Schwarzenegger's Budget Would Trigger Billions in New Spending. Can state afford future costs?

Los Angeles Times ^ | Jan 10, 2006

[John Jorsett]

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a crusader for fiscal restraint since he was elected two years ago, will unveil a budget today that would trigger billions of dollars in new spending well into the future.

The governor plans to increase funding for education, healthcare and transportation programs. Much of it is spending that the state would continue to be responsible for in future years.

Schwarzenegger's spending plan comes at the same time he is proposing — independent of his budget — to bring before voters $68 billion in new borrowing to improve the state's roads, bridges, ports and levees over the next 10 years. Californians would need to begin paying for that by the end of next year.

It all comes as California's $115.7-billion budget remains chronically imbalanced and as the state is expected to lose billions of dollars in federal aid over the next several years. Even without the governor's new programs, the state was projected to spend more than it takes in through 2010.

Though administration officials say they are paying for all of these election year initiatives with an unanticipated tax windfall that has come to the state in recent months — with more revenue likely to arrive in the future — analysts question whether California can really afford it.

[EagleUSA]

No, the state cannot affort it- but that does not matter to TAX-AND-SPEND liberals. It never has. The state continues to backslide into liberal mediocrity, typical of the other liberal dumps they have created.

[Mr. K]

Time for another recall

Too bad Governator- you had a chance and you are blowing it.

You could simply audit all govt agencies and save 75% after you sniff out the 25% of the government employees who are actually competent and do a good job. I may be generous in that percentage.

[VictoryGal]

Why exactly did we trade Davis for Arnie? Trading a girly-man hideously large debt with a pumped-up insanely large debt?

It's depressing.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Property confiscations will begin.

[verity]

The Master Plan is to bankrupt California into insolvency and irrelevance.

[kingu]

You know, it is almost entertaining watching liberals trying to twist themselves into knots. Deficit spending is bad, they claim, while at the same time raising the level of deficit spending.

The Governor is over budget, they claim, while at the same time planning more programs to raise the budget even further.

Oh, and taxes should be raised... Yeah, that's always been a winning call in this state. I'm supposing that their favorite target next time around will be commercial property taxes.

I'd like a few slash and burn budgets to be released. Not that such budgets would ever pass the legislature. They'd pump it up and pass it by an unanimous vote (sans McClintock) and then get in front of mikes and be critical of the Governor for spending the state into bankruptcy. Should the Governor veto the budget ... well, since everyone except one voted for it, the override of the veto should take less than ten minutes.

The funny thing is that Californians know who the real enemy is. Every poll that comes out always ranks the governor ten points ahead of the state legislature. Pedophiles will typically rate higher than the state legislature. Murderers will typically rate higher than the state legislature, yet supposedly the enemy is the governor.

It is a twisted state that I live in, that's for sure.

[JLGALT]

"You could simply audit all govt agencies and save 75% after you sniff out the 25% of the government employees who are actually competent and do a good job. I may be generous in that percentage"

It's probably more like 20% working and 80% faking it. Just check out the DMV!

[Amerigomag]

yet supposedly the enemy is the governor

He's the one proposing the record increases in spending, not the legislature.

Conservative governors are supposed to submit conservative budgets. Republican governors are supposed to veto bloated legislative budget proposals.

Schwarzenegger is proposing the bloated budgets, signing them into law and borrowing to support them. Schwarzenegger is the enemy.

[Grendel9]

It won't be long before California residents
are going to be faced with a decision:
STAY in CA and pay the huge NEW taxes
to be piled on top of the liberal Welfare
doles now in existence...OR...LEAVE the
once Golden State Paradise of their emigrant
parents/grandparents and possibly seek
relocate in another state.

Many Southern Californians have already made
that decision, jumping the border for Arizona
or New Mexico. More than a few Central and
Northern residents have moved to Nevada and
Oregon. And with the border situation
intensifying, more and more Californians
will be found weighing their options.

The number of school children in the family
is also a huge factor. California schools
are NOT what they once were.

[kingu]

Umm, ok.. The governor proposes increased budgets, the legislature takes those budgets and increases them, and it is the governor's fault that they are passed with a super majority that is veto proof.

Turns out that the governor's predictions for income last year were a little under what they actually were and he did indeed propose a balanced budget which the legislature then went and increased as is their typical method.

And the 'record spending increases' coincides with the 'record income increases' that the state is having right now.

Add to this that 90% of the spending in California is on autopilot, including increases, because the legislature decided to not do their job anymore. What's left is prison spending (whoops, autopilot there with recent court decisions), legislative and executive budgets (somehow I doubt the legislature would appreciate their budget being slashed), and, err, I think that was about all that isn't covered under automatic spending at this time..

I'd love a governor who would actually fight the legislature, I'd love to see a couple symbolic vetoes, and Arnold's poll numbers always go up when he goes on the attack against the most hated legislature in the country. But he's not going to do it which makes him a Governator Girlie Man, not the enemy.

The enemy inhabits the legislature, uses propositions to pass day to day budget items, and has tangled the law in the state into a complete disaster.

[onedoug]

"I'm gone."

[EagleUSA]

The Master Plan is to bankrupt California into insolvency and irrelevance...
-----
Yes, that has always been the liberal/socialist plan!!!!

[verity]

Seriously, it is not a plan. Rather, it is an unintended consequence.

[calcowgirl]

The governor proposes increased budgets, the legislature takes those budgets and increases them, and it is the governor's fault that they are passed with a super majority that is veto proof.

Last year, Arnold's huge increases, alone, were enough to placate them.

State Budget Battle Fizzles (Democratic Girly-Men Throw In The Towel Alert)
Los Angeles Times ^ | 06/15/05 | Evan Halper
Posted on 06/15/2005 4:11:24 AM PDT by goldstategop

The Democrats who control the Legislature have abandoned their effort to add billions of dollars in programs to the governor's proposed state budget, and are preparing to vote for a spending plan with no new taxes and no extra money for schools.

(snip)

[NormsRevenge]

Certainly, there are entitlements and initiatives that mandate so much spending here and there and leave much less wiggle room for the GUb to maneuver fiscally.

Last year's budgeting was especially tough as many core programs are now as picked over cut-wise as possible (supposedly) and may well likely out and out shut some programs down partially if not completely (which may not necessarily a bad thing).

Considering the amounts of monies that continue to flow into the coffers, one would expect all these highly eager and able legislators and officials to seek to deliver more and more services without exacting and demanding a better rate of return on the outlay.


Instead we dance at the edge of a bottomless pit, tossing more and more money in and getting less and less out (unless you're in the UC system, in gubamint or the direct or indirect employ thereof).

[Amerigomag]

But he's not going to do it which makes him a Governator Girlie Man, not the enemy.

Schwarzenegger is a liberal by any definition. The list of his liberal accomplishments is well known, the subject of numerous articles. He is certainly more conservative than the Utopian left that populates the state Senate and Assembly but he is still a liberal.

As a liberal he is my political enemy and I will work to drive him from office unless he changes his ways.