Arnold Guts California
Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting ready to gut the government of California. The state has a budget deficit of $24 billion, and the list of Arnold’s proposed budget cuts is about $20 billion. In a speech made today, Arnold made the following mental disconnect: He didn’t want the state to be in the real estate business and that California would be selling off land (essentially, getting into the real estate business). It’s like he didn’t listen to himself about 10 seconds ago. I guess this land sale will generate the other $4 Billion or so. Of course there is not a single tax increase in Arnold’s plan. For some reason Arnold thinks that the propositions that failed in the last election means that voters hate taxes. The thing is that the propositions in the last election were not a round of tax increases. Prop 1A had tax increases, but also set up a rainy day fund in a year when we can’t afford to be setting one up. Apparently Arnold thinks that the failure of prop 1A was a referendum on the taxes in the proposition but not the rainy day fund portion because he still wants a rainy day fund. Arnold is coming to the conclusions that he likes instead of the ones that match the facts.
The video below shows Arnold coming to the wrong conclusions about the election and proposing to gut the state government (along with proposing not to get into the real estate business followed by his proposal for the state to enter land into the real estate business):
The education system and medical care for children and the poor constitute huge portions of the budget cuts. Also planned is the complete removal of state funding of State Parks ($70 million). This relatively small cut, relative to the rest of the cuts, will have a huge impact.
Most people would be unhappy with the closing of Almost all of the State Parks, but some people are actually quite happy about it. Those people are….The anarchists. A wonderful comment on the indymedia website about the cuts states:
State parks currently have problems with people setting up shop to grow pot in state parks as is:
I personally think pot should be legalized to get rid of cartel based pot growing, and so it can be taxed. Since the illegal pot growers don’t want people coming in and stealing their hidden pot stash, land mines and gun toting guards are used to protect the crops. I would like to go camping this summer, but I definitely don’t want to run into guerrilla bases, dropout communities, or armed drug guards.
California’s Budget crisis is probably going to be the legacy of the Arnold Administration. I honestly didn’t expect much from the Terminator, and he has performed at around my expectation.
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I’m not here to defend Arnold, but remember he’s the governor, not the king. He’s not allowed to raise taxes, as far as I understand. We, the people, in our wisdom, decided that tax increases required a two-thirds majority in the Legislature. Basically, we erected a huge barrier between our problems and the obvious solution. I don’t know what happens if the governor acts like the rest of us and just pretends it’s someone else’s problem. Do we file for bankruptcy? Do we just stop having a state government?
I’m not happy about the state park closures. I’m outraged that we’re handing out 10% pay cuts to state workers like candy. The only reasonable solution is to pay for the services we want and give up those we don’t. The imbalance is that the first part takes 2/3 and the second part only takes 1/2.
I guess my point with Arnold is that he is in the position of setting the plan going forward. His plan going forward has absolutely no tax increases. He bases this plan on the false claim that the special election was a bunch of taxes and when the voters voted them down, they voted against taxes. If anyone parroting Arnold’s premise, that the special elections were a referendum on higher taxes, obviously did not read the actual propositions.
I would write more, but instead I found someone that wrote what I was thinking on the talk of the nation page yesterday. Talk of the nation had a segment on California and I was pissed when Neil Conan flatly accepted Arnold’s line that the special election was a referendum on taxes. I think I actually switched to listening to music when he did. Here is the quote:
“I find it amazing that the Governor has managed to sell the election results as, “California voters chose spending cuts over tax increases,” and the hosts of the NPR and KQED shows that I listen to appear to have accepted this story blindly.
I invite Neal Conan and my fellow commenters to read the initiatives we were given to vote on: http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/.
ONE initiative (1A) included tax extensions, FOUR initiatives (1B-1E) involved services cuts, and one initiative (1F) would ding legislators if they failed to pass a budget on time.
Only 1F passed. All the others went down roughly 70-30.
So California voters said NO to spending cuts four times, and NO to tax extensions once. How was this election about affirming spending cuts over raising taxes?
Also, check out who signed on to the argument in favor of proposition 1A: TERESA CASAZZA, President California Taxpayers’ Association. This organization is devoted to limiting taxes, its Web site (http://www.caltax.org/) cheers for prop 13, and yet, the ONLY initiative that would have expanded tax revenues received this organization’s backing.”
I don’t really think Arnold should take the blame here – if Gray Davis had still been governor, he would have been waaaay worse.
I disagree. Gray Davis probably would have not vetoed the Democrat Majority Budget: http://www.gov.ca.gov/press-release/12615/
Arnold is trying to use shock doctrine techniques and free market economic theory on California. California is preparing itself to become a US version of Bolivia from the 90s. Gray Davis would have sucked, but Gray Davis would be hard pressed to be doing worse than Arnold. Arnold and the minority Republicans are in lock step with the power of the veto to prevent anything other than ONLY budget cuts to solve the budget problems.
Watch the following video to see where Arnold gets his economic foundation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKbHA76-Hi0&
Davis DID veto the Democratic budget, or atleast threatened to unless they accommodated the Republicans more.
He also reneged on Pete Wilson’s (as Republican as you get) promise to raise car registration fees if there was a budget deficit, especially on gas-guzzlers.
Ben’s right – we get the government we deserve. Until Californians stop trying to push their problems into the future, like with the housing bubble, things won’t get better.