Free Republic

SACRAMENTO – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have a problem as he launches a full-scale campaign to overcome voter skepticism about a $15 billion fiscal-recovery bond measure on the March 2 ballot. It's not entirely clear that voter rejection of Proposition 57 will, as the governor has warned, result in "economic chaos," "Armageddon cuts" in services, or leave no choice but to "drastically increase taxes." If the governor's bond is rejected, the state simply would continue with the budget signed by former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis before he was replaced by Schwarzenegger, a Republican, in an historic recall election last fall....

SACRAMENTO – People may wonder how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided on $15 billion for the amount of his proposed fiscal-recovery bond measure on the March 2 ballot. The Republican governor routinely says the bond proposal, Proposition 57, is needed to consolidate and refinance the "inherited debt" created by years of overspending under his Democratic predecessor, former Gov. Gray Davis. "So, it's not new borrowing," Schwarzenegger said in an interview on a Los Angles radio station this week. "It's just taking what is already inherited debt, which is $22 billion. We take this bond to refinance it." Voters who have struggled...