[Barlowmaker]

That's a foolish question. Those numbers are meaningless absent full knowledge of political and legal obligations. I accept borrowing as a necessary and legitimate part of funding a government the size of a European nation. Basically, I'd vote for the BEST BUDGET I could get considering the doorknob uber-Conservatives in my state were so inept, amateurish and ineffective as to relinquish my vote, dis-empower my Republican influence, to a 25-14 voting minority in the Senate.

Why don't you gadflies turn your attention and principled energies toward the Democrats who are making your lives miserable and bankrupting your children's future? Arnold is one of the good guys. Given the daily anti-Schwarzenegger diatribes carried out on FR by a relative handful of bile-laden nitpickers ... I often wonder if those individuals are.

[calif_reaganite]

This is the principal difference then: I would never vote for a state budget where revenues were outweighed by expenditures, regardless of the "political and legal obligations."

[calif_reaganite]

Am I correct in interpreting your "Basically, I'd vote for the BEST BUDGET I could get," to assume that you would have voted for Gray Davis' budget last year, given that it was the *only* and thus, logically the best, budget pending before the Legislature?

If your answer to that is no, point out a single significant difference between Davis' and Arnold's budgets.

[SteveH]

I accept borrowing as a necessary and legitimate part of funding a government the size of a European nation.

Wow, yes, I see now, why can't we just be like a European nation and borrow ourselves bankrupt! Just as long as we don't lose influence with folks like Burton or Bustamante (otherwise, after all, we would risk being perceived as "amateurish" and "inept"). Anything to the right of Maria Shriver is "uber-conservative." Labels are everything and substance is nothing. What, us worry? --pshaw: the governor has an "R" next to his name!

:-(