The new governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger is making his acceptance speech. Having been to events like this, the energy in that room has got to be unbelievable.
Gov. Schwarzenegger is going to have a tought time fixing California’s immense budget problem. The first priority should be getting an independent audit of California’s financial situation, cutting taxes and regulation, reforming the horribly broken pension system, reforming worker’s compensation, and most importantly passing a Taxpayer’s Bill Of Rights along the lines of Colorado’s amendment that will prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again.
None of those things can be easy, but Schwarzenegger has the kind of ability to reach across partisan lines to get things done. The first 100 days will be critical but Arnold has an ambitious plan to reform California’s government. If Schwarzenegger can pull this off, it will recharge the California economy, which will in turn help the entire US economy.
Cutting taxes? Doesn’t California have a balanced budget requirement that prohibits dynamic scoring ideologues from mortgaging the budget year in and year out to pay for tax cuts? I guess as far as your concerned, Arnold is still living in a Hollywood world where you can wish upon a star of tax cuts in a year with a $38 billion deficit and your dreams will come true.
Again, this Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights nonsense sounds like science fiction as well. Colorado is seeing a massive insurgence of new money every year that apparently allows them to get away with limiting spending growth to population growth levels. Whether that could apply to California’s insurgence of impoverished Hispanic immigrants is far less likely to be effective. Even if Arnold does manage to pass such an amendment, what happens to the 40% of the budget that voters have mandated to be spent on certain items through years worth of propositions? Would Arnold’s TABOR proposal effectively wipe that out in one fell swoop?
Ultimately, California and Schwarzenegger deserve each other at this point. If some of the middle-class and working-class voters who stumbled over themselves to get to the polls yesterday and vote for Schwarzenegger had the slightest hint of how much they’re gonna hurt if Schwarzenegger accomplishes half the things he wants to, they’re gonna be SO sorry for pulling that lever for YES on recall yesterday. I have no doubt Davis was a cold-blooded and disgustingly pandering politician, but considering what he had to work with (mandated spending increases from propositions that straitjacket state government, a two-thirds requirement in the legislature for budget passage, a never-ending influx of impoverished immigrants, an energy deregulation nightmare he inherited from Republicans in which billions of dollars were exported to Texas energy barons who later contributed much of their money to George Bush’s campaign(s) for President), I’m surprised California’s financial situation isn’t substantially worse…..and I see little opportunity for things to improve under Schwarzenegger who will have work with legislators whose primary priority is to destroy him the way his party destroyed Davis.