Author: SacBee — Opinion

Tyreke Evans

Tyreke Evans may have clinched NBA Rookie of the Year honors Monday night when he joined an elite group. By scoring 24 points, the Kings phenom guaranteed he would average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists for the season. Only legends Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson and current superstar LeBron James have done the same.

Evans is a magical athlete. Few guards his size can cut through the lane, finish with either hand, or step back and nail jumpers. And he’ll only get better in his second year, when the Kings will be looking for him to be more of a team player, both on the court and in the community.

As Jordan demonstrated, the greatest players make their teammates better. Jordan racked up amazing statistics, but even he would say that he didn’t become truly great until he led the Bulls to the playoffs and, eventually, six championships during the 1990s. Evans needs a stronger supporting cast, but the Kings still had won only 25 games going into Tuesday night’s final game against the Lakers.

Evans is also the face of the Kings. With that comes another kind of responsibility. As his stature grows, he’ll be courted by potential sponsors, but he’ll also be expected to give back to his community. This season, Evans has helped the hungry and helped raise awareness on diabetes. There is much more good he could do here in Sacramento.

It would be highway robbery if the sportswriters and broadcasters who pick the winner later this month don’t choose Evans. But we aren’t losing sleep over it. Stephen Curry of Golden State and Brandon Jennings of Milwaukee are terrific, but they aren’t Tyreke. He’ll take home the hardware, then Kings fans will be hoping he makes Sacramento his home for a long, long time.

One of President Barack Obama’s consistent education themes has been the wish that every child cross paths with that one teacher who hits the light switch and changes one’s life.

Each time he expresses some iteration of that thought, I suspect thousands or millions think briefly of the person who held that distinction in their life. The light master.

Or, in my case, the one who extended an imaginary sprig of verbena and, holding it to his nose, inhaled deeply in a gesture of solidarity with William Faulkner.

That scene took place in my 11th-grade English class, oh, a few years ago. The teacher was mine for only three months, but he changed my life in a flicker of light. I thought of him Monday when – if you’ll grant me this small indulgence – I was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

On such occasions, one is expected to recognize those who have helped along the way. But also on such occasions, one is likely to be a bit distracted and unable to remember one’s own name, much less those who deserve mention. I would like to correct the record with one who stands out and, as it happens, is celebrating his 50th year of teaching.

I materialized in James Gasque’s class in March of the school year for reasons that will have to wait another day. Suffice to say, I knew no one and had come from a small high school in Central Florida where, for some reason, no one had bothered to teach the diagramming of sentences.

Thus, my fellow students at Dreher High School were way ahead of me when Mr. Gasque finally called on me to identify some part of a sentence he had written on the blackboard. His back to the class with chalk in hand, he stood poised to write my instructions.

Every living soul knows the feeling of helplessness when a crowd of peers awaits the answer you do not know. Whatever I said was utterly ridiculous, I suppose, because all my classmates erupted in peals of laughter.

I have not forgotten that moment, or the next, during all these years. As I was trying to figure out how to hurl myself into a fetal curl under my desk, Mr. Gasque tossed me a sugarcoated, tangerine-colored lifesaver from the good ship lollipop.

He whirled. No perfectly executed pirouette can top the spin executed by Mr. Gasque that day. Suddenly facing the class, he flushed crimson and his voice trembled with rage.

“Don’t. You. Ever. Laugh. At her. Again.” he said. “She can out-write every one of you any day of the week.” It is not possible to describe my gratitude. Time suspended and I dangled languorously from a fluff of cloud while my colleagues drowned in stunned silence. I dangle even now, like those silly participles I eventually got to know. Likely no one but me remembers Mr. Gasque’s act of paternal chivalry, but I basked in those words and in the thought that what he said might be true. I started that day to try to write as well as he said I could. I am still trying.

Mr. Gasque’s even greater gifts belong to all who ever sat in his class. That sprig of verbena, a recurring symbol in “The Unvanquished,” stays in my mind because it also symbolizes the great passion Mr. Gasque brought to teaching and to the literature he loved. During my 12 weeks or so in his class, we devoured “The Unvanquished” and John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” I remember every word and sensation.

“I’ve always wanted to lean down from my back stoop and pluck a sprig of verbena,” he said, inhaling deeply. Exhaling and tilting his head back, he closed his eyes and seemed to drift off into some lemony-scented world where verbena is the smell of courage. I closed my eyes and followed him.

A couple of decades later, having moved back to South Carolina, I went looking for Mr. Gasque, toting a pot of verbena. He didn’t remember me, but upon hearing my tale, asked that I speak to his class. Afterward, his cheeks streaked with tears, he presented me with two lined pieces of notebook paper – my essay on “The Unvanquished.”

Obama is right about the power of teachers. Thank you, Mr. Gasque.

Margaret A. Bengs

On April 21, California Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will interrogate the heads of Caterpillar, Verizon, AT&T, Deere and other corporations on their announcement that the removal of a tax subsidy on retiree drug-benefit plans in the new health care reform law will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars – AT&T alone taking a $1 billion hit.

AT&T, which employs more than 46,500 people in California, will consider changes to its “active and retiree health care benefits.” Waxman’s planned inquisition is reminiscent of the February hearings in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., where politicians vented outrage over Anthem Blue Cross’s 39 percent rate hike.

“Breathtaking,” Waxman pronounced it.

What is truly breathtaking is that members of Congress, including Waxman, who preside over federal debt expected to reach $15 trillion over the next 10 years, trillions more in unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security, and a $1.3 trillion budget deficit in the current year before adding the new $1 trillion health care entitlement, dare to offer themselves up as judges of sound fiscal practices.

If we are going to cross-examine Big Business for rate hikes and cost increases, why shouldn’t we grill Congress about Big Government’s unsustainable spending binge and insolvent programs? Is the government morally pure while the private sector is evil? The money taken out of our pockets is the same, whether by a company or an IRS agent. And government’s take makes the corporate cost write-offs in question equivalent to a grain of sand on a San Diego beach.

Federal government revenue has tripled since 1965 (in inflation-adjusted dollars) to over $2 trillion today. While real gross domestic product decreased 2.4 percent in 2009 and corporate profits fell 3.8 percent, taxes on corporate income rose 7.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Our state government is no better at keeping its appetite under control. California led the nation in tax hikes in 2009 with $11 billion in new taxes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. We have the sixth-highest state and local tax burden in the nation and among the worst business climates. Yet, we still face another $18.5 billion state budget deficit and a state pension system debt of half a trillion dollars, according to a Stanford University study.

During Waxman’s hearing, as we watch our representatives stare down their noses at corporations, we should recall Congress’ history handling money. When the federal income tax was launched in 1913, the top bracket was only 7 percent, according to the Pacific Research Institute. Five years later the government had jacked it up to 77 percent. That rate was eventually reduced again, but rates for joint filers today range up to 35 percent.

In 1965, congressional budgeters predicted that Medicare would cost $12 billion in 1990. Instead, it rose to $90 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Medicaid now costs 37 times more than it did when it was launched.

The idea that taxing the “rich” will pay for the deficits and debt politicians have run up is another pipe dream. Just to pay for the current year’s federal deficit alone, top rates would have to reach 84.9 percent, the Tax Foundation reports, and average tax payments would have to rise by almost $10,000.

And, if you think you’re paying a lot of taxes this year, next year will be worse. President George W. Bush’s tax cuts will expire, so taxes on income, capital gains and dividends will rise – likely to depress investment just when we need it to create more jobs.

While the new health law offers tax credits to small businesses that provide health insurance, it also imposes Medicare tax hikes on those in higher-income brackets, including a new Medicare tax on investment income, as well as taxes on medical devices and other tax increases. White House economic adviser Paul Volcker also just floated the idea of a “value-added tax” – a form of national sales tax – on top of all the taxes we currently pay.

If we are going to hold Big Business accountable for accurate bookkeeping, we should hold Big Government accountable for its broken promises and fiscal recklessness.

In his letter to AT&T, Mr. Waxman proclaimed that the new health care law “is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs.” Five years from now, who will summon Waxman to see if that promise has come true?

As Ronald Reagan once said, “Government is like a baby – an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

For more than a decade in south Sacramento County, the 4,800-acre Valensin Ranch portion of the Cosumnes River Preserve and a hardly used private-use airstrip coexisted. No problems.

A proposal for a new public-use Mustang Airport with 100 hangars and 25 tiedowns has changed all that. Now the issue has landed in the lap of the county Board of Supervisors. Either the county stands by its investment in the preserve or it allows a public-use airport with tens of thousands of flights per year. A preserve and a public-use airport simply are not compatible uses.

The preserve borders the current airstrip on the north and west, and partly on the south. Nine nonprofit and government partners of the preserve, including Sacramento County, have invested $150 million in restoration efforts to attract birds. Anyone visiting the site today can see turkey vultures, egrets, herons, cormorants, geese, ducks, sandhill cranes, hawks – and the largest bird rookery in the county (one of the largest in the state, with 139 nests).

To date, bird/aircraft conflicts have not been an issue because of the limited number of flights – two or three a week. That private use could continue without controversy.

A public-use airport is another story, however.

The Sacramento County Airport System estimates that at a typical public-use airport serving small aircraft, each plane based at the airport would generate 380 flights per year. For the proposed Mustang Airport, SCAS cut that to 190 flights per year – that means 120 airport-based aircraft (assuming five vacancies) would generate more than 20,000 flights a year.

The proponents have offered a self-imposed limitation of 7,200 flights a year, promoting storage at a “self-reduced activity field.” That’s absurd. Such a pledge would be unenforceable.

But the real issue is this: The preserve is designed to attract wildlife that the Federal Aviation Administration says is hazardous to aircraft. While the proposed public-use airport would not be FAA-certified, the FAA recommends that land-use planners and operators of non-certified airports follow Advisory Circular 150/5200-33B: For public-use airports serving piston-powered aircraft, hazardous wildlife attractants should be 5,000 feet from the nearest air operations area.

The proposed public-use Mustang Airport would not comply. The expanded runway would be less than 200 feet from Badger Creek and 3,200 feet from Horseshoe Lake. Wetlands and vernal pools that attract birds abound in the 5,000-foot zone. Public safety would, of course, demand that a public-use airport discourage bird presence to diminish the potential of bird/aircraft collisions.

At the last minute, today’s Board of Supervisors hearing on the issue was pulled. The county counsel decided that the matter should first go to the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, which acts as the county’s Airport Land Use Commission, to determine land-use compatibility. Good move.

In the end, common sense should prevail. Almost $150 million in mostly public funds has gone into creating the Cosumnes River Preserve. A new public-use airport is incompatible with that preserve and the tens of thousands of birds it attracts each year.

Education reformers entered the national Race to the Top grant competition enthused and hopeful that California would be among the winners.

Alas, the state wasn’t among the finalists, and ranked 27th in the scoring among the 41 states that applied.

So now, reformers have swung the other direction, falling into discouragement and resignation – and questioning whether the state should even apply in the next round, with applications due in June.

Meanwhile, some of those who opposed the Race to the Top “four pillars” approach – high-quality standards and assessments, using data to improve instruction, measuring teacher and principal effectiveness and turning around the lowest-achieving schools – are gloating at California’s failure. Among those are the teachers union at one end of the spectrum and, at the other, libertarians who reject federal involvement in public education.

There is little reason to gloat. California and much of the rest of the country confront a crisis of public education, so it is only appropriate the federal government creates financial incentives for reform. Race to the Top proved those incentives, with the right priorities. Rather than give up, reformers need to learn from the outcome of the application process, which proved useful in exposing the state’s strengths and weaknesses.

On the plus side, California’s application had strong support from the higher-education community, parents, foundations, business organizations and researchers. It won praise from reviewers for that.

California also scored well for its long history in setting academic standards and aligning assessments to those standards. It scored well for having one of the most extensive systems in the nation for providing alternate pathways for teacher credentialing.

What was missing?

The state scored low on developing data systems to link student and teacher data to measure student academic improvement and teacher effectiveness. Reviewers also noted that the state does not currently collect data on developing, compensating, promoting, granting tenure to and removing educators.

California’s lag in these data areas is directly attributable to teacher union opposition. The California Teachers Association has long resisted attempts to tie teacher pay and ratings to student performance, arguing that such measurements are arbitrary and misleading. As a result, the CTA discouraged local union chapters from signing on. In preparing its application, the state in turn allowed schools and districts to sign an opt-out provision if elements would be in conflict with local collective bargaining agreements. This was noticed immediately by reviewers.

California can’t hitch its wagon entirely to Race to the Top. It needs to adequately finance public education and give local school districts more latitude in reaching high standards. Yet Race to the Top revealed much about California’s internal resistance to reform. Will we learn from that experience?

If those who go into court can’t have confidence in its fairness and impartiality, equal justice under the law is just a slogan.

So it’s exasperating that delays have beset an investigation of the family courts in Sacramento and Marin counties, which face allegations of favoritism and conflicts of interest in child custody cases.

After trying since last summer, State Auditor Elaine Howle’s office is now threatening to issue subpoenas to get “full and unfettered” access to the records it says it needs to complete the inquiry ordered by the Legislature.

The Administrative Office of the Courts, which is representing the local courts in the matter, says it’s frustrated, too. It is haggling over which records are really needed for the investigation and is raising concerns about protecting confidential and sealed documents.

There are valid privacy concerns. But they should not trump safeguarding the integrity of the courts or the welfare of children.

As the Bee’s Cynthia Hubert reported last week, the allegations are extremely serious. Several child advocacy groups say that family court judges have become overly friendly with the mediators and investigators they appoint to help them unravel custody disputes. Based on the findings of these attorneys, psychologists and others, judges are putting children in danger by returning them to parents with histories or accusations of abuse, the groups say.

Those claims should raise alarms for anyone who cares about the courts. The audit, among other things, would review how the appointees are selected and paid and how they are evaluated and disciplined. If the records were released this week, the auditor’s office hopes to issue a report in June or July.

There seems to be room for compromise here, and it shouldn’t take forever to work out the details. Spokespersons for both the auditor and courts offices said Monday that they’re intent on finding that common ground. They need to get cracking; this inquiry has been delayed too long already.

As we look for ways to prevent future financial crises, many questions should be asked. Here’s one you may not have heard: What’s the matter with Georgia? I’m not sure how many people know that Georgia leads the nation in bank failures, accounting for 37 of the 206 banks seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. since the beginning of 2008. These bank failures are a symptom of deeper problems: Arguably, no other state has suffered as badly from banks gone wild.

To appreciate Georgia’s specialness, you need to realize that the housing bubble was a geographically uneven affair.

Basically, prices rose sharply only where zoning restrictions and other factors limited the construction of new houses. In the rest of the country – what I once dubbed Flatland – permissive zoning and abundant land make it easy to increase the housing supply, a situation that prevented big price increases and therefore prevented a serious bubble.

Most of the post-bubble hangover is concentrated in states where home prices soared, then fell back to earth, leaving many homeowners with negative equity – houses worth less than their mortgages. It’s no accident that Florida, Nevada and Arizona lead the nation in both negative equity and mortgage delinquencies; prices more than doubled in Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix, and have subsequently suffered some of the biggest declines.

But not all of Flatland has gotten off lightly. In particular, there’s a sharp contrast between the two biggest Flatland states, Texas – which avoided the worst – and Georgia, which didn’t.

This contrast can’t be explained by the geography of the two states’ major cities. Like Dallas or Houston, Atlanta is a sprawling metropolis facing few limits on expansion. And like other Flatland cities, Atlanta never saw much of a housing price surge.

Yet Texas has managed to avoid severe stress to either its housing market or its banking system, while Georgia is suffering severe post-bubble trauma. The share of mortgages with delinquent payments is higher in Georgia than in California; the percentage of Georgia homeowners with negative equity is well above the national average. And Georgia leads the nation in bank failures.

So what’s the matter with Georgia? As I said, banks went wild, in a scene strongly reminiscent of the savings-and-loan excesses of the 1980s. High-flying bank executives aggressively expanded lending – and paid themselves lavishly – while relying heavily on “hot money” raised from outside investors rather than on their own depositors.

It was fun while it lasted. Then the music stopped.

Why didn’t the same thing happen in Texas? The most likely answer, surprisingly, is that Texas had strong consumer-protection regulation. In particular, Texas law made it difficult for homeowners to treat their homes as piggybanks, extracting cash by increasing the size of their mortgages. Georgia lacked any similar protections (and the Bush administration blocked the state’s efforts to restrict subprime lending directly). And Georgia suffered from the difference.

What’s striking about the contrast between the Texas story and Georgia’s debacle is that it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the issues that have dominated debates about banking reform.

For example, many observers have blamed complex financial derivatives for the crisis. But Georgia banks blew themselves up with old-fashioned loans gone bad.

And for all the concern about banks that are too big to fail, Georgia suffered, if anything, from a proliferation of small banks.

Actually, the worst offenders in the lending spree tended to be relatively small startups that attracted customers by playing to a specific community. Thus Georgian Bank, founded in 2001, catered to the state’s elite, some of whom were entertained on the CEO’s yacht and private jet. Meanwhile, Integrity Bank, founded in 2000, played up its “faith based” business model – it was featured in a 2005 Time magazine article titled “Praying for Profits.” Both banks have gone bust.

So what’s the moral of this story? As I see it, it’s a caution against silver-bullet views of reform, the idea that cracking down on just one thing – in particular, breaking up big banks – will solve our problems. The case of Georgia shows that bad behavior by many small banks can do as much damage as misbehavior by a few financial giants.

And the contrast between Texas and Georgia suggests that consumer protection is an essential element of reform. By all means, let’s limit the power of the big banks. But if we don’t also protect consumers from predatory lending, there are plenty of smaller players – both small banks and the nonbank “mortgage originators” responsible for many of the worst subprime abuses – that will step in and fill the gap.

RANDY PENCH Bee file, 2008
The majestic Sierra Nevada’s snowpack is a natural reservoir that stores water for use throughout the state.

The Sierra Nevada is the foundation of California’s water system and needs attention. The Sierra supplies 65 percent of all water used by the people of the state, from the clean, safe water that comes from your faucets to the water used to grow crops.

Without its broad granite presence looming over the Central Valley, what most of us take for granted as “the way things are” would not be.

Without the Sierra, irrespective of what laws were passed, the state, federal and regional water projects that supply San Francisco, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California simply would not exist – and neither would the San Francisco Bay Delta.

For millennia, the Sierra has served as a barrier to storms rolling east from the Pacific. The high peaks “stack up” winter storms, causing rain and snowfall to drop here in California, making the Sierra the largest water storage facility in the State.

The average Sierra snowpack dwarfs the capacity of all of the dams and reservoirs we now have or anticipate building. Nature knew what it was doing; the meadows and forests of the Sierra provide natural storage for our water, releasing it slowly over time and providing us with clean water. Without the Sierra, there is no Bay Delta, there is no great valley agriculture, and California would be limited in its water supply – for any purpose.

The Sierra snowpack is a natural reservoir; its deeply incised watersheds act as nature’s arteries, carrying rainfall and melted snow to the Bay Delta and other regions of the state. Those watersheds carry the names of California’s most famous rivers: the Sacramento, Feather, American, Yuba, Stanislaus, Mokelumne, Owens, Tuolumne, Kings and San Joaquin, among others.

Often ignored in the political wrangling over water is the importance of this “natural infrastructure” in our statewide water system. The system of water storage and transport we describe was not made by man, but by nature. Dams, pipes and tunnels can only do what nature allows them to do. Without the Sierra to quench California’s thirst, we would have much less clean water to lay claim to for any purpose. Much attention and legislation has recently focused on the Bay Delta and the need for cities, farms and fish to have “co-equal” protection and priorities for investment. Lost in that statement is the need to protect the very source of our clean water, the Sierra.

It is all too easy for downstream urban residents and farmers to take the Sierra and its key role in California water for granted. Completely overlooked by those water consumers is the fact that a tiny portion of the state’s population is charged with stewarding and protecting water supply and quality for tens of millions of residents and the nation’s largest agricultural economy. The focus on the Delta and the water bond in the press ignores an irrefutable fact: that funding for critical Sierra headwaters restoration projects is being pushed to ever-lower priority levels, leaving the meadows, forests and communities of the Sierra high and dry. It is said that “water flows uphill to money.” It is time for the opposite to be true. It is time for investment in our natural infrastructure in the Sierra to be made a priority by using funds from previously voter-approved Propositions 50 and 84.

Others have said much about the problems in California’s water system and it need not be repeated here. What does need to be said is that we must manage our entire water system and not just one piece of it. That begins where the water originates.

Professionals planning for California’s water future in the Department of Water Resources have recognized this connection between upstream and downstream, between the Sierra and San Diego, Yosemite and San Francisco. The latest version of the State Water Plan Update calls for a watershed management strategy and includes a forest management strategy developed with the active involvement of the U.S. Forest Service. This systemwide thinking is a positive element and one we hope the Department of Water Resources will continue to develop.

Much of the recent talk has been about the Delta crisis and what to do or not do about it. For those on the periphery of those discussions, as well as those in the center where the pressure is greatest, we urge you to pause now and then, and look to the Sierra. There is a quiet message in those snowcapped peaks. The sound of cool, clean, running water should not be taken for granted.

California has become a killing field for people with mental illness.

• Linda Carol Clark, 39, was shot by a Placerville police officer as she fled a hospital and carjacked an ambulance on March 30, 2010. Officers had made many previous calls to her apartment in the past few months because of mental health issues.

• Giat Van Truong, 35, died Dec. 8, 2009, after being shot multiple times by a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy who had responded to a 911 call from Truong regarding a “tenant dispute.” He reportedly had several previous mental health holds and didn’t always take his medication outside the hospital. The family has filed an excessive-force suit.

• Folsom police officers shot and killed Joseph Han, 23, on Easter Sunday of 2009. Family members said he was hallucinating and hadn’t slept or eaten in days. According to a neighbor, they had called the police for help in getting their son to the hospital.

Californians suffering from mental illness are dying in violent confrontations with law enforcement at alarming rates.

Who is to blame for these too frequent killings? More training for law enforcement officers is definitely needed. Cops are ill-trained to be street corner psychiatrists. Yet in California severely mentally ill people are as likely to encounter a policeman as they are a psychiatrist.

Why? The state and county mental health system has run amok. The common thread for many tragic deaths in California is failed or no mental health treatment.

If we want to stop this madness, we need to look at the root of our public policies that require a person with mental illness to cycle down to the point of raw psychosis before we help. It’s not law enforcement’s fault. It’s structural dysfunction in the California mental health delivery system.

Mental illness is a medical condition. In our society, a person suffering from any other medical condition receives stabilizing treatment if they are unable to consent to that treatment. But our current mental health system requires that a seriously disabled mentally ill individual first want help before receiving society’s early intervention.

Were Linda Clark or Joseph Han capable of determining they needed help in the weeks and days before their violent deaths? To assume that mentally ill people should be made to wait to receive treatment for their mental illness until they are in danger or dangerous is discrimination plain and simple. We would never do that to anyone else with a life-threatening disease. Waiting for danger costs too much in both money and lives.

Beginning in 2002, California counties have had an opportunity to stop some of the senseless killings, but they have not resolved to do so.

Laura’s Law, passed by the California Legislature in 2002, allows counties to implement what is known as assisted outpatient treatment. It is court-ordered, intensive treatment in the community providing consistent supervision by the mental health system for those individuals who are deteriorating or recovering from crisis caused by mental illness and for whom other community services are not working. Eligibility is based upon the individual’s history of inability to self-comply with treatment and the severity of his or her current symptoms rather than waiting until that person is in danger or dangerous.

It’s time for California’s county governments to wake up and implement Laura’s Law now.

Assistedoutpatient treatment may have prevented the tragic deaths of the severely mentally ill like Truong and Clark.

Implementation of Laura’s Law can stop the killing of mentally ill citizens and limit the unnecessary exposure to danger for law enforcement.

Assisted-outpatient treatment saves lives and ensures that public funding for mental health services is used more effectively to treat the mentally ill before they slip into the tragic downward spiral of severe mental illness.

What is happening to Californians with mental illness is beyond crime; it’s immoral. What law enforcement is being forced to deal with is simply madness in the streets.

GAMBIER, Ohio – Ohio’s U.S. Senate campaign offers an excellent preview of what this fall’s midterm elections will be like: Everyone in the race wants to be an outsider, everyone pledges to break with politics as usual and everyone is talking about jobs.

Those running against Washington include Republican Rob Portman, even though he was elected to Congress in 1993 after working for the first President Bush and then held two high-level jobs in George W. Bush’s administration. “My concern is that Washington doesn’t seem to get it,” Portman says in an interview.

The Democrats, to the dismay of many in the party, face a primary between two of their leading state officials, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

Brunner, low on cash and endorsements, proudly turns her problems into an advantage. “I ended up getting painted as an outsider – thank God,” she tells me.

In a year when independence seems chic, Brunner argues that she may be the Democrats’ answer to Scott Brown, who rode his outsider status and his pickup truck to an unanticipated Republican victory.

“I do drive a pickup truck,” Brunner says, “but I was already doing it – I needed it for my dogs.” She is about to trade it in for a school bus that may win her comparisons with the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, the progressive champion who rode a school bus to an upset victory in Minnesota.

Brunner is still slightly behind Fisher, who is also a former state attorney general and state legislator. But polls show about 40 percent of Democrats undecided in their primary. Fisher, with refreshing humility, suggests that the electorate has other things on its mind.

“Because so many people are trying to hold on to their jobs, or find a job, or put food on the table, this race is not a high priority,” he says.

Although Fisher takes Brunner’s challenge seriously – he predicts the May 4 primary will be close – he has concentrated most of his fire on Portman and the Republican’s links to the second President Bush.

“I’m not somebody who’s spent most of his life in the corridors of Washington, D.C.,” Fisher says. “We’re in the deepest economic ditch of most of our lifetimes, and two of the people holding the shovels were George Bush and Rob Portman.”

Fisher’s comments point to why Ohio could give the country one of its most revealing Senate contests. The seat is open because of the retirement of Sen. George Voinovich, a Republican, and should give Democrats a chance for a gain to balance off expected losses in other states.

Neither Fisher nor Brunner has to answer for a record in Washington. And Portman’s close ties to Bush 43 create an opportunity for disaffected voters to target the unpopular former president rather than the current one as the object of their scorn.

But this very opportunity is why many Democrats wish that Brunner and Fisher weren’t campaigning against each other. Portman is generally well-liked, especially in his Cincinnati home base, combining conservative views with a moderate demeanor.

Portman has already raised $6 million, and Democrats fear that while their candidates deplete their treasuries battling each other, Portman will be able to spend lavishly on television as soon as the primary is over. They worry this might discourage the national party from focusing on Ohio.

And Portman insists that voters “are not looking back” to the Bush years, though he can’t resist adding that when he left the second Bush administration, “unemployment was half of where it is today.”

With strong support from Democratic elected officials (including Gov. Ted Strickland), the experienced Fisher is a modest favorite in the Democratic race, especially since he is likely to swamp Brunner in advertising. But Brunner has won the affection of many party progressives, and her underdog status may yet help her in a year likely to be kind to political insurgents.

As for the fall, Fisher believes that several more months of economic growth will improve the climate for Democrats. And he adds: “Much of the unrest and anger we’re seeing is directed much more at Washington and Wall Street than at any particular political party.”

Every Democratic Senate and House candidate with the good fortune of not being an incumbent this year hopes that Fisher is right.

Many local governments are in an economic tailspin. The recession slashed sales taxes and the collapsing housing market drastically lowered property taxes. Those losses of revenue translate into fewer cops, shuttered mental health clinics, neglected parks and dangerously high caseloads for social workers who watch over vulnerable children.

As city and county layoffs mount and services shrink, pension payouts soar, consuming a grossly disproportionate share of local government budgets. One official aptly described the phenomenon. “My concern,” he told The Bee, “is that county government is becoming a pension provider that provides government services on the side.”

But it’s not just counties. Consider the city of Roseville. As Phillip Reese and other McClatchy reporters documented in Sunday’s Bee, the city has had to lay off 150 workers – one-tenth of its work force – to balance its budget in the face of falling revenue. Still Roseville must pay $18 million into its employee pension fund this year, 12 percent more than it paid two years ago and more than it pays for all its park and recreation programs combined. Even with the contribution hike, the city’s unfunded pension liability – the difference in what the city’s pension system can pay and what it needs to cover its future obligations – stands at $111 million.

Not just the stock market

The tumbling stock market explains part of the problem. Local governments must backfill for massive market losses.

But huge pay hikes and retirement benefit boosts are equally, if not more, to blame. Between 2000 and 2008 the average pay for all local government employees in California shot up a staggering 40 percent, from $46,073 to $64,284.

Again, Roseville stands out. In 2006, the City Council there made headlines when it approved a contract that boosted its city manager’s pay 16 percent, to $241,000, a record in the region at that time.

On top of generous pay raises, the Legislature approved and Gov. Gray Davis signed hefty public pension benefit increases.

Prodded by the state, most local governments approved “3 percent at age 50” pension formulas for safety workers, police and firefighters. Pensions are calculated by multiplying 3 percent times their years of service times their highest year’s pay. After 30 years on the job most cops and firefighters earn 90 percent of pay in retirement.

In jurisdictions like Sacramento County that are governed by the 1937 Retirement Act, sheriff’s deputies can earn 100 percent of pay when they retire. Given that, it’s hardly surprising the $100,000 Pension Club, a list of retired public employee who collect more than $100,000 a year in pensions, is dominated by police and firefighters.

Non-safety local government workers earn generous pensions as well. Most receive 2 percent of their highest year’s salary, times years of service at age 55. But some local governments have been even more generous.

Roseville stands out

Roseville, again, approved a 2.7 percent at 55 formula. After 30 years on the job, a non-safety Roseville employee earning $75,000 a year would collect $67,750 a year in retirement. That same worker in the city of Sacramento, which maintained a 2 percent at 55 formula, would collect a $45,000 annual pension.

High pay, lavish pensions and bad advice from actuaries about what higher pension benefits would cost have left some local governments on the brink of bankruptcy. The city of Vallejo filed for bankruptcy protection two years ago. Other local governments may be contemplating it. An increasing number of elected officials acknowledge that public employee pension costs are unsustainable both financially and politically. The public is being fleeced, forced to pay more for retired government workers while services shrink.

Many local elected leaders are considering pension rollbacks for newly hired workers. But rollbacks by a few cities or counties are not enough.

Pension bloat began in the Legislature and that’s where a rollback to reasonable levels must begin. At minimum, the Legislature should lower pension benefits for all newly hired state and local government workers. If the Legislature does not act, eventually a disgusted public will.

John Geesman served
on the California
Energy Commission
from 2002 to 2008.

Proposition 16 is an ugly distortion of the initiative process, the safety valve created nearly 100 years ago as the people’s tool to combat special interest influence in Sacramento.

Proposition 16 is sponsored by a single corporation, PG&E, the San Francisco-based utility.

Its sole purpose is to insulate PG&E from competition, permanently locking its business advantage into the state constitution. If passed, Proposition 16 can be changed only by another constitutional amendment approved by the voters.

It’s paid for – that is, every single nickel in the $35 million campaign budget – with money collected from PG&E’s captive ratepayers.

And, as a true measure of the cynicism of PG&E’s political consultants, it’s being marketed as a taxpayer protection measure that will preserve our right to vote.

What would it really do? It would alter existing voting requirements for annexations into a municipal utility service territory from a simple majority in the area to be annexed to a two-thirds majority in the entire service territory. It would do the same for a community starting a new utility. And it would require a two-thirds majority before a municipality could explore community choice aggregation – a rarely used statutory method to procure electricity, adopted recently in Marin County and under consideration in San Francisco.

If passed, Proposition 16 will actually result in less voting than occurs under existing law – at least that’s the strategy PG&E’s CEO, Peter Darbee, recently boasted about to Wall Street investors.

In Darbee’s words, “the idea was to diminish, you know, rather than year after year different communities coming in as this or that and putting this up for vote and us having to spend millions and millions of shareholder dollars to defend it repeatedly, we thought that this was a way that we could sort of diminish that.”

Because of its high rates (PG&E’s top tier residential rate is currently 49.9 cents per kwh compared with 29 cents per kwh for Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric) PG&E ratepayer revolts should come as no surprise. But exactly how will eliminating customer choices and restricting competition produce lower rates?

Sloppy drafting of the “grandfather clause” of Proposition 16 will create some unintended consequences if the measure is passed. Service within existing municipal utility territories is supposed to be exempted from the voting requirement, but the exemption is drafted so narrowly that none of these utilities is expected to qualify.

That means that every new hookup – every new homebuyer, every new business – in those 48 communities could trigger an election with a two-thirds majority requirement.

Data from a Wall Street Journal survey of 2009 CEO compensation confirm that PG&E’s $10.6 million CEO was paid 74 percent above the median for major utility CEOs. That’s 8 percent more than Goldman Sachs paid its CEO last year. With rates high enough to accumulate a $35 million campaign fund, PG&E can’t be allowed to buy its way into the California Constitution.

Willie L. Brown Jr.,
former speaker of the
California state
Assembly and mayor
of San Francisco,
is an attorney whose
clients include Pacific
Gas & Electric Co.

California’s taxpayers deserve transparency when it comes to their money, especially in today’s economic environment. The state has tallied up $145 billion in debt, and an annual budget deficit of $20 billion threatens cuts to critical services and jobs on the state, county and local levels. Decisions to take on additional debt or use taxpayer money to fund big programs – such as a government takeover of electricity service – need voter input. That’s why we need to vote yes on Proposition 16 on June 8.

Current law does not require voter approval if local leaders want to use public money to develop the complex systems necessary to provide electric service. Proposition 16 fixes this omission, giving voters a voice. This initiative requires a two-thirds majority vote before municipal leaders can incur public debt or spend public money to start up a municipal retail electricity business, using the same standard as hundreds of other special tax or bond situations.

As a former mayor of San Francisco, I can tell you from firsthand experience that involving the people in big decisions like funding large municipal utility programs is critical. Not only will they participate in such programs by receiving utility services, but they’re paying for the development of the business itself. And if those programs fail, they are on the hook for a bailout.

Having benefited from the input of the voters during my years as mayor, I can also tell you that California’s voters know a good plan when they see one. They can discern between a well-constructed plan that will work and one that is not well formed or that takes unnecessary risks with their money. And local leaders need the community’s input. Large public programs are always far more visionary – and far more expensive – than expected. Since the voters are paying for it, better to get their permission up front than make the decision blindly and have a mess on your hands that the taxpayer has to fix if it fails.

Proposition 16 promotes transparency and ensures that the voters have a voice when it comes to how their money is spent. It requires that a local government that wants to run the complicated delivery system necessary to provide electricity must go to the voters to lay out its case and prove it can build a system that works. Then voters can either give their permission to spend their tax dollars or incur additional public debt, or not.

Proposition 16 doesn’t decide on public power or no public power – it just makes sure that the question is in the hands of the voters, where it belongs.

California’s leaders are doing their best to manage some tough economic times. With the economic climate as tough as it is, investing blindly in risky new businesses just makes it that much harder on everyone. Leaders need the input of the people they serve. If they are going to spend the taxpayers’ money or take on additional debt, they should be required to get voter approval first. Proposition 16 does just that – it’s just good sense.

A puzzle from Philosophy 101: If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

A puzzle from the prairie: If an earthquake occurs in Illinois and no one notices, is it really a seismic event?

Gov. Pat Quinn called it a “political earthquake” when the state’s Legislature recently voted – 92-17 in the House and 48-6 in the Senate – to reform pensions for state employees. There is now a cap on the amount of earnings that can be used as the basis for calculating benefits.

An even more important change – a harbinger of America’s future – is that most new Illinois state government employees must work until age 67 to be eligible for full retirement benefits. Those already on the state payroll can still retire at 55 with full benefits.

The 1935 Social Security Act established 65 as the age of eligibility for payouts. But welfare state politics quickly became a bidding war, enriching the menu of benefits, so in 1956 Congress entitled women to collect benefits at 62, extending the entitlement to men in 1961.

Today, nearly half of Social Security recipients choose to begin getting benefits at 62. This is a grotesque perversion of a program that was never intended to subsidize retirees for a third of their adult lives.

It also reflects the decadent dependence that the welfare state encourages: Because of the displacement of responsibility from the individual to government, 48 percent of workers over 55 have total savings and investments of less than $50,000.

Because most states’ pension plans compute their present values – and minimize required current contributions – by assuming an unrealistic 8 percent annual return, the cumulative funding gap of state pensions already may be $3 trillion and rising.

For example, Wednesday’s New York Times contained this attention-seizing bulletin: “An independent analysis of California’s three big pension funds has found a hidden shortfall of more than half a trillion dollars, several times the amount reported by the funds and more than six times the value of the state’s outstanding bonds.”

It is not news that California is America’s homegrown Greece, but the condition of the three funds, which serve 2.6 million current and retired public employees, is going to exacerbate the state’s decline by requiring higher taxpayer contributions.

A recent debate on “Fox News Sunday” illustrated the differences between the few politicians who are, and the many who are not, willing to face facts. Marco Rubio, the former speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives who is challenging Gov. Charles Crist for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, made news by stating the obvious.

Asked how the nation might address the projected $17.5 trillion in unfunded Social Security liabilities, Rubio said we should consider two changes for people 10 or more years from retirement. One would raise the retirement age. The other would alter the calculation of benefits: indexing them to inflation rather than wage increases.

Neither idea startles any serious person. But Crist, with the reflex of the unreflective, rejected both and said he would fix Social Security by eliminating “waste” and “fraud,” of which there is little.

Synthetic indignation being the first refuge of political featherweights, Crist’s campaign announced that he believes Rubio’s suggestions are “cruel, unusual and unfair to seniors.” They are indeed unusual, because flinching from the facts of the coming entitlements crisis is the default position of all but a responsible few.

What is ultimately cruel is Crist’s unserious pretense that America faces only palatable choices, and that improvident promises can be fully funded with money now lost to waste and fraud.

Rubio’s responsible answer to a serious question gives the nation a glimpse of a rarity – a brave approach to the welfare state’s inevitable politics of gerontocracy.

Re “A giveaway at the very worst possible time” (Editorial, March 25): The homebuyer tax credit goes into effect May 1, and it’s a bipartisan measure that an overwhelming majority of state legislators understand will help get California’s fragile economy moving again.

Portraying this legislation as a tax giveaway couldn’t be further from the truth. This is an investment in California and Californians that will get many off the fence and into the housing market. Respected economists recognize that improving the fate of the housing industry is a key to jump-starting the overall economy.

The homebuyer tax credit will accomplish many goals, which is why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill and why 96 of 99 legislators agreed. It will help clear out the inventory of existing homes, get new construction started, allow contractors and subcontractors to hire again and improve the state’s revenue picture.

Studies show that each new home built generates three full-time jobs, and that each new homeowner immediately adds $16,000 in various tax revenues back to the state. Those are the key aspects of the tax credit. The state will get back more in return than it is putting up for the program.

A very small minority has argued the tax credit gives $10,000 back to homebuyers who were going to purchase homes anyway. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The 2009 tax credit showed dramatic increases in home sales and traffic at sales centers, in many cases double or triple in volume, or even higher in many communities.

The state’s Franchise Tax Board estimates the tax credit is expected to help more than 14,000 Californians get into a new home. That means 14,000 households living the American dream. That means 14,000 households helping the state dig itself out of the worst recession most of us have experienced.

Sitting back and doing nothing is not a solution. Incentives are needed to get Californians purchasing again. The homebuyer tax credit is one of the best ways to accomplish that goal.

Re “Should state adopt an open primary? Yes: It would help third parties thrive where they now flunk” (Viewpoints, March 28): For more than three presidential cycles Ralph Nader has worked to open the political system to more voices and more choices for American voters.

That’s why it is particularly strange that Harry Kresky, in his commentary in favor of California adopting Proposition 14 for an open primary system, would claim that by opposing the initiative, Nader is against progressive change in the electoral process or is seeking to “slam” the door shut on independents. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Kresky misstates Nader’s position since many independents and minor parties are rightfully against Proposition 14.

Among the many reasons to oppose Proposition 14:

• The limited historical data provided by the only two states that have tried it, Washington and Louisiana, show that third parties virtually never make the top two candidates and are cut out of the November election, when most voters are paying attention and voting.

• Electoral competitiveness will likely decrease as the major parties will be able to game the system by attempting to consolidate behind one primary candidate, thereby limiting voter choice even in the primary;

• As an insult to voter choice and ballot dissent, Proposition 14 prevents write-ins from being counted in November.

These negatives, and others, overwhelm the two alleged advantages proponents claim Proposition 14 poses: that more moderate candidates will emerge and that independents would be able to vote for whomever they choose in the primary. But there is no historical support that moderates emerge from open primaries. Moreover, independents can already vote in primaries, they just have to pick one party’s primary to participate in, rather than picking amongst all the candidates of all the parties, a privilege no other party voter receives.

On balance, the alleged reform is a choice-minimizing “cure” worse than the problem.

California has enough problems; Proposition 14 will limit the candidates and the new ideas and solutions they propose (and that voters are able to choose from in November), thereby diminishing competition and choice.

If elected this fall, the former eBay chairwoman would be the first business magnate in 150 years and the days of Leland Stanford – with all due apologies to Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose celebrity stems more from filmdom than finance – to occupy the first floor of the State Capitol. As the first governor with a home address in Silicon Valley and a résumé steeped in e-commerce, Meg Whitman also would be the first governor to embody the New Economy.

And did I mention that, if elected, Whitman would be California’s first woman governor? That’s funny, because Whitman seemingly has no interest in promoting herself as a lower-case first lady. And that puts her in line for another distinction: the rare woman to seek a high-profile office who didn’t try to make the xx chromosome an x factor in her winning formula.

This is not to say that the feminine mystique has completely vanished from the Whitman campaign. Early into her run, the Republican frontrunner launched a “MEGaWomen” coalition that promised to “provide an opportunity for dynamic women throughout California – Republicans, Democrats and independents – to recruit, volunteer and vote for Meg Whitman for governor.” How many women? Thirteen million of adult age, and more than 850,000 women-owned businesses, Whitman’s campaign literature suggests.

Yet on the campaign trail, Whitman doesn’t resort to the kind of rhetoric we’ve become accustomed to from the likes of Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein – no emotional appeals to crack the glass ceiling, or proving a woman’s place is in the House and the Senate.

So far, for Whitman, it’s all about sticking to a gender-neutral script: jobs, education and a spine of steel. There’s no tugging at heartstrings – not unless you’re paying attention to another race and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who cites her bout with breast cancer and climb from office receptionist as proof of her feistiness.

So why would Whitman choose to cloak herself in androgynous messaging? Sure, there are the peculiarities of a conservative-tilting GOP primary. So, better Plain Jane than Jane Fonda. Moreover, and unlike Fiorina’s biography, Whitman’s led a charmed life that’s not the stuff of Lifetime dramas.

A more salient answer might be that Whitman simply is adapting the world she now inhabits – not just Republican voters, but a grumpy nation-state. She’s no Schwarzenegger in terms of charisma and showmanship. But when fourth-fifths of the electorate believes the state’s on the wrong track, and less than three in 10 voters like the job the governator’s doing, why try to get in on his act?

Whitman was somewhat Arnold-like during her eBay days, throwing high-energy pep rallies. She’s smart enough to realize that, in a slow economy, voters aren’t looking for a cheerleader.

Is the gender-neutral approach working for Whitman? Judging by her gaudy lead in the Republican primary, there’s little question that Whitman has all but neutralized Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. And, per recent statewide polls, Whitman enjoys a narrow lead over her likely November opponent, Attorney General Jerry Brown.

But to remain ahead come November, Whitman will have to do better among – you guessed it – women, who accounted for 51 percent of voters in the 2006 governor’s race.

In the latest Field Poll, Whitman led Brown among women, 45 percent to 43 percent. But among men, she led 47 percent to 43 percent.

How does that compare to the last two Republicans to be elected governor? In 2006, exit polls had Schwarzenegger winning the women’s vote, 55 percent to 41 percent. That’s double Pete Wilson’s margin in 1994, when he finished seven percentage points ahead of Kathleen Brown among California women.

But Schwarzenegger and Wilson enjoyed something in their landslide wins that Whitman probably will not in what’s expected to be a tight race: commanding leads among male voters (a 23-point edge for Wilson; 15 points for Schwarzenegger). It’s hard to imagine Jerry Brown running a campaign as ill-conceived as his sister’s was 16 years ago, or doing something as self-destructive as calling for a tax increase, which contributed mightily to Phil Angelides’ doom four years ago.

Facing a smart opponent who may deprive her of the advantage of a male gender gap, Whitman may find it necessary to return to that concept of “MEGaWomen.” What a refreshing conservation it could be, especially if she has the courage to craft a “post-glass ceiling” message that has little to do with resentment or victimization.

And for California, an opportunity to see if Meg Whitman can do something no man can – to not only talk CEO to shareholder, but woman to woman.

Bill Whalen

Butler’s Gordon Hayward leaves the court last week in Indianapolis after his last-second shot clanged off the rim, giving Duke the NCAA men’s basketball championship. Behind Hayward, Duke players form a jubilant pile on the floor.

If last week’s David vs. Goliath contests are any indication, Steve Poizner should hold off buying the celebratory confetti for June 8.

First, there was Butler, the small school turned national darling, playing in its hometown for the NCAA men’s basketball title against mighty Duke. The tense, hard-fought game came down to one fateful bounce. Hoop fans the world over held their breath as Gordon Hayward’s half-court heave arced toward the basket, seemingly destined to create a real-life “Hoosiers” miracle. But the last-second shot glanced off the rim.

The next night, Stanford tried to stop Connecticut, the juggernaut of women’s college basketball with a 77-game winning streak. After leading by 8 points at the half, Stanford and its injured senior star Jayne Appel limped to the final buzzer. The Cardinal gave UConn its two toughest games this season, but came up short.

While monumental upsets sometimes happen in sports, thanks to guts and sheer luck, they occur less often in politics, largely because money rules.

So Poizner might face an even tougher fight in the Republican gubernatorial primary against mega-millionaire Meg Whitman. Despite flinging any rocks he can find against the former eBay CEO, Poizner trails in several polls by 50 percentage points.

If he has the proverbial slingshot, she seems to have an impenetrable shield and armor, the kind covered with gold.

Whitman disclosed last week that she has thrown another $20 million of her own fortune into the campaign – a staggering total of $59 million with two months yet to go before the primary. Poizner has invested about $19 million of his own money, but his outside fundraising has all but dried up.

If anything, Poizner may be even more of a Cinderella in his match-up than Butler and Stanford were in theirs. And like them, it would be a shocker if there is a fairy-tale ending.

– Foon Rhee

Stanford’s Jayne Appel drives against Connecticut’s Tina Charles on Tuesday in the NCAA women’s basketball championship game. UConn won.

Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner are both millionaires, but Whitman has outspent Poizner in their race for the state’s Republican gubernatorial nomination. Poizner now finds himself 50 points behind in polls.

Requires two-thirds voter approval before local governments provide electricity service to new customers or establish a community choice electricity program using public funds or bonds.

Fiscal impact: Unknown net impact on state and local government costs and revenue – unlikely to be significant in the short run – due to the measure’s uncertain effects on public electricity providers and on electricity rates.

A YES vote on this measure means: Local governments would generally be required to receive two-thirds voter approval before they could start up electricity services or expand electricity service into a new territory.

A NO vote on this measure means: Local governments generally could continue to implement proposals involving the startup or expansion of electricity service either through approval by a majority of voters or actions by governing boards.

ARGUMENTS

Pro: Proposition 16 is the Taxpayers Right to Vote Act. It requires two-thirds voter approval before local governments can spend or borrow public money to enter the retail electricity business. In tough economic times like these, taxpayers should have the final say in how government spends our money.

Con: Proposition 16 does two things: First, it drastically limits your choices on who provides you with electricity. Second, it lets the for-profit utilities in California raise your electricity rates again and again, by protecting their monopoly and eliminating competition. For more choice and lower electric bills, NO on Proposition 16.

For more information on Proposition 16, go to:

http://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/

www.taxpayersrighttovote.com

www.powergrab.info

KABUL, Afghanistan – When Afghan President Hamid Karzai was meeting with provincial governors recently, he looked at his dinner and remarked, “Maybe the foreigners put some poison in my food.”

This story was told to me by someone who attended the event and said he thought Karzai was joking. But the Afghan leader’s remark shows how low U.S.-Afghan diplomatic relations have sunk as Karzai has repeatedly railed against foreigners and declared he won’t be anyone’s puppet.

Recently, Karzai has rushed to Iran and China to prove he doesn’t depend solely on Washington, and rebuffed U.S. demands that he curb corruption.

Yet before calls mount in Congress for us to quit Kabul, we should examine the dysfunctional way the Obama administration has dealt with the Karzai problem. It has made a bad situation worse.

Despite U.S. frustration with Karzai, he’s the elected president, and there’s no alternative out there. We have to deal with the Afghan leader we’ve got.

Yet the civilian side of the U.S. government can’t seem to figure out how to talk to the prickly Karzai. A large part of the problem lies with the unwieldy structure Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set up when she named a special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

Holbrooke, renowned for his abrasive personality, alienated Karzai from the get-go. He’s chastised Karzai in public and left the Afghan leader convinced the administration wants to oust him. In a culture that prizes respect, such public rebukes, even if deserved, ensure Karzai will lash back.

Holbrooke’s relationship with Karzai is so strained there is hardly any communication between them. What use is a special representative to Afghanistan who can’t talk with the leader in Kabul?

Karzai’s hostility toward Holbrooke has colored his relationship with the U.S. Embassy. Afghans are uncertain who speaks for President Barack Obama – Holbrooke or U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry. Adding confusion, the CIA seems to have its own policy.

Obama hasn’t helped. Unlike then-President George W. Bush, who held monthly videoconferences with Karzai, Obama has distanced himself from the Afghan leader. He made his first visit to Kabul as president only two weeks ago, for a few hours in the middle of the night, to lecture Karzai on corruption. In a relationship in which trust has totally eroded, this fly-by-night meeting made matters worse.

The U.S. official with the best relationship with Karzai is Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. U.S. military officials have taken a different approach to Karzai from civilians, making frequent contact and ostentatiously displaying respect. The U.S. commander takes Karzai’s displays of nationalism more in stride, in the hope he’ll start acting like a national leader.

The issue is not whether Karzai denounces foreigners, but whether he begins to take responsibility for ensuring stability in troubled areas such as Kandahar.

The administration should designate one point person to deal with Karzai – preferably a strengthened U.S. ambassador to Kabul who has Obama’s full backing. The Afghan leader needs to hear one clear message – in private.

The United States can’t afford an open war of words with Karzai. It is a war we can’t win, one that could destroy the central foreign-policy undertaking of Obama’s first term.