Schwarzenegger gives up trying to balance budget

Sac Bee ^ | 5/15/08 | Daniel Weintraub

[NormsRevenge]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has now abandoned his goal of fixing the problem that led to his historic election in 2003. With the revised budget proposal he released Wednesday, the governor has effectively conceded that California's era of perpetual budget deficits will not end on his watch.

--snip--

His trouble started early, when he proposed spending cuts that were politically unpalatable while failing to follow through on a fundamental, top-to-bottom rethinking of the way the state does business. When the economy briefly surged and brought in billions of dollars in unexpected tax revenue, Schwarzenegger lost his zeal for fiscal discipline and committed the new money to ongoing programs that could not be sustained once the economy slowed.

Even after all that, however, Schwarzenegger still had a chance to finish the job he was elected to do before his second term ends in January 2011. ... He can't, or won't, do what's necessary to right the ship.

The governor's failure is more than just a numbers game. It reflects his – and the state's – refusal to face reality. ...

The result: budget deficits year after year. Those deficits and the borrowing to which they have led mean that we're still paying now for services the state provided five years ago, leaving less money available for the things we need today. And years from now we and future Californians will still be paying – with interest – for the services we're getting today.

... As a society, California is actually doing pretty well compared with five or 10 years ago, despite its dysfunctional government. But the mess in Sacramento casts a pall over the rest of the state, and the uncertainty it creates might even be tempering the desire of private investors to expand and do business here.

[BillyBoy]

Everyone this when we heard THIS?

"You wackjob hard-right social conservative nuts just don't GET it. Arnold is a FISCAL conservative and what California needs right now is a FISCAL conservative who will CUT UP THE CREDIT CARDS, BLOW UP THE BOXES, STOP OUT-OF-CONTROL SPENDING, and... BRING THE BUISNESSES BACK!!! Arnold is sooooo much better than Red Davis but you extremist single issue pro-life wingnuts can't see it!!! I'll be laughing my butt off when Arnold DELIEVERS California to BUSH & the GOP!!! Have fun backing McClintock WHO CANNOT WIN, the rest of us are going to JOIN ARNOLD and DO something about the mess California is in!!! FIVE YEARS FROM NOW, we're going to look back on this and laugh AT you hopeless wingnuts who never ever get aboard with a WINNER when you have the chance!!"

[BillyBoy]

Everyone remember when we heard THIS?

"You wackjob hard-right social conservative nuts just don't GET it. Arnold is a FISCAL conservative and what California needs right now is a FISCAL conservative who will CUT UP THE CREDIT CARDS, BLOW UP THE BOXES, STOP OUT-OF-CONTROL SPENDING, and... BRING THE BUISNESSES BACK!!! Arnold is sooooo much better than Red Davis but you extremist single issue pro-life wingnuts can't see it!!! I'll be laughing my butt off when Arnold DELIEVERS California to BUSH & the GOP!!! Have fun backing McClintock WHO CANNOT WIN, the rest of us are going to JOIN ARNOLD and DO something about the mess California is in!!! FIVE YEARS FROM NOW, we're going to look back on this and laugh AT you hopeless wingnuts who never ever get aboard with a WINNER when you have the chance!!"

[calcowgirl]

How about this one?

You know what? It IS a new Republican party. It is a Republican party that WINS ELECTIONS. You folks outside California need to sit back and wait to see what happens out here. You act as though Arnold is going to ignore all of the Republican appointees and be led by the nose by the Democrats. Has is occurred to any of you that Arnold is making DEALS to get things done? Dont be so silly as to think that all the capability and brain power rests on our side only. Willie Brown knows where all the bodies are buried, and will be very helpful to Arnold in dealing with Democrats. You cannot just come into office and steamroller everyone else. You have to make deals, and that is what leaders do.

[purpleraine]

$12 bill in services to illegals and no way to cut spending.

[purpleraine]

Treat them if the law requires it and send them to ICE.

The law should be changed. If you're here illegally, you only get major emergency care and just enough to get you to a hospital across the border. If you have the flu, get out of the emergency room and go all the way home.

[calcowgirl]

Another trip down memory lane:

We're recalling Davis because of FISCAL mismanagement. It's not because the will of the people is towards social conservatism. I'm just stating the facts. The first and foremost requirement for the next Governor is his ability to CUT SPENDING and put California back on the right track FISCALLY. I think we need someone other than a politician and Arnold is a BRILLIANT businessman and I think he would make a very good Governor.

[SierraWasp]

You two are makin me barf with all those memories of our CONfusitive compromised CONservatives on FR, brow beating all us committed, consistent CA conservatives with alla that tripe!

All the years Pete Wilson was RINOing CA with some of the biggest tax increases in history and calling Tom McClintock "F---ing irrelevant" because he opposed them out in the hall in front of the Governor's office where he could easily be overheard... Now we see that he appointed 50% of the creepy CA Supreme Court judges that are REALLY relevant in voting for Gay/Queer marriage... So now we have Pete's protege, Arnold Wilsonnegger with all that tripe that you guys have the nerve to actually remember!!!

Looks to me like conservatism has pretty much been marginalized in CA and a bunch of FR CONfusitives acting like CINO's really helped this dark trend pick up steam!!!

[NormsRevenge]

Them wilson free rangin’ chickens are still comin’ home to roost,, I’m shocked. (no, not really.)

[calcowgirl]

You give my memory way too much credit!

Those are actual quotes of real posts!

I like the new word: CONfusitive. ;-)

[BillyBoy]

It would be nice to PING all the loudmouths who shoved Arnold down our throats back then and gloated over their lofty predictions of all this great he'd do for California. Unfortunately, most of the Ahnuldbots where either purged here when JimRob got rid of the Giuliani cheerleaders (glad he finally did something about it), or the few ones that remain here will insist "hey, who could have guessed Arnold would turn out THIS bad? None of us knew back then, don't blame me", ignoring the fact that we posted about a zillion items at the time telling them he WOULD be that bad.

I don't like comparing Arnie to Pete Wilson because the Shivernegger is more liberal than Wilson could have ever dreamed. Sure Wilson was part of the problem and lead to the downfall of the CAGOP, but Wilson was just a useless GOP party hack who tried to be "moderate" and water down the GOP, compared to Arnold the closet Kennedy who works hard to be liberal and do whatever his Dem masters tell him to. Wilson never married into to the Kennedy clan or managed to move the CA Supreme Court FURTHER LEFT than it had been under Democrat rule, for instance. And Wilson even managed to occassionally do the right thing like when he signed Prop 187 into law and has been villified by the left ever since then. The ONLY time Arnold will do the "right thing" is when it's issue the "mainstream" Dems are OKAY with, like Arnold enforcing capital punishment laws and frying Tookie (Gray Davis was likewise strong on capital punishment), OR when Arnold has the opportunity to immediately apologize aftewards and withdraw his remarks after some socialists are "offended".

Nope, Arnold is more of a reincarnation of the long dead 1940s California Governor, Earl Warren. The Dems were so "pleased" with Warren's "bipartisanship" (translation: does whatever they tell him to) leadership that they personally nominated him for Governor on THEIR party when he ran for a third term. And when Einsenhower appointed Warren to the Supreme Court so he'd be "centrist", Warren managed to create a move out-of-control crazed liberal activist court than any Democrat Chief Justice could ever dream of. The Wilson-like Eisenhower ever washed his hands of Warren in the end and admitted it was "the biggest damn fool appointment I ever made" Yes sir, Arnold definitely inhabits the soul of this guy:

[calcowgirl]

Arnold is more of a reincarnation of the long dead 1940s California Governor, Earl Warren.

Or Hiram Johnson.

During the Recall campaign, Arnold compared himself to Hiram Johnson, the "father" of the recall and referendum provisions in the state constitution. That comparison was more apt than was reported when you go back and read what folks thought about Hiram at the time. I think you've seen these before, but is a snippet:

Los Angeles Times, Nov 1, 1932; pg. A4
HIRAM JOHNSON CLASSIFIED

When Hiram Johnson, so-called Republican Senator from California, reaches here this morning on his mission of treachery to the party which has given him all, he has ever had of political office and preferment, his greeting will be one of repudiation on the part of those whom, for the last of many times, he has contemptuously betrayed.

The blistering statement issued yesterday by Ingall W, Bull, chairman of the Los Angeles Republican County Central Committee, is an accurate summary of the attitude of the real Republicans of California toward this traitor to his salt. That this realization did not come sooner and thereby earlier rid the party of Johnson's nominal and self-serving affiliation therewith is unfortunate for the party; that it has come in full measure at last is a wholesome, if belated, sign.

Yet Johnson today is no different from the Johnson of four or eight or twelve or twenty years ago. It did not need his present eleventh-hour efforts to throw California to the Democrats to classify him. His malignant vilification of President Hoover in San Francisco last Friday night had its precise counterpart in his anti-Hoover utterances of 1920 and in his whole consistent record of anti-Republicanism for the past score of years. Nor can any doubt that, should Johnson need Republican votes two years from now, he will repeat the same servile, hypocritical pledges of party allegiance with which he deceived the Republican State organization four years ago.

(snip)

Bear in mind that all these treacheries, all these sell-outs to the enemy, including the present one, have been by a man who has consistently called himself, but has never been, a Republican.

He has used the party name and the party prestige to advance himself, and he has never considered anything but his own selfish interest. The mass of illogical political farrago which make up the typical Johnsonian speech are uttered for the sole, if undisclosed, purpose of , attempting to persuade the American people that no man but Johnson is fit to be President.

Kinda reminds me of another Senator running for President.

See also here and here.

[BillyBoy]

Interesting how the Arnoldbots insist they had "no idea" at the time that Arnold was a socialist RAT clone and that "nobody could have predicted" he'd be so bad.

[liberallarry]

The law does require it.

But it gets worse. HMOs such as Kaiser can pretty much get around the law by saying they are not hospitals (even though the facilities they operate are actually some of the finest hospitals in the country). So the burden is thrown entirely on government facilities like ours which are least able to bear it.

[Lancey Howard]

His priorities are global warming and global warming..

Exactly. How could somebody who is stupid enough to get taken in by the "global warming" hoaxers ever have a prayer of figuring out a way to trim pork out of the budget and address the obscene pay, perks, and pensions slopped down by the government piggies?

[Lancey Howard]

Weintraub writes a good column here except for this line:

His trouble started early, when he proposed spending cuts that were politically unpalatable...

That's kind of stupid. ALL government spending cuts are unpalatable to the scumbag politicians.
How are they supposed to buy votes? With their own money?

[Lancey Howard]

Okay, here's another line that's stupid:

The public's desire for spending on schools, health care, prisons, welfare, roads and other services is not matched by the voters' willingness to raise taxes.

Two different subsets. What Weintraub should have clarified is that the losers, bums, and parasites (the Democrat "base") want more and more "spending" while the working, taxpaying, traditional American families (the Republican "base") are not willing to continue being gang-raped for the money to pay for those spending sprees.

[purpleraine]

The law needs to be changed. Everyone is crying about gay marriage and changing the state constitution and this crap is killing us everyday.

[Czar]

Another golden oldie from — dare I say it — Fair Opinion??

[calcowgirl]

Nope. That one was from a current McCainiac that is convinced the GOP has to be MORE liberal to “win”

[Czar]

Another poor deluded soul. And no conservative.