Posted on 07/28/2004 9:40:14 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
From the moment he - somewhat surprisingly - offered himself as California's governor nearly a year ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger has promised that he would close the state's chronic budget deficit without new taxes or major damage to vital services by taking a realistic, tough-minded approach.
"The public doesn't care about figures," he said early in his campaign. "They have heard figures for the last five years. Figures and drafts and percentages. And all kinds of things. What the people want to hear is, are you willing to make the changes? Are you tough enough to go in there and provide leadership?
"In the past two budgets, the easy choices were made," Schwarzenegger said as he unveiled an austerity budget for 2004-05 in January. "Those budgets were shell games, using tricks and gimmicks to put off the hard decisions until after the next election cycle."
Schwarzenegger and his aides began calling his budget approach "a workout plan" that would, they said, bring income and outgo into balance over several years by restraining spending and counting on a surge of revenue as the state's economy recovers. Very soon, however, Schwarzenegger began to retreat from austerity in the face of stiff opposition from affected groups, even though he continued his tough talk about reducing bloat.
By the time Schwarzenegger presented a revised 2004-05 budget to the Legislature in May, he had added about $3 billion in spending, citing improved revenue. But by spending, rather than banking, those new dollars, Schwarzenegger put his "workout plan" in jeopardy. He contended that his revised plan would "move the state budget closer to a structural balance (and) away from the fiscal mess that came from five years of overspending," but the Legislature's independent budget office projected deficits that, while smaller, would continue to plague the state for several years to come.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
The man is absolutely fabulous. Tell me that any of those bozos that ran against him could have had as much success so soon as Arnold.
just more loans, more bonds and higher fees...
more taxes are inevitably on the way...
And still not a peep out of him about sizing down the gravy train for illegal aliens which costs us billions every year! Disgusting.
This is based on the best case scenerio. I assume that includes interest on the bond. Is it now time for the "Don't Blame Me I voted For McClintock" bumper stickers? (just another example of when a true conservative is running a RINO appears & sweeps the other away & we end up EVERY time with a BIGGER budget - 3 Mil more in this yrs.)
Cutting spending will cure deficits ... it's the one solution that has not been tried much, but works every time.
And if deficits do persist, the underlying conflict that besets the Capitol - spending cuts vs. new taxes - will arise anew.
With the road GovRino has chosen for California, I say chances are pretty good that income taxes will go up within 12-18 months. It would appear few people in the Golden State support responsible choices and are willing to suffer a reduction in social spending in order to straighten out the economic and fiscal mess the state government is in. A real fiscal conservative like Tom McClintock would have been fighting for spending reductions from the get-go and demanding accountablility. Arnold has been working on the margins and is afraid to tell the people the truth. Either cut spending, or income taxes will have to be raised.
Well I won't say "I told you so!" but if you recall my McClintock campaign slogan from last year...
"Vote 4 McClintock or Pay$ the Con$equence$"
and here we are "paying the con$equence$"
Most CA voters were dazzled by Arnold's "star power", and now they're all mad at him. McClintock was the only one who had the guts to speak up for us.
"What the people want to hear is, are you willing to make the changes? Are you tough enough to go in there and provide leadership?"
Agreed. We will soon see how much spending Arnold will cut from the budget with his line item veto sword.
The article said it was based on worst-case scenarios, or did I miss something? It did NOT account for future economic growth, right?
Manly-girl doesn't get that most services can't just pass this on to customers.
>>>>Liberal Los Angeles Democrat Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg said higher income taxes on the wealthy and a new sales tax on services should have been included in the 2004-05 spending plan.
Sure, if you stick a clown face on it because that's all TM is.
What else could the Austrian Pretender say after negotiating that big, bloated turd and will someone please wake up ClintonBeGone and tell him the recall election is over, California replaced one liberal with another, the state is deeper in debt, the spending just keeps increasing and the BS just keeps getting deeper.
Have you considered digging up a Soreloserman bumper sticker? I can't think of a better display than your own fender.
You must have been disappointed when your boy Arnold raised a ton of cash for him a few months ago.
Not at all, it shows that even a clown like TM has his price. AS paid the price to shut him up and get him on his team.
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