ARNOLD RIPS DEM 'TERMINATOR' TACTICS

New York Post ^ | 8/27/03 | DAVID K. LI

[kattracks]

August 27, 2003 -- LOS ANGELES - Arnold Schwarzenegger tore into his Democratic rivals for taking donations from labor unions and Native Americans - and compared California's budget to a "Terminator" movie.

"There is so much trickery in this year's budget and next year's . . . This has more tricks and special effects than 'Terminator 3,' " he said.

[patriciaruth]

I loved it when Arnold said Bustamante was just Davis with a mustache and a receding hairline.

And I don't expect a thing (except honesty and hard work) in return for the small donation I sent today.

Go, Arnold!!

[goldstategop]

Yep. Large Breasts is Davis with a nice smile.

[Russell Scott]

"An outside accounting firm has to come in and really look into the auditing for 60 days and then we can find out where we can cut,"

Arnold, you can save some time and taxpayer money by simply asking Sen. McClintock. He figured out a long time ago where to cut spending. I understand though, when you want to run the State like a big budget Hollywood movie, everything takes lots of time and money.

[AmericaUnited]

TALKERS TALK, DOERS DO!

McClintock = Career politician = Zero Actual Experience

Arnold = A Proven Doer, not another "Know-It-All, But I've Never Done Any of It" politician.

[Miss Marple]

Looky here! Arnold is attacking the democrat!

In the last interview McClintock gave, who did HE attack?

There is a lesson here somewhere.

[daviddennis]

If my memory serves, Tom McClintock wants to cut 9.5% across the board. This has the advantage of working, and the disadvantage of unfairly penalizing agencies that are well run, while giving wasteful agencies proportionately a larger share of the pie.

Thus, Arnold comes in to try and find out where the waste is, and then cuts it out. He wants to cut fat before bone, which seems only fair.

McClintock actually has a similar proposal to Arnold's, the "base closing commission" approach. In it, he has a commission research the budget and come up with wasteful and duplicate agencies to eliminate. It is then voted yes/no by the Assembly and Senate. But I don't think this is as detailed an audit as Arnold wants, and I think we need as heavy detail as we can find.

It seems to me Arnold's plan might actually be better. There's no question in my mind that our budget desperately needs an audit, and I'm willing to bet it hasn't had an effective one in decades, if ever.

(I'd appreciate reactions from the people I've pinged).

D

[brownie]

TALKERS TALK, DOERS DO!

McClintock = Career politician = Zero Actual Experience

Arnold = A Proven Doer, not another "Know-It-All, But I've Never Done Any of It" politician.

By that logic, you should vote for Warren Buffet, or Ted Turner, or any of the thousand wealthy movie stars in California. Experience is nice (although, I seriously doubt if Arnold's experience lifting wieghts, taking steriods, and making movies has any relevance to governing CA), but ideas and leadership is more important. If Arnold were to actually start expressing some conservative stances, more people would support him. It is strange that he seems wholly unwilling to do that.

[brownie]

I'd be interested to know what he means by "audit". Does he mean just going over the past budgets and figuring out the accounting tricks? Or, does he mean having independant sources go into each agency and determine how the money is spent, whether the agency is efficient, etc.? If the latter, I doubt that 60 days will accomplish the goal. I'm willing to bet the audit will simply be the former, which does not address efficiency or worth of each individual budget expenditure.

[Rabid Dog]

I pulled this off his website - might help answer some of your questions.

http://republican.sen.ca.gov/web/mcclintock/article_detail.asp?PID=232


Senator McClintock made the following remarks on the Senate Floor in support of his bill SB 1428. The measure sets up a Bureaucracy Realignment and Closure Commission to identify, downsize or eliminate obsolete bureaucracies. The Senate approved the measure by a vote of 33 to 1. The measure now moves to the Assembly.

This measure sets up a Bureaucracy Realignment and Closure Commission, (or BRAC), modeled after the federal military base realignment and closure commission which successfully closed 90 obsolete military bases, saving some $20 billion per year.

It applies the same mechanism to a similar problem: how to identify, downsize, or eliminate obsolete bureaucracies. I first presented this measure in 1997 and again in 1999. I think it is fair to say that had this measure been adopted then, the budget deficit we are currently facing would have been significantly smaller - if it existed at all. That is not an idle boast - it is the actual experience of the federal government in applying this mechanism to obsolete military bases.

The problem faced by the federal government in targeting bases for closure was this: everyone agreed there were obsolete bases, but no one could agree on whose district they were in.

The result: it was always more trouble to close a single base than it was worth. The established constituencies of those bases would come unglued, while the savings would be infinitesimal compared to the overall budget.

To deal with this gridlock, Congress enacted the military base realignment and closure commission - or BRAC. The idea was to take the evaluation out of the political arena and place it in the hands of a non-partisan panel of management experts, who would prepare a single, comprehensive list. That list would then be presented to the Congress and the president for a single vote.

Congressmen could no longer play the game of attacking "all that waste" while defending the "vital" base in their own district.

I believe we have the same problem with bureaucracies here in California. Even after recent reductions, we have seen a 32 percent increase in state spending over the last three years. We haven't seen a 32 percent increase in highway construction, school construction, academic achievement or anything else - so the only explanation is that these huge increases in spending are simply being absorbed by unproductive bureaucracies with nothing to show for it.

And the reason is, while everyone now agrees there is waste in government, everyone also has his or her pet project to defend. Focusing on a single obsolete office or department brings howls of protest from the affected constituencies, and amounts to a tiny percentage of the overall budget -- thus it is more trouble to get rid of than it's worth.

SB 1428 applies the same mechanism to break this log-jam: empanel an independent commission of management experts, have them present a single plan through the Governor's Reorganization Plan mechanism, for a single up or down vote.

Wherever we sit on the political spectrum, I think we all agree that this government could operate a lot more efficiently. If we can duplicate the success of the Federal BRAC, it means future legislatures will be spared the specter of $20 billion-plus budget deficits and future taxpayers can be spared a bureaucracy that is now spending a larger portion of their earnings -- and delivering less with it - than at any time in our history.

[Republic]

To tell you the truth....I kinda loved the way Arnie phrased that one too....LOL...and love the way he dove into the unions and Native American donations, making the tit for tat so clear even a dumbed down liberal could understand it...hehe. Not bad.

[daviddennis]

Depends on how many people we throw into the problem. I think the latter is what we need, but it's going to be horribly expensive, among other things.

I think if we started that kind of audit, we could dig up a world of hurt within 60 days, even if we didn't have the whole picture.

Right?

D

[deport]

I understand though, when you want to run the State like a big budget Hollywood movie, everything takes lots of time and money.

---

Who's the enemy? Sounds like some think it's Arnold....... I'd say both camps [Schwarzenegger and McClintock] best get after the dems and let the electorate sort out which of the two they prefer..... Seems one is attacking the dems and one isn't.... just an observation from news articles the past couple of days.....

[DoctorZIn]

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