Posted on 01/20/2004 5:04:05 PM PST by calcowgirl
FRESNO, Calif. -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger launched his campaign Tuesday to persuade voters to approve his $15 billion bond measure to get the state out of debt, saying a "yes" vote is the only way to avoid enormous public service cuts.
Even as recent polls suggest voters are skeptical of Schwarzenegger's plan to sell $15 billion in bonds to pay off California's debt, the governor appeared optimistic voters will eventually understand the alternative would mean definite cuts to services -- and possibly higher taxes.
"I call them Armageddon cuts," he told a crowd of about 150 invited guests at Duncan Enterprises, a Fresno ceramics plant. "We have the $15 billion economic recovery bond. We consolidate the inherited debt and refinance it, which is exactly what a financial adviser would say ... Then we are out of the hole. We are on our way to recovery."
Schwarzenegger stressed the bipartisan nature of the campaign, as Democratic state Controller Steve Westly joined him to call the measure "the most important vote most of you will cast in your lifetime."
The bonds, which will go before voters as Proposition 57 on the March 2 ballot, would pay off short-term notes that come due in June, when Westly says the state would run out of money.
Without the bonds, Schwarzenegger says he will likely have little choice but to cut spending dramatically. However, the governor avoided questions about whether tax hikes he has promised not to enact would be inevitable without the bond measure, instead leaving Westly, the state's CFO, to deliver the bad news.
"Is it a perfect solution? No," Westly said. "I hate to tell you but there are no perfect solutions in Sacramento. But compared to the draconian cuts in services or huge tax increases, this is the best option. We're the world's sixth-largest economy. There's much more at stake here than people realize.
"In this next budget, there are going to be cuts across the board, including in education," Westly added. "What we are trying to avoid here is a jolt on top of that."
With the vote just six weeks away, Schwarzenegger is expected to make at least two campaign stops a week throughout the state to sell the bond measure. He is also raising money for a statewide television ad campaign that is likely to start in mid-February.
Aides say they have budgeted $8-12 million for the campaign, though so far he's raised just a fraction of that amount, according to recent finance reports.
A Field Poll released last week reported that just one-third of 648 likely voters surveyed supported Proposition 57, while 40 percent were opposed and 27 percent were undecided. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.
The current budget includes $10.7 billion worth of bonds to pay off past deficit spending. Those bonds, however, are on hold pending a lawsuit by anti-tax groups that say such bonds are illegal unless approved by voters. If the $15 billion deal fails, the governor can fall back on the smaller bond deal and fight opponents in court.
As bipartisan as Schwarzenegger would like the "Californians for a Balanced Budget" campaign to appear, two of the campaign's biggest opponents come from both sides of the aisle.
State Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democrat, and many conservative Republicans -- including Sen. Tom McClintock of Northridge -- oppose the idea of borrowing to reduce debt.
At the state Democratic convention last weekend, Angelides urged activists to oppose the bond measure and said it was up to Schwarzenegger to develop other options for solving the state's fiscal crisis in the event voters turn the measure down.
Angelides said in an interview Tuesday that Schwarzenegger "needs to put in place a plan B if the voters have a different judgment. The last thing he ought to be doing is threatening the voters with 'my way or the highway."'
McClintock, who ran against Schwarzenegger in the recall election, said California's budget problems would be fixed without borrowing and without drastic cuts to services by "streamlining state bureaucracies, contracting out of state services and ending free services for illegal immigrants -- that alone is $4 billion right there.
"Bottom line is this, California is suffering a spending problem," McClintock said, "and the obvious solution is to reduce spending, not to borrow more so we can spend more."
Shaun Bowler, a political science professor at University of California, Riverside said Schwarzenegger's "doom and gloom" prophecies of service cuts and tax hikes without the bond measure could work.
"You can frighten people into passing it if it looks like they're not coming around," Bowler said. "He's real good at spin."
So DO IT!
Sounds good to me. I might even move back to Taxifornia if they did it.
For those who swore that Schwarzenegger was a fiscal conservative here's the smoking gun.
I expect all those involved in the charade this last fall to prostrate themselves before Jim Robinson and beg forgiveness.
I hope so ... for the sake of my children and their children.
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