The cutbacks are coming! Organize!

After an 85-day delay, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California finally signed off on the state budget. It contained $10.3 billion in slashed expenditures and $9.6 billion in revenue-related measures. Throughout the legislative debate over the budget, the capitalist media reported that there would be cuts in education, Medi-Cal and other health services, transportation services, and the prison system, along with closing some loopholes that benefit the rich and businesses.

The ruling class expect workers to tighten their belts so they won’t have to.

The extensive cuts to social spending proposed by the legislature apparently failed to meet the governor’s standard of “fiscal responsibility.” According to the California Budget Project, Schwarzenegger made an additional $510 million in cuts through line-item vetoes—including $13 million from local public health activities, $13.2 million from several Department of Aging programs, $20.3 million from substance abuse prevention and treatment programs, and $862,000 from child nutrition programs.

If attention is paid to the big-business media, the average worker will feel there is no other solution to the problems of balancing government budgets. We are supposed to accept that the budget cuts for social spending are necessary, that the politicians can offer no other solution. Accept cutbacks now to avoid disaster later.

This is the same logic General Motors and other manufacturers used to force concessions from the unions. If you do not give up your health care or pensions, they say, we will have to go out of business or move our operation overseas. Accept cutbacks now to avoid disaster later.

This is the same logic Congress used to ram through the bank bailout. Failure to hand over nearly a trillion dollars to the banks, their logic went, would result in sure economic catastrophe for everyone. Even if we did not like it, we all had to bite the bullet. Never mind that when we are late on our credit card payments, the creditors hunt us down relentlessly—that is our individual problem. Now that the banks cannot pay their debts, it suddenly is a problem for all of us. Sacrifice now to avoid disaster later.

Potentially costing over $1 trillion, the vast effects of the bailout have not even been felt yet. But we can be sure that the same tired argument is coming. We will again be told that cutbacks are necessary to balance the budget. Otherwise, they will tell us, economic disaster will certainly ensue. Accept cutbacks now to avoid disaster later.

Despite the passage of the rip-off bailout, workers on a mass scale have begun to question how the economy is organized, and what its priorities should be. It is time to make it clear: Only a reinvigoration of labor struggle and community activism can stop the coming cutbacks. When the economy was doing “well” (for them), the bankers benefited—not us. So if anyone has to tighten their belts now, it is the capitalists—not us.