Associated Press
"We may have to find a new word to define what Arnold Schwarzenegger is up to. 'Ambitious' may not cover it," a Republican analyst said.
Posted on 01/12/2007 9:32:52 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Within days of taking the oath of office for the second time, the Republican governor unveiled an audacious second-term agenda that includes health insurance for all Californians, new prisons, fuel standards to curb global warming and a second massive public-works bond package on top of the $43 billion approved by voters in the November election.
“Yes, it's an ambitious agenda,” Schwarzenegger said Tuesday night in his State of the State address. “But we must be ambitious to get California to the future.”
The governor's characterization of his agenda might be an understatement.
“We may have to find a new word to define what Arnold Schwarzenegger is up to,” said Republican analyst Bill Whalen at the Hoover Institution. “ 'Ambitious' may not cover it.”
The former bodybuilder-action movie star has loomed large on the national political landscape since his election in the 2003 recall, if for no other reason than his celebrity.
But analysts say his 17-point re-election victory over Democrat Phil Angelides in November established him as a major national political force.
“He was elected as kind of an accident in the recall,” said Republican political analyst Tony Quinn. “Now he's had a big re-election in a year when Republicans got their clocks cleaned.”
In Tuesday's speech to the Legislature, Schwarzenegger held himself up as a stark contrast to the federal government, where President Bush is decidedly unpopular and polls show the new Democratic Congress is not held in much higher regard than the Republican one it replaced.
Schwarzenegger, who characterized his re-election as ushering in an era of “post-partisanship,” praised the state's Democratic-controlled Legislature for reaching bipartisan agreements with him on several major fronts in 2006.
“The federal government was paralyzed by gridlock and games,” he said. “But you here in this chamber acted on infrastructure, the minimum wage, prescription drug costs and the reduction of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
“What this said to the people is that we are not waiting for politics. We are not waiting for our problems to get worse. We are not waiting for the federal government. We are not waiting, period. Because the future does not wait.”
Schwarzenegger is moving aggressively to avoid the second-term woes that afflicted recent California governors. Republican Pete Wilson squandered much of his re-election political capital in 1995 with an ill-considered and short-lived campaign for president. And Democrat Gray Davis didn't even make it through the first year of his second term before voters recalled him in 2003.
“It's a realization that he's only got a few years left,” said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “His political capital is never going to be greater than it is now. It would be very hard for him to introduce such an agenda during his final year.”
Schwarzenegger is also seen as polishing his legacy. He can't run again for governor because of term limits. The Austrian-born immigrant is constitutionally barred from running for president. And despite the buzz in political circles about a possible U.S. Senate run, a notoriously impatient politician whose mantra is “action, action, action” would seem temperamentally unsuited for the languid pace of the Senate.
“All he has to do is watch C-SPAN2 for five minutes,” Whalen said.
Schwarzenegger has challenges to match the size of this year's agenda.
By pushing so many big-ticket items at once, he runs the risk of overloading the circuits. Health insurance alone could consume most legislative sessions.
“There is a real danger of multitasking, and that is the danger of a mixed message,” Whalen said. “Even though Arnold Schwarzenegger gets more media attention than any previous governor, there's a limit to the public's attention.”
The governor is also pushing several expensive programs as California's financial footing, while much improved, remains shaky.
In unveiling his $143.3 billion state budget Wednesday, Schwarzenegger said it would wipe out an ongoing deficit that topped $16 billion when he replaced Davis in 2003.
It does on paper, but he relies on a number of dubious revenue assumptions and unlikely spending cuts to get there. The state's actual revenue picture won't be clear until May, when tax receipts have been totaled.
If Schwarzenegger's budget projections are risky, his proposal for a second $43 billion bond package is downright reckless, one of the state's leading economists contends.
“He campaigned and complained about 'tax, tax, tax.' But what he's given us is something new, which is borrow, borrow, borrow,” said Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast. “What that does is turn taxes that should be paid now into obligations for future taxpayers. It's spend, spend, spend.”
Schwarzenegger has called for new bond issues for transportation, schools, disaster preparedness, prisons and dams.
Last year, enough Republican legislators voted for the bond issues – many reluctantly – to reach the two-thirds vote necessary to put them on the ballot. Republicans have signaled they will take a harder line this time.
“I don't think California is ready to step up and say, 'Let's go borrowing all that money again,' ” said Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Fresno after the State of the State speech.
Conservatives have never been comfortable with Schwarzenegger's centrist leanings, but his campaign promise to oppose any tax increase was enough to keep most of them in line last year.
They accuse him of breaking his promise on the first day of his second term by proposing a health insurance program that would impose a payroll tax on employers.
Jon Fleischman, publisher of the conservative blog FlashReport and who supported Schwarzenegger's re-election, summed up his feelings with this posting: “I feel like a chump.”
Schwarzenegger's director of finance, Mike Genest, insisted that the levy on employers would be a fee, not a tax. The health care proposal would also slap “fees” on doctors and hospitals.
It's more than semantic gamesmanship: A two-thirds vote of the Legislature is required to approve a tax; a fee requires only a simple majority.
Some suspect Schwarzenegger is flooding the legislative agenda to give himself leverage for what he really wants.
“This whole thing is about putting up a whole lot of bargaining chips,” said political scientist Sherry Bebitch Jeffe at the University of Southern California. “Just throw everything on the table, then start making deals.”
For example, the governor has called for cuts in welfare – a next-to-impossible sell in a heavily Democratic Legislature.
“Welfare looks to me like it is a negotiating tool,” said Quinn, the Republican analyst. “It's not very much money and it gets Democrats very hysterical.”
Schwarzenegger can have what will be seen as a successful year even if he doesn't get everything he wants. After all, last year's bond package was half of what he initially proposed.
“He might not get all of it, but even if he gets a large chunk, he's got the legacy moosehead on his wall,” Pitney said.
“This is a lot. And for somebody who wants to make his mark on California, he's certainly going about it in a way that makes sense on the public works,” Pitney added. “There's going to be a lot of Schwarzenegger concrete poured in the years ahead.”
"We may have to find a new word to define what Arnold Schwarzenegger is up to. 'Ambitious' may not cover it," a Republican analyst said.
Ambitious,
No.
TWirP.
If this is what Republicans have become, then I no longer have a party.
It is supportive of the government and the government unions. It expands government and allows for more government employees and government spending, borrowing and taxes and fees.
It does what every politican in recent history has done, take care of the government he is now leading an leaves "the people" not in government to pay for more and more government.
The history of his country was that its government created a world that his only hope fot success in was to escape and go to America.
He is now just doing what his ancestors did to him, to the rest of us.
It won't be the Govenator that goes broke with his "plan"
Agreed. This is the kind of stuff that causes Republicans to lose elections. But then, the media loves them when they lose, so I guess they would rather be loved by the media than their voters. Not too bright.
Talking about government unions, the following story will really make you sick.
"Retiree Health Care May Overwhelm Gov'ts"
"The bill is coming due for years of generous benefits bestowed upon the nation's public employees, and it's a stunner: hundreds of billions of dollars over the next three decades, threatening some local governments with bankruptcy and all but guaranteeing cuts in services like education and public safety.
This staggering burden is coming to light because of new accounting rules issued by the Government Accounting Standards Board. They require public agencies to disclose the future cost of health care and other benefits _ such as dental, vision and life insurance _ promised alongside traditional pensions to the nation's estimated 24.5 million active and retired state and local public employees."
"The California Legislative Analyst's Office estimates $40 billion to $70 billion in retiree health care and related liabilities for the state. With cities and counties included, JP Morgan pegs California's debt at $70 billion to $200 billion. The state controller is just now beginning a detailed study."
"Union officials say it's not their fault municipalities put themselves in a hole by promising more than they can deliver."
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Sep24/0,4670,RetireeHealthCare,00.html
The new accounting rules go into effect in '08. LOL.
Typical...
I heard Tom McClintock this AM on the radio. He is coming out strongly against Arnold's plans for yet more borrowing.
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