Posted on 07/22/2008 8:15:58 PM PDT by Kaslin
California: What has changed since Golden State voters ousted Gray Davis and cast their lot with Arnold Schwarzenegger's star power? Not much except for $41 billion in new spending.
This is nothing new. We've been hearing about these budget gaps, delays and political standoffs since before the current governor took office just under five years ago.
That fact gets us to thinking. Do we owe poor Gray Davis an apology? Maybe not for criticizing his performance, which was far from stellar. He was part of the problem that voters thought they could solve by recalling him in 2003 and installing Schwarzenegger.
But it's clear now, to give Davis his due, that recalling him solved nothing. The state is locked in the same boom-and-bust cycle that brought Davis down. Its economy is sagging, and the jobless rate soared to 6.9% in June, well above the national rate of 5.5%.
All this trouble will only be compounded if the Democrats get their way and push through an $8.2 billion tax increase on business and personal income.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
Arnold has been a bust to California. And now he’s willing to work in an Obama’s administration, if that comes to past? Arnold is a democrat wolf in a republican sheepskin.
the business professor has a good point.
life hasn’t improved since 2004.
the unions and the bloated city, county and state governments
impoverish the citizenry.
folks voted for Conan the Barbarian and got Conan the Librarian instead..
I read speculation that Arnie may look for a hasty exit (eg. Obama or McCain’s energy czar)
and hand the keys over to Garamendi, giving Garamendi an almost-lock on winning the 2010 election.
With friends(R) like these...
This is essentially unfair to Arnold. The first thing he tried to accomplish when he was elected was to pass a referendum that limited government. The Kalifornia voters rejected it! So they will get what they and every other socialist deserves, penury, chaos, and crime.
Unfair? I think it's mild!
If you're talking about Prop 76, it did NOT limit government. It authorized more borrowing and supported spending higher than we have today. It had everything to do with locking in the debt payments on the "economic recovery" bonds so that he could justify even more borrowing. Voters rightly rejected it.
If you're NOT talking about Prop 76, can you provide a citation of the referendum you are referring to?
Arnold's first act was actually to KILL a spending cap measure that was going through the legislature, instead pushing for his $15 billion dollar Prop 57/58 borrowing scheme.
Let me sum it up this way, “Arnold Sucks.” He is simply Gray Davis with dyed hair. Guarantee that this governor will get in bed with the Dems and approve a tax increase. Our only hope is if the Republican legislators hold out as the Dems need a few of them to vote for a tax increase. Watch Arnold get ticked off at the Republicans. Arnold fits in well in the Kennedy clan.
With friends(R) like these...
With friends(R) like these indeed.
We are sooooo screwed.
That is the one thing that is certain.
WASS!
Who’s the girlie man now Arnie?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
-Total Recall- the Gray Davis Soap Opera--
Live, and learn...
If anyone ever needed a "hasty exit" it would be this jackass. The sooner, the better.
Very good, Norm!!! What a dope smokin, gurleyman, sleepin with the enemy of conservatism he’s been all along! The swooners sucked in a little too hard on that gigantic koolaid straw! Even the ones on FR!!!
I'm sorry. I don't want to come off as "disagreeable," but you are way off on this as the first drastic measure he signed into law was to spread another totally unnecessary layer of government expansion over 1/5th of CA's map in the form of his outrageous Sierra-Nevada CONservancy!!!
I wish you'd have paid better attention to the multitude of governmental expansions he has enacted while promising to "blow up those boxes!"
By the time people got a chance to vote on his ballot measures, they were already meaningless because of all the GovernMental EnvironMental nonsense he had already enacted... To say nothing of all the leftist Democrat judges and other officials on huge salaries he gleefully appointed to demonstrat his disdain for his own Party!!!
This IBD editorial is way... WAY overdue!!!
But the Democrats won't have it - and many Republicans in safe seats like it, too, despite the fact that it keeps them permanently out of the majority.
Oh really? What "referendum" would that be?
If you are thinking Prop 76, it wasn't designed to work as advertised. Remember too, that it was submitted AFTER borrowing $15 billion with the promise to "cut up the credit cards." Every budget Arnold has submitted since then has increased spending faster than Gray Davis, with the exception of Davis' first budget after voter mandated spending increases pursuant to Proposition 8.
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