MAY 27, 2009: Does He Really Get It?

Last night Governor Schwarzenegger went on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.  Every chance he gets he tells us he gets the message the voter’s sent on May 19th “loud and clear”.  If his comments to Leno were any indication, “loud and clear” doesn’t quite get it right.

Here are some highlights:

“We are having a, you know, budget deficit because we have some additional problems with the initiative process with the two thirds vote that we have in order to get a budget passed”.  

This is the “budget reform” we’ve heard so much about.  Be prepared for another round of initiatives aimed at disposing of the California Constitutional two thirds majority requirement to pass a budget and enact new taxes.  The voters of California have voted down any attempt to modify the two thirds rule time and time again.   The most recent attempt was in 2004 with Prop 56 which was defeated with 65.7% of the vote.  Prop 56 would have lowered the super majority of two thirds to only 55%.  

“We asked the people to vote on certain changes to raise an extra $6 BILLION dollars so we can balance the budget and the people voted it down, overwhelmingly voted it down”

$6 BILLION dollars….Really?  Maybe someone needs to get the Governor a calculator.  The tax increases on the May 19th ballot would have amounted to the largest in history.  Prop 1A alone would have cost $16 BILLION dollars.  Prop 1B would have added another $9.3 BILLION dollars in spending.  That doesn’t even count the spending and borrowing of 1C, 1D, 1E.  Can somebody get the Governor a calculator?

“I think the people are just upset at Sacramento, they feel like the politician’s should take care of that.  They have been sent to Sacramento to take care of the problems.  ‘Don’t come to us all the time with those kinds of questions.  We are not running the state, you run the state and do your job’.  I think that I’ve definitely gotten the message loud and clear”.

Does he really get it?  He is half right in word but not in theory.  In the perfect world of the fantasyland that is Sacramento, they wouldn’t have to bother coming to the voters with something as trivial as tens of BILLIONS of dollars in taxes, spending and borrowing.  The voters didn’t reject the ballot initiatives to send the message they are tired of hearing about budgets and deficits.  They voted NO because the cycle of irresponsibility and incompetence had to stop now.  Don’t ask the taxpayers for even more money when the spending is out of control.  The legislatures refusal to address the real issues involved with California’s financial meltdown is the diseases that will lead to it’s demise.

“In reality one should know that our revenues have dropped 27%.  So we had revenues of $104 BILLION dollars, now there’s $76 BILLION dollars and all with in a few months.  So you budget education and the schools that you have and you budget health care and the prisons and law enforcement and all the various different programs and you expect $104 BILlION dollars to come in and all of a sudden you only have $76 BILLION dollars you have a real challenge on your hands”. 

If the voters passed every prop on the ballot we would still be at least $15.4 BILLION dollars in the hole.  As long as we spend more money than we take in and refuse to take an honest look at where the tax dollars are being spent we will always find our state drowning in a rising sea of red ink.