Hero image fades just when Arnold needs it the most

L.A. Daily News ^ | Sunday, February 06, 2005 | Jill Stewart

[nickcarraway]

I hope it's dawning on the governor that truly big reform -- broad, complex changes in the way Sacramento spends our taxes -- has never been an easy sell. Californians prefer glitzy, one-hit wonders over policy. We're a Proposition 13, term-limits, "three strikes, you're out," gubernatorial-recall kind of state. Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a page from the playbook of former Gov. Ronald Reagan, who some 30 years ago tried to address rising taxes and legislative overspending with sweeping ballot reform.

Reagan was popular and telegenic, like Schwarzenegger. But his complex plan, fought by entrenched interests, was defeated. He didn't give Californians the one-shot fix they so love.

Yet Reagan proved prescient. Soon, California was in an uproar over skyrocketing property taxes and blatant overspending by politicians who didn't give a damn. Voters embraced the one-hit wonder of Proposition 13. Now, Schwarzenegger faces a hurdle Reagan didn't have: a self-inflicted veracity problem, in which he promises things he can't possibly deliver.

Three examples come to mind.

Last spring, Schwarzenegger promised that his workers' comp reforms would lead to almost instant, major reductions for devastated businesses. The truth is, every decent insurer in the United States requires a verifiable, lengthy history of lower workers' comp costs before cutting rates. It takes many months, even a year. It's terrific that Schwarzenegger's reforms are working, creating lasting medical cost reductions, because scads of cheating workers and sleazy doctors are being drummed out. But insurers are lowering rates only gradually -- never, ever quickly. Why promise otherwise?

Schwarzenegger also promised to wring vast sums of money out of Washington, D.C. Now he's stuck trying to prove he's turning an impossible situation around.

At a recent press conference, the governor accepted a fat check from Washington to fight homelessness. It was the sort of window-dressing -- hyping occasional goodies tossed to California -- that Gray Davis practiced to obscure his failures.

Some analysts say that for every $1 a California taxpayer sends to Washington, the state gets just 77 cents back. Schwarzenegger can't fix that. Simply put, people in Washington hate California. Powerful committee chairmen from Southern and Midwestern states milk the money coming from California and other disliked states. California's new state Department of Finance director, Tom Campbell, a former member of Congress, recently said at a hearing, "Believe me, California has this problem in Congress."

Schwarzenegger has urged the useless California congressional delegation to work together -- a fantasy. A recent study says California's 53 Democrats and Republicans are probably the most partisan, internally warring and ineffective delegation in Congress.

Members of Congress and Schwarzenegger are now promising to fight to keep California military facilities open. Talk about your bare minimums. That's hardly something to crow about. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has as much as admitted that the big inequities won't change.

But Schwarzenegger's most politically damaging broken promise stems from a deal he struck to pour extra money into schools this year -- under a formula that, due to unexpectedly high tax revenues, means schools expect $4 billion extra.

Instead of an extra $4 billion, Schwarzenegger is offering the schools an extra $2.5 billion. The deficit sucked up the rest. Schwarzenegger doesn't seem to accept that breaking promises hands tremendous power to his opponents. As a Republican analyst told me, "Arnold is not vulnerable to convention political attacks like he's unkind, or motivated by greed, or a tool of special interests." But "if the Democrats attack him on what he has delivered, this is his zone of vulnerability."

No wonder the school lobby is trying to convince voters that the $2.5 billion increase -- a 7 percent boost -- is a fat "cut" for schools. A spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer declared to a reporter that the extra $2.5 billion for schools "writes off a whole generation of California schoolchildren." And state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said he didn't think "the citizens of California are willing to sacrifice the future of their children." Even some journalists bought this nonsense, describing the extra $2.5 billion as a "cut."

Still, I don't blame the gaseous Lockyer and O'Connell. They are fibbing, but in response to Arnold's fibbing.

What we're seeing is a glaring example of Schwarzenegger's lack of experience. While Sacramento power brokers break virtually every rule of decent conduct, they expect someone on the other side to keep his word.

There's a lot to like in the governor's agenda to reform the state budget, government pensions, teacher pay and political gerrymandering. And the governor can take heart from a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California that found 68 percent of voters want a crack at reforming the budget via the ballot.

But to sell his ideas to Californians who prefer one-hit wonders, Arnold must be believable. And right now, having tarnished his own veracity, he's being taken with a grain of salt.

[goldstategop]

Arnold overpromised and underdelivered. If his reforms are rejected by the voters - he will have only himself to blame for the result.

(Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News.")

[endthematrix]

"Some analysts say that for every $1 a California taxpayer sends to Washington, the state gets just 77 cents back. "

taxfoundation.org