See, that's what happens when you move to a dark, cold, gloomy, rainy place like Oregon. You turn into an old curmudgeon.
The greatest state of the greatest country on earth!
Posted on 12/02/2003 11:09:58 AM PST by yonif
SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't have a backup plan if the Legislature or voters reject his proposal to sell $15 billion worth of bonds to pay off the state's existing deficit.
"Failure is no option. It just doesn't exist," the Republican governor said Monday. Without a backup, he said, "That means it has to happen."
To push the plan, which must be approved by the Legislature by midnight Friday, the new governor said he's ready to take his budget proposal to the voters in recalcitrant lawmakers' districts and he will invite legislators to join him in pushing the bond deal.
He pledged to "make sure that everyone in this state knows that this is absolutely essential."
Schwarzenegger's bond plan would replace a $10.7 billion bond issuance by former Gov. Gray Davis that's being contested in court, and would shore up the state's spending plan through June 2005. His finance director, Donna Arduin, told state lawmakers last week that Schwarzenegger's $15 billion plan and the $10.7 billion in legally questionable debt back each other up: one or the other is necessary, but if both fail the state will run out of money by the end of the fiscal year in June.
The $15 billion deal is vital to Schwarzenegger's budget plans, which also includes $3.8 billion of cuts in the budgets for this and next year and a spending cap.
"If we don't have that, and the $10.7 billion bond falls through in court, then we have no money and then we have to make cuts that are disastrous," Schwarzenegger said.
Schwarzenegger said he wouldn't consider raising taxes to fill the current budget shortfall.
Just because he's visiting legislative districts to push the plan doesn't mean "I'm trying to put the squeeze on legislators," Schwarzenegger said Monday in a meeting with reporters. He said lawmakers were welcome to join him in talking to voters about the budget plans.
Senate President Pro Tem John Burton said he wanted to see a shorter bond period, and a temporary spending cap, not a permanent one, and that it was based on a fiscal year that didn't harm education and other programs.
"I think it makes sense to live within your means when you can, but sometimes when revenues are down, the necessity for programs go up," he said. "When there's high unemployment, when revenues go down ... that's when kids have to go on the Healthy Families programs."
While he proposed $3.8 billion in spending cuts, Schwarzenegger said he was willing to listen to lawmakers' and others' concerns about where those cuts are.
On Monday, children health advocates said a plan to freeze enrollment in the state's Healthy Families program could put tens of thousands of low-income children on a waiting list for health insurance.
That cap would save the state $77 million in the next two budgets, the Schwarzenegger administration estimated, but the cuts also seemingly contradict Schwarzenegger's statements during the campaign, in which he criticized Davis for not doing enough to enroll children in the low-cost health insurance program.
About 650,000 children are insured through the program, which provides low-cost medical, dental and vision health coverage to children in low-income families.
But, there are about 300,000 children who are eligible but aren't yet enrolled in Healthy Families, said advocates with the 100 Percent Campaign, a coalition of three children health groups.
Advocates from Children Now, the Children Partnership and the Children's Defense Fund said they were alarmed to hear that one of the new governor's first proposals targeted the low-cost health insurance program.
"We're very disappointed because during the governor's campaign, he shared our goal of making sure that all the children in the state have health insurance," said Deena Lahn of the Children's Defense Fund.
The enrollment level expected on Jan. 1, which would be the cap level, is 20,300 for immigrants and 712,000 for non-immigrants, said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's Finance Department. "This is a cap on enrollment as opposed to a freeze," Palmer said, which means others can join the programs as vacancies occur. With a freeze, Palmer said, the openings would remain vacant.
In this situation, more than 17,000 children go off the rolls naturally each month because of change in age or income status, he said, so those vacancies would be filled by newcomers.
"This is one of the short-term decisions that the governor had to make in order to ensure the longevity of important programs like Healthy Families," Palmer said. He said Schwarzenegger's goal is to protect the core program while letting others join as openings become available.
During his only debate appearance before the Oct. 7 recall election, Schwarzenegger criticized Davis for not getting more children enrolled in Healthy Families.
The government, Schwarzenegger said during the debate, "not done a good job in reaching out and finding the people and letting them know to sign up and find easy ways for them to sign up, (so) two-thirds of the people that are eligible do not have the child care. It is really terrible.
"If I become governor I would immediately go out there ... and get it out so everyone knows about it and every one signs up because we must insure our families, the low-income families, especially the children," he said at the September debate.
Medi-Cal provides free or low-cost health services to children in low-income families. Healthy Families offers low-cost insurance to children in families that make too much to qualify for Medi-Cal, but less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level -- currently approximately $38,000 for a family of three.
For every dollar California spends on Healthy Families, the federal government pays two. This year, California's share is about $294 million.
Enrollees pay a monthly premium and $5 copayments for prescriptions and doctor visits.
Florida, where Arduin was budget director before she was hired by Schwarzenegger, adopted caps on a similar program in July. By the end of September, the waiting list had grown to almost 60,000 children.
Also Monday, Democratic state Treasurer Phil Angelides, a possible Schwarzenegger challenger in 2006, said he will launch a statewide drive opposing the new governor's $15 billion borrowing plan. Angelides plans a formal announcement Tuesday at a Sacramento school yard, with school children, college students and teachers who fear a school bond measure also on the March ballot will be imperiled by Schwarzenegger's proposal.
Well BillyBoy, when your boogeymen come out from under your bed, you be sure and ping me, okay?
No, I don't think so. My take on his talk about "Failure is no option" is that it is just a pose. Given uncertainty, and the stakes involved, he is sure to have scoped out the alternatives. I don't take political statements at face value these days from any politicians... as the saying goes, your mileage may vary...
"If we don't have that, and the $10.7 billion bond falls through in court, then we have no money and then we have to make cuts that are disastrous," Schwarzenegger said.
I'm not sure how that's much different from unleashing Tom. Again, your mileage may vary...
Hmm, as long as it's accurate, I guess. Let's hope it does not evolve to another boiling-frog paradigm...
As folks often say, the devil is in the details...
See, that's what happens when you move to a dark, cold, gloomy, rainy place like Oregon. You turn into an old curmudgeon.
The greatest state of the greatest country on earth!
Have faith my friend. Arnold won't let us down.
Bingo. An essential truth popped out of his mouth. Does he have the courage to follow it? I'm betting he doesn't. It would be very unpopular for him to actually tackle spending. He might place his political power at risk at risk (I suspect that's what he really means when he says the cuts would be "disastrous"), and power is like crack cocaine to Arnie.
I would like nothing more than for him to prove me wrong.
The main point perhaps being that he actually *did* say it. Now he's on record and would have to retract this statement before raising taxes. But by being on record in this manner, he can take a bond measure failure as the people's mandate in favor of spending cuts-- an application of Hegelian dialectic.
Perhaps more pragmatically, he might throw a sop to the liberals by raising taxes statewide by $0.01 or so. I know, it violates principle. But then, he could claim to have given both sides what they each wanted and preserve valuable political capital for further use on some other worthy statewide cause (eg a pro-2A measure-- I can dream can't I ;-)
Marin county? LOL! As far as I'm concerned that's the cold, rainy north.
Actually I was referring to Southern California. Guess I should have made that clear. Hehe.
Where I am it gets about 12" a year, and our place in the high country, at the 6800 foot level is about the same, but does get some snow once in a while. I mean it's 65 degrees up there today, with no snow on the ground, and it's December! LOL!
I was just pulling your leg. Oregon is nice, it's just too rainy and gloomy for me. We are just too spoiled in Southern Cal.
So you know.
I could never walk away from this weather. I'm just too dang spoiled. I've spent time in other countries and states, and was cold and wet, or baking with brutal humidity all the time. Mad me angry.
As you know, even our deserts and mountains in So. Cal have relatively nice year round weather, as they too are influenced by the great pacific and our latitude.
Oh, and I too am a California native.
Take care....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.