Dan Walters: Once again, Schwarzenegger wimps out
By Dan Walters - dwalters@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
12:00 am PDT Friday, May 16, 2008
There is =96 or at least should be =96 only one standard by which to judge
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest budget proposal: Does it stop the
"crazy deficit spending" that he pledged to end when he was elected
five years ago, or at least make significant progress toward fiscal
responsibility?
Sadly, not only is the answer "no," but Schwarzenegger has apparently
abandoned even the pretense of truly balancing the state's books, and
would bury the state even deeper in the quicksand of borrowed money,
bookkeeping gimmicks and pie-in-the-sky assumptions on revenues and
spending.
This seemingly endless cycle of mounting debt =96 the governor now wants
to borrow billions against a cockamamie, morally bankrupt increase in
state lottery revenues =96 is not only tiresome but contributes to
California's wholly deserved reputation of being a state that can't
govern itself.
Schwarzenegger often describes himself as a "postpartisan" centrist,
which sounds fine on its surface. But in practice, as his budget
crystallizes, it means embracing the unwillingness of the Democrats to
seriously reduce state spending, the equally adamant unwillingness of
Republicans to raise taxes, and the willingness of both parties to
continue running up the state's nearly maxed-out credit cards.
The governor, one assumes, wouldn't tolerate such irresponsible and
ultimately self-destructive behavior in his personal businesses. But
for some reason he wallows in it as governor, even as he continues to
deliver high-sounding paeans to fiscal prudence =96 "we can't spend
money we do not have, plain and simple," he said with a straight face
Wednesday =96 and insists that he wants some long-term budget reforms to
prevent future deficits.
This budget is =96 or at least should be =96 dead on arrival in a
Legislature that's made up almost exclusively of very liberal
Democrats and very conservative Republicans. Unfortunately, however,
its ultimate successor is not likely to be a realistic, if politically
difficult, reconciliation of their mutually exclusive positions, but
rather something even worse than what Schwarzenegger proposes, another
"get out of town budget" of the ilk seen for most of this decade.
This is, as stated earlier, very tiresome and in abstract terms very
disrespectful of the 38 million men, women and children Schwarzenegger
and the legislators were elected to serve. These phony budgets, often
based on nothing more than supposition and wishful thinking, imply
that Californians can't be trusted with the unvarnished truth and are
unwilling to face reality.
Oddly enough, public opinion polls say otherwise. They reveal that
California voters may not like the choices that the budget deficit
poses, but they're largely willing to accept what's necessary, whether
it be spending cuts or new taxes, to bring income and outgo into
balance.
Schwarzenegger should take what's left of his credibility, which has
been declining sharply in recent months, and tell Californians the
truth about the fiscal mess he inherited five years ago but that he
has been unable =96 and in fact, largely unwilling =96 to clean up. For
all his macho talk the governor has wimped out time after time on the
budget, from restoring a multibillion-dollar car tax cut that the
state could not afford to bowing to influential pro-spending pressure
groups.
If simple duty is not motivation enough, he should remember that no
matter how many self-congratulatory speeches he delivers, how many
tributes to "postpartisan****p" he utters, or how many news magazine
covers he adorns, his governor****p will be an utter failure if he
cannot deliver on that 2003 promise to end "crazy deficit spending"
and bring order to the state's finances. And given his unique
op****tunity to govern, history will be a harsh judge of that failure.
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