Arnold is such a girly man. Hear me now and believe me later - but don't think about it ever, because, if you try to think, you might cause a flabulance!
Posted on 09/07/2008 3:27:51 PM PDT by Lorianne
Do you get the impression Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reached a level of flippant frustration in his efforts to “fix Kaleefornya?”
The latest budget impasse may be the final, insulting reality that blew away any illusion he had that the nation's most populous state - and one of the world's largest economies - can be rationally governed.
His recent executive order to reduce state employees' pay to the federal minimum wage level, and to lay off thousands of part-time state employees, might be an expression of peevish exasperation, but it does strike at the heart of California's chronic budget problem, namely bloated staffing and overpaid government employees.
Not surprisingly, his actions were greeted with howling protests from the various International Brotherhoods of Public Treasury Pirates, i.e., public-employee unions, as well as by the mutiny of the state's controller, a Democrat.
The largest union has filed suit against the governor in an effort to reverse his decree, and thus demonstrate, once again, that unions control state government, not the governor or anyone else.
Because Schwarzenegger was rushed into the governorship on the shoulders of voters disgusted with his feckless predecessor, Gray Davis, whom they had abruptly fired in a recall election, it was reasonable for Schwarzenegger to believe he had a mandate to repair state government - returning it to some semblance of fiscal sanity and honest representative democracy.
To that effect, he correctly identified the state's fundamental problems and, through four initiatives placed on the 2005 ballot, sought voter approval of government reforms to address those problems.
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To control spending, he wanted a line-item veto on the budget, something California governors had until 1983. He wanted an independent panel of retired judges, rather than self-interested politicians, to determine legislative districts, which are now unscrupulously drawn to secure sinecures for Democrats and some Republicans.
He wanted to improve the quality of education by improving the quality of teachers, awarding tenure after five years rather than just two. He proposed prudent budgetary restraints that would trigger spending cuts when necessary.
His ballot initiative to halt the growth of the outrageous public-employee pension liability by converting these pensions to defined contribution plans - like those in the private sector - was withdrawn under heavy fire from the public-employee unions.
He also supported efforts to curtail the devious practice of public-employee unions to make political contributions without the express consent of their dues-paying members.
Yet all of his ballot initiatives were defeated, and today, with the current budget impasse, and the usual partisan floundering in the Legislature, polls indicate the majority of Californians blame the governor. It is understandable, then, that Schwarzenegger might become grumpy and disillusioned with his job.
The real problem Schwarzenegger failed to identify was the neurotic capriciousness of California voters - a character flaw that makes them wholly unreliable in a struggle of the magnitude he was willing to lead. In 2005, he was counting on them to support his reform initiatives. He was disappointed.
Now, California has another budget lingering in limbo because Democrats and Republicans, the Shiites and Sunnis of state politics, cannot agree on how to address the irresponsible level of state spending that leaves California billions of dollars in debt every year.
The Democrats want to increase taxes and keep spending, which will ensure that the state maintains its position as the highest-taxed state in the union. Most Republicans want to reduce spending and not increase taxes.
That the state is seriously in debt is due to the profligate, irresponsible levels of spending that were established well before Schwarzenegger became governor. In the three years before he came to office, California state government increased its spending by 36 percent - more than double the rate of inflation and of population growth over the same period.
The most-favored recipients of legislated largesse are the state's elected officials and government employees - the engineers of legal larceny. Thanks to the insidious symbiosis between these partners in piggery, public pay, benefits, and staffing continue to exceed prudent levels.
To accommodate its more than 200,000 employees, state government is riddled with redundancy, inefficiency and unnecessary bureaucracy.
With many of these employees eligible for retirement soon, funding California's generous public-employee pension plans will become an even greater burden for California taxpayers to bear. Unscrupulous pension padding by some public employees only increases that burden.
All of this is what Schwarzenegger has tried to confront, but neither he nor any governor will be able to fix Kaleefornya alone. Sometimes things must totally collapse before they can be rebuilt.
I guess that is what Californians are going to let happen. Watch out for the wrecking ball.
The editorial correctly identifies a major culprit in the budget woes, public employee unions. Collective bargaining should never be granted to public employees because of the inherent conflicts of interest between politicians and unions. The taxpayer does not have anyone to balance the outrageous demands of the public employee unions.
The other two villians in this tragedy are the illegal alien cheerleaders and the green mob. The Utopian vision of these three groups and the muscle to enforce this Utopian vision is bleeding California to fiscal death.
I am not sure that the state can withstand the vice grip of these three groups. California may be heading for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy may be the only tool to control the mob. The Democrats at the national level may try to bail out California. Unfortunately, California is not the only state sinking into abyss. With all of the other rat spending plans, bailouts of rat strongholds may not be feasible.
Comeon... We all know that Arnold failed because he is a liberal.
California is a micro-cosm of what Obama wants for the entire country. An electorate anxious to vote itself stuff with no thought as to how it gets paid for. They’re like teenagers with a credit card.
We now hae a problem larger that what we had when we threw out Davis and replaced him with Arnold. I said back then it made no sense to toss out Davis and keep the same legislators in office. These guys are owned by the unions and special interests.
The frustration that many of us Californians feel is that Arrnoold is in fact hen pecked. Were he to put a freeze on spending for illegal alien programs (education, welfare, health benefits and those lame home depot buildings for example) he would turn billions in state defecit into 2 billion surplus, more then enough to offer not only a flight back to the country of orgin to those illegals who would no longer be getting a literal free ride, but also a stipend to return. Why won’t he do this? lack of ‘guts’ imo. Time to remind him that we fired the last dork and if he’s a girlie man, we can fire him too!
They need to break California into 3 States. Seriously. Northern California (Oregon border to Sacramento). Southern California (San Francisco to Bakersfield). And Mexifornia (LA to San Diego).
What a bunch of inaccurate cr@p.
More than just prohibitting state employees from unionizing. The state needs to start contracting private companies to do much of what the lazy state employees are supposed to be doing, and make them get real jobs. There are actually enough state employees to influence an election, so any realy reform involving state employees or benefits is impossible.
Then California truly is forever damned and doomed. If the majority of the electorate -- in all of their mind-numbed ignorance -- can't figure out that the problem is the liberal democrats they send to the Legistature, then the state is truly damned and doomed. George Deukmejian. Pete Wilson. Gray Davis. Arnold Schwartzenegger. The state budget has been a disaster through 4 gubernatorial administrations, and the only constant is the overwhelming liberal democratic majorities in the Legislature in all of the time since Ronald Reagan was governor. We Californians are so screwed. The only solution is... to move.
Why should bakersfield have to suffer?
It would make a lot more sense to break the central valley and northern california off from the coastal regions. I pity the poor folks in the central valley, being governed by the idiots from the coasts.
California should split, and leave Frisco and LA to themselves. Let them fall of into the ocean! The rest of California is not what San Franfeakshow and LA make it out to be.
If public unions are a major culprit in California’s budget woes, then why are other states with public unions NOT experiencing severe budgetary problems.
The fact is, the unions are not the problem. As bad as unions are, and they are bad, they are just as bad in other states that don’t have free-spending liberal idiots running the Legislatures.
Unions get paid whatever the government decides to pay them. Public unions don’t have any of the power that private unions do and often are not allowed to strike.
The problem with California is not the Unions, but the Legislature. The liberal California Legislature is the body that creates, funds and fills the unions jobs. They are the ones who overspend with impunity on all of their socialist entitlement programs.
You can go ahead and blame the public unions but then you are going to have to explain why Idaho’s and Washington’s and Wyoming’s and Oklahoma’s public unions haven’t ruined the budgets of those states the way public unions have ruined California’s budget?
In light of that, your comment sounds preposterous, doesn’t it?
The solution is “to move.” As for me, a sixth generation Californian whose family was buying hides from the missions in the 1830s, and someone who loved California (past tense) I couldn’t stand it. I moved.
This analysis ignores the impact of the exceedingly liberal California media and Hollywood, who have done everything they can to further the liberal disaster that California has become.
You don't know how that sounds to a native Californio.
Breaking California up is NOT the solution. Rather, California needs to take some tough fiscal medicine to get its house in order. That is an inescapable fact, and one that will eventually have to be confronted by the residents of that state, whether they like it or not.
Exiles like myself are broken-hearted about the conditions in our beloved home state. This is the same state that Ronaldus Magnus governed once, remember? It was a politically conservative place when I was a kid, and a damn wonderful place to grow up.
I just hope and pray that someone like Sarah Palin steps up from among California's people to take the state back from the lunatics, before it's too late.
(sigh.....)
I must admit, that I made that move myself, a couple of years ago.
I'm a native Californian, and I truly did not want to leave my home to the invaders, the lunatics, the druggies, criminals, moonbats, the lavender latte crowd, the tree huggers, the big unions, and the tax-and-spend liberals in the state legislature.
I wanted to stand and fight.
In the end, though, I had to look out for my wife and kids and our small business first. We were also priced out of the housing market at that time, which magnified all of the other issues, and made the choice to re-locate a lot easier.
We're in North Texas now, which is the fastest growing area of the country. It's nice here. It's eerily similar to what California was like when I was a kid, so you can bet that I'm liking it.
Still, I sometimes feel the call to go home and kick some liberal butt. These threads can really get me worked up.
Moving with your feet is tried and true - good move.
I’m glad I left. That place is so weird and run so poorly.
I’ve heard good things about north-east Texas (DFW area and north/west of there). Can’t speak to exactly where you are but given my living in liberal, expensive places the last 8 years Texas is sounding mighty attractive for my next career move.
The 2005 bankruptcy reform had revisions for government bankruptcies. Seems california will be the first to use it.
I’m in Collin County, which borders Dallas County to the north. There’s only one county separating Collin County from the state of Oklahoma.
I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for the outlying areas of Dallas, and I’m sure that North-East Texas has got to be one of the best areas of the country to live in, in the present day. I can just about guarantee you that it doesn’t get more down-to-earth American than that.
But, you’d better be prepared to make a living in a tough economy out there. Most city folks would be up sh*t creek without a paddle in that corner of Texas.
If you want less expensive, more conservative, more patriotic, more common-sense, more honesty, more true grit American, then come to Texas. You won’t be sorry (unless you move into the inner city).
Collin County, where I live, is the fastest growing county in the country. I think I read somewhere that four out of the ten fastest growing counties in the country are in Texas.
There is good reason for that. You would not believe what you can buy for a couple hundred thousand out here. Double that (which is about average for a three bedroom house in LA) and you can have a mansion or a ranch.
If he had compromised with Democrats and demanded that spending "only" be increased 20%, California would be on the way to recovery. But that would require leadership and fiscal responsibility which the Girly-Man and Democrats want no part of.
So now the Girly-Man is instead demanding that Republicans “compromise” and raise taxes.
I hope California Republicans hang tough for however long it takes to get spending cuts. I'd also love to see another “Total Recall” to remove Arnold in California.
Good luck to California!
I am a native Californian. Worse, I am a native San Franciscan and just left there after returning to live in SF for 12 years. The State is an unholy mess and not salvagable. If we broke the state into manageable pieces and started over, we just MIGHT be able to save it.
The day I retire. The VERY DAY I retire, I’m going to Virginia, unless the Beltway liberals have done extensive damage to the Commonwealth by then...
Fighting is great, but you have to have tools to fight with. Republicans are fleeing the state of California and taking their money with them, while the liberal nutcases move in from other states, and the rest is from immigrants from other nations that either don’t know the freedoms we lost here, or are just grateful that California is better than where they left.
The registered Democrat numbers are 4 Dems for every 3 Republicans and the Democrat registrations are still going up faster than Republican registrations, due to influx of said other state liberals and other nation immigrants.
How do you fight that politically? You could fight it in the schools, if there wasn’t a Socialist Utopian leadership entrenched in the schools.
I don’t see how to fight this. It is a losing battle. My only solution is to move and let the California rot fester. Let them lie in the soiled bed they made. I don’t see how to fight this? Just scream and rant and rave? That doesn’t get rid of Feinstein, Boxer or Pelosi. The liberals here just keep re-electing their kind. I don’t see how to “stay and fight.” I’m not seeing it...
Jim Rob has this website so he is fighting the battle hard and I think this website is wonderful at fighting the national culture war. It helps fight the California battle, but since this site was created, what large political battles have been won in California? I don’t know. I mean, if it got McClintock elected governor, then I would say we won a fight. But almost every statewide office outside of legislative is held by a damn Democrat and that isn’t changing. The House and Senate are massively Democratic and it won’t be long before their majorities are veto proof.
The die appears to be cast to me. Others better than me may win the fight because I can’t envision a victory here. I can’t see it. What am I missing?
Maybe a future generation will become enraged at being lied to and will become Conservative and throw the bums out. Maybe immigrants will wake up and become Conservative. Not in my lifetime. I can only hope, one day...
I did not ascribe all of California's budget problems to the public employee unions. Illegals, greens, and wild spending habits are significant problems also. In other states, public employee unions may not have the influence that they have in California. The experience of other states does not mean that California's public employee unions are not part of the budget problem. Many states are heading for deep budget problems because of public employee pensions. Union lobbying has prevented pension reform in California.
Unions are legally protected labor cartels with two goals: control the supply and price of labor. Unions crush competition through the political process. Public employee unions have no counter weight. In the private sector, companies can fail and move jobs. In the public sector, these normal restraints do not apply. Unions forcibly extract dues and use a substantial part of dues as well as in kind donations to influence the political process. In aqddition, public employees have civil service protections. Thus, collective bargaining rights should not be granted to public employees.
(even longer sigh.........)
Yes, I'm all too aware of those two facts.
It's a fact that California is experiencing a net loss of native-born American citizens every year, even though their population is rising. There's no question as to what's causing that to happen. I believe that Victor Davis Hanson's book, "Mexifornia" may well be prophetic.
That fact will change the social dynamics of California beyond the point of redemption in the decades to come, if something doesn't cause it to shift or thrust toward an American identity. The repercussions of California becoming a de facto state of Mexico are nearly too serious to imagine. I really don't think that the people of this great country will allow Mexico to take California from us without a fight, even if a secessionist movement springs up there, which is likely.
To your second point, I recently read an article which stated that, of CEOs who are looking to re-locate their businesses to a new state, California ranks dead last among the 50 states. The reasons for that are pretty obvious to you, me, and everyone else reading this. That bodes ill for the future economy of California. Those people who are choosing to re-locate to California cannot possibly be doing so because California is a more attractive place to do business, or to buy a home, or to find a lower cost of living. So, just who is re-locating there? Unfortunately, it's the wagon riders, not the wagon pullers of the culture.
And so the state merrily continues down its dwindling spiral.
I can only hope that enough patriotic American hold-outs remain there, so that when the times are right, they can lead the charge to take the great state of California back from the horde. When that time comes, if I am still able, I will be there with them.
We in Fresno will only take the Bay Area if you deport all the lefties to one of the other states.
Never say never. Just two weeks ago, we didn't think we had a chance of keeping the White House, and were making preparations for a probable Marxist takeover of our country.
I think that Sarah Palin has given voice to a ten billion megaton force of pent up frustration among good and honest Americans. By standing up and simply saying what we've been thinking, she has unleashed a mighty juggernaut that will not be silenced any longer.
There are major, tectonic shifts about to occur in this country, and the salvage of California, one of our most important states will surely figure large in that change.
For now, just keep the faith, and pass the ammunition.
Actually, the four measures he proposed made sense and I voted for all of them. Unfortunately, many of my fellow California citizens are morons and they all went down in defeat.
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