Today Governor Schwarzenegger will speak to a special joint session of the California State Legislature. His topic of discussion will be the dire straits in which the state finds itself fiscally, and the need for the legislature to promptly place on his desk massive, serious cuts in state spending in order to ensure that the state’s expenditures are in line with its income.
In February, Democrats and the Governor, aided by a handful of short-sighted, pledge-breaking Republicans hit the pockets of California taxpayers hard with over $14 billion in higher taxes. The voters had a chance to weigh in with their opinion of those taxes, and over $16 billion more that were attached to the passage of Proposition 1A by soundly (or perhaps overwhelmingly is a better description) rejecting them. Thus the Governor comes to the legislature looking for an “all cuts” solution because he has interpreted, and rightly so, that California taxpayers expect the state’s crisis to be solved with available revenues.
The real challenge for those listening to the Governor today is to actually try to care about what he is saying. I know that I have received countless e-mails from FlashReport readers “writing off” Schwarzenegger, in a hundred different ways expressing every emotion from frustration to resignation when confronted with the disappointment that Arnold Schwarzenegger rode into office in 2003 promising to take on the special interests in Sacramento, and ultimately became their strong ally. The Governor only added fuel to the disappointment fire when he gave a news interview where he actually highlighted his inconsistencies as a positive trait.
Unfortunately, with the fiscal mess in which the state finds itself, we can’t afford to allow cynicism and disappointment to cause us to dismiss Governor Schwarzenegger’s latest rhetorical fight to shrink the size and scope of state spending – a response, he says, to the statement by the voters in rejecting tax increases, that voters want an all cuts solution.
For myself, I tend to judge Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration on a day by day basis, which allows me to try and figure out which side of the bed he got out of, and whether he is governing each day from the right, left, or somewhere in between.
All indications are that today’s fifteen minute speech will be a good one, and that we’ll hear from the Arnold Schwarzenegger who ran for and one office in a special election in 2003. All signs are that the Governor will lay out the tough cuts that he has proposed, and remind legislators that failing to act on the cuts quickly will only mean greater and deeper cuts.
I don’t know what Governor Schwarzenegger will say or do tomorrow – but today I applaud him for the message that he is carrying, and can only hope that legislative Democrats and Republicans will stand ready to “right size” state spending to match available revenues. Businesses and families all around the state have to go through this same exercise. It’s not fun, and it clearly isn’t easy – but it is necessary.
When the speech is over – all of the attention will be on Senate President Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, who during the lead up campaign to the May 19th Special Election said repeatedly that if the voters reject the ballot measures, the only solution would be deep cuts. Unlike the February budget scenario, when the “spin” from the MSM was that it would be up to Republicans – would they raise taxes or “take the state off of the cliff” – now the situation is flipped – and the onus is on the Democrats. Will they cut state spending to match existing revenues, or will they be the ones to “drive off the cliff” – we’ll see what they do…