Posted on 01/05/2005 9:31:01 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO — In a bid to make this pivotal year harder for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, political rival Phil Angelides launched a statewide TV ad campaign Tuesday attacking what Democrats call the weakest spot in the governor's State of the State address today.
The Democratic state treasurer and likely gubernatorial candidate — and Senate President pro tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, in a separate event — criticized the Republican governor's handling of the persistent multibillion-dollar state deficit.
Administration officials dismissed Democrats' moves as pre-election-year partisan politics.
Schwarzenegger, who opposes tax hikes as a solution, is expected to announce today he's convening a special legislative session on reorganizing state government, reforming the political redistricting process and a state spending cap. He's set to propose a budget Monday.
"It's very clear the governor is going to go down the path of diversion," said Angelides at a news conference in a health clinic for the poor. "We're going to see more budget deception and the consequences will be devastating."
Angelides' 30-second television ads this week in California's major markets accuse the governor of breaking promises to shield health care and education from budget cuts. Fiscal options other than a tax hike, which the treasurer supports, have been largely exhausted, he said.
In a separate Capitol news conference, Perata questioned whether Angelides' ads will be effective, given the timing, but said he would "yield to the treasurer's judgment."
"This has been done before against the governor to very little success," said Perata, referring to Angelides' TV campaign last year against Schwarzenegger's debt bonds that were ultimately approved by voters.
Perata criticized Schwarzenegger's plan to call a special legislative session on political redistricting changes, government reorganization and a state spending limit, then again go directly to voters on the issues if necessary.
If the governor decides to take such concerns to voters this fall, Democrats will respond with ballot measures they favor, Perata said.
"If there's going to be a gunfight at the OK Corral, we're not going to go in unarmed," he said.
The pro-tem, who holds the second most powerful political job in the state after the governor, vowed to focus on core middle-class woes such as education, transportation, housing and health care that are making Californians "angrier and angrier."
He suggested special sessions should instead be called on those issues and disclosed that no deal has been reached on paying for multibillion-dollar cost overruns on Bay Bridge work.
Perata said Schwarzenegger could eliminate the state's $8.1 billion budget deficit if he persuaded the Bush administration and the Republicans who control Congress to give California more federal funding.
"We are not even in the middle (among states in federal aid)," he said. "If we got to the middle on health care, No Child Left Behind, on transportation, ... we would not have a deficit this year."
Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson criticized Democrats' moves as "partisan shots" before they had even heard the State of the State address or seen the proposed budget. "The governor looks forward to working with the Legislature," she said.
The $200,000 cost of Angelides' ad for a week is being financed by a political committee he formed last year to address fiscal issues, Standing Up for California, and is set against a black-and-white series of Schwarzenegger appearances.
The commercial opens with what it calls Schwarzenegger's failed 2004 State of the State promise that "never again will government be allowed to spend money it doesn't have."
Since taking office, the ad says, the governor has "kept on borrowing, increasing our debt to $26 billion — 40 percent more debt than under (former Gov.) Gray Davis."
"The yearly payments will be more than we spend on the entire University of California system," according to the commercial. "Now the governor's debt threatens 'draconian cuts' in the budget to education and health care, which he promised to protect."
The ad concludes: "Tell Gov. Schwarzenegger no more debt, no more deception."
The Democrats want to spend more on middle class entitlement programs? It all sounds wonderful except for one teensy weensy little detail. How do they plan to PAY for it? This is the logic of Sacramento: instead of figuring how to pay off out current debt and come up with a way to avoid getting in the same situation in the future, we're instead offered the opportunity to charge yet another credit card. Now while I don't like what Arnold did last year and to be fair it was a tawdry gimmick, the Democrats are going beyond it by by continuing our pattern of deficit spending. The last thing they want to do is reform. Phil Angelides wants higher taxes? Fine! Cruz Bustamante ran on virtually the same platform in 2003 and lost big. Nothing like liberals wanting to build down from past failures.
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