The Governor’s petulance over the budget vote is just the latest in his exercise of ego as an element of government policy.  It is now clear that he cares little about anything other than getting his own way.  Policy has long ago left any discussion.  In his mind, it is now all about the Governor.

While it is true the budget is flawed, it has one major benefit.  Recessions do not last forever, revenues will recover and will recover soon.  Spending that extra money on current bills, rather than program expansions prevents even worse spending crises in the future.  The only time this Governor exercised any spending restraint was when he was paying off the bills incurred by Gray Davis.  Maybe if we force him to pay off the bills he incurred yesterday from future revenues, we can prevent this spendthrift from sending the state into another budget crisis.

And that is why his criticism today is so hypocritical.  It was his spending policies that created this mess.  It was his deals with the Democrats that cause the collapse of the current budget.  For him to criticize this budget, which is attempting to fix his mess, on the grounds that it doesn’t fix his mess is nonsensical.  It is not a perfect fix to this mess, it is true, it does however clean up one room.  Next year, they will clean up the next room, and the year after that, the final rooms will be cleared.  More important, while they are cleaning up these rooms each year, the Governor and his Democrat allies in the Legislature won’t be messing up any more rooms.

Republicans won this battle, and I think that is really what is sticking in this Governor’s craw.  They didn’t kowtow to his demands for new taxes, and now he is throwing a temper tantrum.  Normally, I would never advocate a overriding a veto of any legislation, but this Governor needs a dose of humble pie.  This override would give him that dose.  It would also impose a short term spending restraint on future revenues.

And if he also vetoes the nearly one thousand bills sitting on his desk in retribution, why, that is just icing on the cake.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.