Posted on 04/06/2005 6:38:58 AM PDT by John Jorsett
Columnist George Skelton’s enthusiasm for ‘Live Within Our Means’ should lay to rest any notion the measure would reform anything.
I always appreciate having my opinions validated by the Los Angeles Times. Two weeks ago I wrote about the governor’s endorsement of the “California Live Within Our Means” spending-control initiative, pointing out that said measure was toothless, riddled with loopholes, and totally inadequate for the job of controlling state spending.
Monday of this week George Skelton, the liberal Times columnist (pardon the redundancy) who covers Sacramento, strongly endorsed the measure. Case closed. To my knowledge Skelton has never met a government spending program he didn’t like, nor an effective restraint on social spending that he did like. If any further proof was needed that “Live Within Our Means” was laughably misnamed, Skelton’s enthusiasm for the measure provides it.
As I pointed out in my original column, the “Live Within Our Means” initiative, sponsored in large part by the California Business Roundtable and other mega-business interests, would have allowed virtually all the spending that occurred during the Gray Davis era, a time when government officials treated the fiscal health of our state with a level of tender concern roughly reminiscent of a nastier than usual Viking horde raiding coastal villages and towns for loot and the sheer joy of destructiveness. To refresh memories, California woke up the morning after the Davis Sack of Sacramento to find themselves facing a $12 to $14 billion budget deficit. Had the formulas employed by the Business Roundtable measure been in place at the time, the result would have changed little. If it becomes law, Californians will be as helpless as the holy monks of Lindisfarne against the next raid by liberal pillagers assaulting the state treasury and taxpayers’ wallets.
May I see a show of hands of those who think allowing a $12 billion deficit is effective spending control? Anybody?
Additionally, the one good feature of the Roundtable measure — its provision for mid- year budget reduction authority for the governor in lean years — has now been cast into doubt. The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s office seems to be of the opinion that neither Prop. 98 funds nor items with automatic COLAs could be touched in these mid-year reductions. That could put upward of 65 to 70 percent of the budget out of reach.
May I see a show of hands of those who think removing 70 percent of the budget from consideration for reduction is effective budgetary discipline? Anybody?
The Roundtable measure’s main competition for the governor’s affection, an initiative sponsored by state Sen. John Campbell, would have put the brakes on the Davis spending bacchanalia and left incoming Gov. Schwarzenegger a multi-billion dollar surplus. Another alternative, a “New Gann Limit” sponsored by Lew Uhler, would have done as much and perhaps more.
The Campbell measure was seriously considered by the governor’s office. Campbell added a couple of provisions at the specific request of the corner office. So the last minute choice of the competing “Live Within Our means” Measure surprised many people. A heavy thumb on the scale during the governor’s decision no doubt belonged to Bill Hauck, president of the Business Roundtable. Hauck earned his political spurs as chief of staff to liberal Democrat Senator David Roberti when Roberti was president pro-tem of the Senate. One of his main tasks for Roberti was pulling the wool over Republicans’ eyes. The decision out of the governor’s office to support the Roundtable initiative shows he hasn’t lost his touch.
So this is what is supposed to recommend the Roundtable initiative to the GOP grassroots: It’s birth at the hands of a former chief operative for a liberal Democrat senate leader and cheerleading for it by a columnist not only reliably liberal, but widely known as contemptuous of conservative ideas, policies, and elected officials. Schwarzenegger himself ought to know this, judging from past Skelton columns calling the governor “cynical,” a “demagogue ... afraid to fully immerse himself into his newly chosen position,” and one whose “bellicosity is having the most negative impact on the capitol.”
But suddenly Mr. Skelton discovers that the governor has things exactly right. You don’t need the world’s most delicate political antennae to realize that something might be rotten in Denmark ... or even Sacramento.
I’m not writing to bash Skelton, who I’m told is a reasonably affable man whose liberalism blasts forth in a commentary, not news, column. But imagine if Rush Limbaugh endorsed a Barbara Boxer legislative program or Al Franken teamed up with Tom McClintock. Boxer and McClintock partisans would have good reason to take a closer look at the measures in question.
If the governor can’t bring himself to take a closer look at the deeply-flawed Roundtable measure and the vastly superior alternatives available, Republicans best hope is that the whole issue fizzles and that we can start over from scratch. And this time get it right.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Maybe FareOpinion can explain how this makes Arnold a "fiscal conservative."
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Big business uses government spending to make money. Developers build low income housing. Agribusiness loves public spending attracting illegals, as do construction interests. Etc.
You'd think these are the folks who keep whining about getting government out of their hair.
Not when they can use expensive regulations to put their smaller competition out of business so that they can jack prices.
That is the very "pragmatic" mind-set that liberals and leftists thrive on with their Japanese Water Torture like incrementalism that brings them a constant stream of victories. Each "victory" is small enough to remain below the radar, yet just enough, when added to all prior incremental victories, swallows up more into Socialism!
It seems inexorable because our own good conservative people/representatives are obsessed with infernal rationalizing and pragmatism partly because they are afraid to look stubborn or ridgid!!! Liberals and MSM types know this and forever will use it against us until we learn better!!!
>>Maybe FareOpinion can explain how this makes Arnold a "fiscal conservative."
Or maybe not. ;-)
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