Dan Walters: Schwarzenegger reverts to fantasy with budget proposal

Sacramento Bee ^ | 1/10/10 | Dan Walters

[SmithL]

Arnold Schwarzenegger achieved fame and fortune by starring in celluloid fantasies, so it may be fitting that his final state budget proposal would be so disconnected from economic and political reality.

With the state still facing huge deficits, the governor bases his 2010-11 budget on such fanciful elements as persuading the federal government to cough up an extra $7 billion, asking voters to reverse themselves and shift money from protected pots for mental health and children's programs, overhauling transportation financing, and persuading state employee unions to accept pay cuts and increases in workers' pension and health care costs.

Even Schwarzenegger's pal, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, throws cold water on California getting a big injection of federal cash to bail out the state.

"California's budget crisis was created in Sacramento, not Washington," Feinstein said last week.

As Schwarzenegger describes it, if the federal money doesn't materialize, the severe cuts he's proposing in health and welfare programs will become wholesale slaughter. But he's largely shielding K-12 and higher education from deeper cuts – which has the effect, whether intended or not, of driving wedges among Democratic legislators and their allies.

[sickoflibs]

If this was Bush all headlines would be :”Bush tells California to drop dead” as the papers have done before,

[Publius6961]

This clown should read the editorials inthe newspaper which publishes him!

Editorial: Time to decide what services California must protect, or erase