Analysis: Schwarzenegger faces rough sledding on state budget negotiations

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger held town hall-style meetings everywhere but Sacramento this spring, making the point that the state's budget obstructions reside in the capital city.

He asked leaders in Eureka and Garden Grove to demand that lawmakers resolve budget problems in April as the state faced a deficit as large as $20 billion, yet his message had little impact.

As he releases his revised May budget today, Schwarzenegger must broker a deal in Sacramento with legislators who are disinclined to reach compromise on their own, skeptical of his intentions and believe his clout has waned in the Capitol.

"It's difficult to reign when you have a down economy, a down state budget and you're forced to make cuts, especially when you don't have your own party on your side and a changing of the guard," said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs. "In a sense, the governor is a man unto himself. He's on a lonely island."

Legislative leaders and Schwarzenegger haven't met as a group since February to discuss the budget. He must deal with Republicans who refuse to raise taxes and Democrats who don't want to accept cuts in education and social programs.

Schwarzenegger lost his chief Democratic ally Tuesday when Fabian Núñez stepped down as Assembly speaker. His relationship with Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata has been strained.

The governor also has little sway with his fellow Republicans, who held out last year for 52 days before providing the necessary votes to approve a less problematic budget. He has frustrated the conservative GOP by striking deals with Democrats without Republican support and telling his own party that it is "dying at the box office."

"It's difficult to reign when you have a down economy, a down state budget and you're forced to make cuts, especially when you don't have your own party on your side and a changing of the guard," said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs.

A humorously ironic name for another tax-leech. "Given as a gift", in Spanish. How appropriate!

This is not rocket science, gubber-natter.
In a down economy, there is less income available and all spending must be cut.
The State government can't operate under a different set of financial laws than the people who actually earn the money and pay the bills.

Now may be a good time to take another look at the "... incompetent and brainless in Capitol City who'd somehow been voted into office...", as someone so colorfully put it.

They produce nothing, they create nothing, yet spend billions without a second thought --- see my tag line. And there was this fat smirking toad, pretending to be a teacher, on a television commercial, berating a politician (who did not take a raise for a few months, then rescinded the request). How many months of raises has this "teacher" refused to collect on? How many raises has she had in the last ten years? Inquisitive minds...

Before Arnold, or anyone else in that brainless mass of stupidity starts preaching to us on television in the future, perhaps they should tell us the following first:

How much are you paid basic salary?
How often have you received raises?
How much do you collect for "expenses?"
How many 5 minute meetings have you attended to collect more money for doing essentially nothing?

What is your gross government "income?"

What have you given us?
Mandatory Uninsured motorist insurance where the responsible citizen is forced to pay for the irresponsible, no arguments allowed.

Now there is a tax proposed on Home insurance premiums to "close the deficit gap?" What deficit gap? The one you created by spending more than the state takes in?

I smell a few initiatives about to be circulated, addressing the (successful) scams you have foisted on the ignorant voters, like guaranteed funding to anything regardless of real tax and "fees" state income. And the biggie:

Allowing you to set your own salary as often as you wish! While thinking up new ways to rape the productive, the taxpayers.

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