Governor Schwarzenegger has announced that until a budget has passed, he will veto all legislation placed on his desk. Brilliant! This is a great squeeze play on the left!
With legislative Republicans unified against any tax increases (whether called “temporary” or not) and the Governor stopping liberal legislation with his veto pen, maybe Democrats will start to seriously look at how to cut spending by just some of the massive growth they have presided over during the last decade.
When times are tough, government spending can and must shrink, just like belt tightening that takes place in the private sector.
Legislative Republicans have put a lot of proposals out there for shrinking government (which have been scorned, rather than embraced by Democrats). And the recommendations of the California Performance Review presented by Governor Schwarzenegger (1.0) present even more options for savings of billions of dollars.
Until legislative Democrats are willing to give the proverbial middle finger to the public employee union bosses, I look forward to seeing a lot of ink refills being ordered up for the Governor’s veto pen.
Of course, one can but hope that the Governor would get used to using his veto pen during this process. As a Republican Governor, the default should always be to veto bills coming out of the Democrat-controlled legislature.
If it’s a bill authored by a Republican, it’s probably a study, a non-binding resolution, or yet another specialized license plate to add to the plethora already available. All of which are AOK to veto with all of the big government garbage passed by Democrat authors.
In the meantime, this is an important time for GOP solidarity — I am proud of every Republican legislator for holding the line against new taxes.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:00 am
A great place to start chopping the budget is with the $6 million dollar annual allocation to the Miguel Contreras UC Labor Institute. This Big Labor endeavor is responsible for crafting bogus labor studies and training union operatives to defeat Republicans and other “Merit Shop” groups at the ballot box and in municipal votes.
Though merely $6 million, ending this Big Labor bonanza would kill 2 birds. It would reduce the budget while simultaneously getting taxpayers out of the business of enacting Big Labor’s insidious agenda.