit those proposing it. It is nothing but corporate welfare at the public’s expense. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for the concept of having great end-to-end public transportation systems. But not this way, not led by these organizations and rubber stamped by unelected agencies and headline seeking politicians. Left in their hands, it will not only end up costing ten times as much, but we'll probably end up with a system based on favoring where certain corporations want their employees to live or serving where they want to locate their new headquarters. 

We need a truly egalitarian approach. We have enough corporate socialism as it is. 

We need this effort to be led by a joint task force comprised only of representatives from the planning agencies of every city and county in the San Francisco Bay Area, all equally represented, to study and assess needs and strategies, and to come up with a conceptual plan first, then determine how it should be funding second. 

The "Faster" plan is an outrageous taxpayer giveaway to special interests: 100% marketing hype and B.S. and 0% substance 

Under the “Faster” plan, corporate “stakeholders” can continue to grow without having to pay the cost of the infrastructure they desperately need to do so. Worse, there is no lack of elected representatives willing to enable this Ponzi scheme: this corporatization of public planning and finance, in exchange for handsome contributions to their own re-election funds. 

As the article notes, Gladwyn D’Souza, a spokesperson for No Mega Tax, which opposes this scheme, states, 

“The businesses that are putting these projects together are the cause of the problem. They are the ones attracting the jobs in this area, driving the price of housing up so people have to move to Tracy and commute here. Then they are trying to put together this grab bag of projects so the public takes on the problem of trying to fix this mess.” 

The promoters of this corporate-benefit-at-the-public’s-expense scheme counter allegations like this by promising to pitch in and create things called “transportation demand management” plans and other nondescript “contributions” to the cause. But the proponents are long on grand visions and short on details and they make no firm commitments, whatsoever, about anything. 

The SPUR website proudly proclaims, 

“The measure will enable massive investments in regional rail and express bus, along with key policy changes to ensure that this transformed network connects seamlessly, is affordable to our most vulnerable riders, and can be delivered quickly and inexpensively.” 

Wow, that sounds wonderful and it’s great how they included key buzzwords like “vulnerable riders.” Will it cure the common cold, too? And, of course, like every other tax and fee scheme proposed these days, this one will also be wrapped in the banner of “fighting climate change,” albeit without any facts or data, whatsoever, to support the claim. 

The Faster promoters provide no specifics, no details, no concrete proposals, no cost breakdowns, nothing! And what was that about “key policy changes?” Are these corporately funded, private, advocacy organizations now writing government public policy (which indentured politicians will be happy to sign off on)? 

The chutzpah of all this astounds me. 

Who will control the $100 billion purse and who will decide what it’s spent on (it appears that it will be MTC, under proposed SB-278, but the proposal doesn't explicitly say that)? Will everyone in the Bay Area benefit equally? If so, how and who decides that? And who will be responsible for designing, engineering, cost estimating, and “coordinating” this new, and at this point totally conceptual and undefined, “public transportation network?” 

Even the voting process being proposed is unclear and potentially disastrous for some communities and local businesses. 

From what I can discern, this ballot measure would require residents in all the nine counties to approve it by a two-thirds majority. But what does that mean? If one county’s residents voted overwhelmingly for the measure, but another county’s residents voted overwhelmingly against the measure, based on their respective populations, if added together, it would mean the measure would pass by the 2/3rds needed. So then one county’s residents would be subjected to the 1% sales tax that their majority voted against, to pay for projects in other parts of the Bay Area? 

Once again, regional government does not exist. “Faster Bay Area” ballot measure promoters, who describe themselves as a “brain trust” and “thought leaders,” like to compare it to similar measures passed in Los Angeles. But Los Angeles is both a city and a county (not a "region"), with one board of supervisor and one mayor, not nine different counties and 105 cities. 

If Plan Bay Area 2050 is any indication of how regionalism works, democratic representation in deciding how the money is divided up has been reduced to occasional dog and pony shows. 

It’s time for sleepy towns in Marin and other small cities to wake up. Under the unsanctioned banner of “regional transportation planning,” we are turning over decisions about how taxpayer money is spent to private, for-profit corporate interests and so-called “nonprofit advocacy” groups funded by those same private, for-profit, corporate interests. 

We are not just letting the fox guard the hen-house, we’re paying them to do it. 

Following in the footsteps of the US, the cancer of intolerance has engulfed much of India. The new “howdy” Modi is rapidly becoming “adios” Modi as India’s prime minister attempts to stifle growing outrage over the anti-Muslim Citizenship bill.

Protests have erupted across India in response to the Indian Parliament’s decision to give favored treatment to Hindu and other non-Muslim migrants in India. Like most autocrats, Modi has suspended access to the Internet for 60 million people fearful that social media may amplify the outrage. Last year the internet was shutdown 134 times, and this year 93 times removing a bastion of democracy, free speech. Much like “President Nixon’s enemy list” Modi has crafted an enemy list of dissidents including prominent reporters. A climate of fear has gripped India and the iron boots of India’s police and paramilitary has been unleashed on protestors. 

The shutdown of the Internet has severely impacted small entrepreneurs who sell their products online. This new law follows on the heels of the highly controversial decision revoking Kashmir’s autonomy, and rounding up thousands of Muslims, many simply disappearing during the complete lockdown . Many Kashmiris have been jailed without charge, journalists intimidated and negative economic news censored. Repeated demands by prominent members of the opposition Congress Party, including Shashi Tharoor, a prominent member of parliament and a former diplomat, to visit Kashmir on a fact finding mission have been denied. Sadly, India’s long traditions of democracy and secularism are under assault and the country is rapidly sliding into an authoritarian state.

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This is a Very Good Deal. Go for it! 

Even though we're 5000 miles away from London, the results of the December 12th British election sent a chill through left-coast voters. The ascension of Boris Johnson was painfully reminiscent of the 2016 election of Donald Trump; further evidence that we have entered the buffoon era of geo-politics. There are two political lessons to learn from the British tragedy.

Two Unpopular Candidates: The British General Election was an awkward "popularity" contest between Boris Johnson, leader of the Conservative Party, and Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Labour -- the British press characterized it as the "ugly baby contest." 

In this sense, the British contest was a replay of the 2016 U.S. presidential election that pitted two historically unpopular candidates: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The final 2016 Gallup election poll (https://news.gallup.com/poll/197231/trump-clinton-finish-historically-poor-images.aspx ) found Trump with a 61 percent unfavorable rating and Clinton with a 52 percent unfavorable score. 

Donald Trump has remained unpopular. In December 2019, roughly 52 percent of voters disapprove of his performance in office ( https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/). According to the 538 summary, Donald has been in this negative range since April of 2017; during these 33 months he's been viewed unfavorably by 52 to 57 percent of poll respondents. Based upon this polling, Trump has been the most unpopular President in recent American history. This is unlikely to change between now and November 3, 2020. 

On election day, how popular will the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate be? It's unlikely that any candidate will be as unpopular as Hillary Clinton. Nonetheless, at the moment, It's difficult to get a comparable approval rating for the leading Democratic candidates. (A recent Monmouth University Poll (https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_121019/) found that among Democratic voters Elizabeth Warren had the highest net favorability rating (+61) and Michael Bloomberg the lowest (+1).) 

According to the latest Quinnipiac Poll (https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3651), most of the leading Democratic candidates would beat Trump: "If the general election for president were being held today, 51 percent of registered voters say they would vote for Joe Biden, while 42 percent say they would vote for President Trump. When Trump is matched against other Democratic contenders the race remains in single digits: Bernie Sanders gets 51 percent, while Trump has 43 percent; Elizabeth Warren receives 50 percent and Trump gets 43 percent; Michael Bloomberg gets 48 percent to Trump's 42 percent; Pete Buttigieg has 48 percent, while Trump receives 43 percent..." 

If the only issue was popularity, and the election was held today, Donald Trump would probably lose. Considering this, it should be noted that over the past 36 months, Trump has made no concerted effort to increase his favorability ratings; Donald has not reached out to those who did not vote for him in 2016. Trump's strategy is to (1) hold his base and (2) drive down the popularity of his competition. He implements this strategy by either disenfranchising likely Democratic voters or by disparaging his competitors via social media. (Trump's attempt to have Ukraine President Zelensky announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden is an example of Trump's elaborate attempts to influence the popularity of his competitors.) 

Simple Message: In their analysis of why Boris Johnson won, the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/13/five-reasons-the-tories-won-the-election) observed that Johnson, and the Conservative Party, had a simple message, "get Brexit done, repeated over and over again [that] appears to have resonated with a public weary of the lack of resolution over the UK leaving the EU." In contrast Corbyn and Labour "had a multiplicity of huge policy offers from mass nationalization to free broadband and compensating women in the 50s for the rise in pension age..." 

Corbyn could have helped by taking a strong remain stand but, instead, meekly called for another referendum. (At a distance of 5000 miles, Corbyn came off as a wimp.) 

Johnson won because he was the least ugly baby and he campaigned with a simple message. 

In 2016, Donald Trump had two simple messages: "Build the wall" and "Drain the swamp." With regards to the latter, Trump successfully painted Hillary Clinton as a member of the Washington elite, part of the swamp, and played to his base's antipathy towards government. 

In 2020, Trump will likely resurrect "Build the wall" as "Finish the wall." And he will tout the economy, claim, "You never had it so good!" But what about "Drain the swamp?" Will Trump dare to repeat "Drain the swamp," after presiding over one of the most corrupt administrations in American history? Perhaps not. But then again, we've learned that Trump has no shame -- and that his base will likely swallow whatever lies Donald feeds them. (Trump tells his base that impeachment demonstrates that "the swamp" is alive and well.) 

What is certain is that whomever the Democratic presidential candidate is, Trump will attack them as corrupt. (We've already seen that with his attempt to implicate Joe Biden in a Ukraine scandal.) Trump will try to drive down the favorability ratings of his opponent by lying about them: Biden as corrupt, Sanders as a crazy socialist, Warren as Pocahontas, Buttigieg as "wink-wink," etcetera. 

What will the Democratic response be? No doubt one message will be, "We can't afford four more years of Trump!" And Democrats might find a companion message concerning global climate change: "Trump fiddles while the planet burns." Or Democrats may opt for a simpler message, such as Joe Biden's promise to "bring us together." (In the December 19th Democratic debate, Biden effectively repeated this, "I refuse to accept the notion, as some on this stage do, that we can never, never get to a place where we have cooperation again. If that's the case, we're dead as a country. We need to be able to reach a consensus.") 

The lesson from the British General Election is that popularity matters -- even when both candidates are unpopular -- and voters prefer a simple message. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net