“Now we must move forward from this point to begin to address our fiscal crisis with constructive solutions.” – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

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ith his four attempt at budget reform crashed by a massive voter revolt, what’s Gov. Schwarzenegger to do? Something radical? Something heretofore unheard of in Sacramento? A constructive solution?! C’mon, what’s he smokin’?

Maybe, maybe. The defeat of the cynical measures, which played us all for fools while giving the architects of the state’s budgetary nightmares an undeserved reprieve, peaked at 34% approval – that was 1B, which actually carried three NorCal counties.  The others, A, C, D and E were defeated in every county, with two-thirds of the voters voting no.  1F, which cuts the gov’s and legislators’ pay off until a budget is passed, won in every county, with a statewide 74 percent voting for it. Stats here.

Schwarzenegger may yet redeem his failed governorship if he takes yesterday’s vote to heart and stands in the Statehouse door, refusing to let anything that’s not a budget cut through.  That’s the only constructive solution we’ve got.  We’ve acquiesced to every Dem kumbaya wet dream for over a decade, so our only option is to refuse to let the lunatics run the asylum any longer.

Can Schwarzenegger find his spine at long last?  I’d rate the prospects somewhere between unlikely and fahgeddaboutit.  But maybe he, maybe even the spending-crazed Dems, got a wake-up call yesterday.  If they hit the snooze button again, they’ll understand that two-thirds of their voters will be ready to turn them out in the next election. Maybe that will get their attention, and maybe the Governor will be pushing in the right direction.

But I’ve lived here long enough to not get my hopes up.

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n Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget panic attack yesterday – a rightful panic attack, but a politically timed panic attack nonetheless – was a proposal that could doom the political prospects of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and other GOP governors who rejected the Obama stimulus package because of the federal strings attached to it.

Before getting to that, though, I’d like to report that with considerable glee, I found in Schwarzenegger’s proposal a promise to drill for oil offshore if next week’s “budget fixing” (i.e., taxpayer screwing) initiatives fail to pass.  Sure, the Gov is probably just trying to scare the gee-willikers out of California voters with that “threat,” but to me and millions like me, it was yet another great reason to vote against the initiatives. 

Covered way down in most reports on Schwarzenegger’s announcement was his proposal for Medi-Cal cuts. He picked his target for proposed cuts carefully – 225,000 poor children, to tug on the sympathy chords of everyone.  But to whack off their benefits, Schwarzenegger would have to get a waiver, untying California from all the strings that came with the federal stimulus dough.  In accepting the money, Schwarzenegger and other cash-hungry governors had to agree that they could not increase eligibility requirements; now he wants permission to break those chains.

Do you think the other governors will stand idly by?  Every single one of ‘em who took the fed money will pile on with Schwarzenegger, bawling about how they can’t possibly balance their budget without Obama’s gracious and godly help, snipping this string, cutting that requirement.

Schwarzenegger comes begging with considerable clout -  not only California’s fantastic electoral college prize, but also his Schwarzenegger to Shriver to Kennedy to Obama bond, which assures Obama will listen.

And there’s a special prize for Obama, should he give in and urge Congress to even temporarily unbind the states from their obligations under the stimulus package.  Should that happen, Mark Sanford, Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal and other GOP governors who rejected portions of the package will become easy political targets of their states’ Dem operatives, who have all been attacking them shrilly about their decisions. Now the Dems will have their ultimate “See, I told you so!” moment, and the good gentlemen’s prospects for re-election or higher office will be substantially diminished.

It’s a sweet opportunity for Obama: Be flexible, be gracious, reattach the strings once the vaunted recovery occurs, and obliterate some pesky foes in the process.  He just might go for it … in fact, I find myself wondering if it all wasn’t his Machiavelian scheme in the first place.

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s workers throughout the land – particularly in California – are just glad to have jobs and are going without raises and even accepting pay cuts, the goofballs in Sacramento decided quietly to give a bunch of California Assembly aides over $350,000 in bonuses.

Assembly speaker Karen Bass apparently never heard of the little uproar over AIG bonuses or thought she could stealth this through, but no dice.  Papers throughout the state carried the story and today, like a typical Dem politician, Bass tossed the folks she was championing under the bus.  Her quote:

“In hindsight, this was really becoming a distraction.”

You bet it was.  The Legislature and Gov. RINO are going to the people in three weeks with a package of ballot measures designed to bail them out from the state budget morass they’ve created through their intractability and obliviousness.  If they don’t pass, Sacramento will have to face reality and start cutting the feel-good bloat from the budget and do something to keep businesses from fleeing the state.

Bass’ recognition of reality probably comes too late to save the ballot measures.

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ust around the corner, on May 19, a raft of legislature-passed initiatives will go the a vote here in California. “Raft” is the perfect word: Our spending-addicted state government is clinging on to these proposals as a last hope keeping them from sinking beneath the stormy waters of the Sea of Insolvency.

It looks like California voters would rather send a message than save the state. A new statewide survey by the state’s leading nonpartisan polling outfit, the Public Policy Institute of California, the five initiatives that would rejigger state finances, robbing from Peter to pay Paul instead of making fundamental fixes, has majority support.  I expect support to wane further as the public’s understanding of the measures and frustration with governmental ineptitude increase.

Also figuring into my forecast is the overwhelming 81 percent support for the sixth proposition, 1F, which would limit salary increases for state elected officials when the state faces a budget deficit. We Californians are definitely thinking about meting out some punishment.  PPIC’s prez agrees:

“Californians are clear that the budget situation is serious, but most disapprove of the leadership in Sacramento—the people who are providing the solutions,” says Mark Baldassare, PPIC president, CEO, and survey director. “These leaders have their work cut out for them if they want to persuade voters that the ballot measures are necessary to address the problem.”

And in a note to RINOs everywhere, our barely Republican governor has become the poster boy for proving that being a political phony pleases no one.   His disapproval rate among registered voters is now 57 percent, with no one liking him much at all:  60 percent of Dems disapprove, 53 percent of GOP, 57 percent of indys.

Disapproval of the legislature, which brought us this mess by being a liberal Democrat rats nest, is far worse, with 81 percent of likely voters disapproving of them – a sign that a taxpayer revolt is roiling like magma under a thin crust.  If California voters do revolt on May 19, fiscal chaol will ensue, leading to a massive legislative turnover in subsequent elections.

I think voters in other states will watch the debacle and say, “Looks good to me – as goes California goes us!”

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rnold Schwarzenegger, who as you can see has gotten pretty battered by Sacramento Dems, can go back to being a movie star, the sooner the better in my book – but I can’t fault him for mandating that all state employees take a couple unpaid days off a month in a too little, too late effort to do something about California’s monstrous budget woes.

But ask a Dem to share in a little cost-cutting hardship?  No way!

All six of California’s statewide elected Democrats have opted out of participating in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s executive order to furlough state workers for two unpaid days each month.

In messages sent to their staff members and letters sent to Schwarzenegger’s Department of Personnel, the Democratic officals argued that the furloughs are “unfair,” in the words of Secretary of State Debra Bowen and “would impose such a hardship on the backs of our employees,” according to state Treasurer Bill Lockyer. (SacBee)

(The gov can’t force this kind of stuff on the elected Dems, but he does have the authority to impose the rule over most other state employees.)

I don’t share the common belief that all state workers are underworked and lazy.  Most that I’ve met work reasonably hard from check-in to check-out, and I’ve met a few are over the top workaholics.  But I’d buy a bridge in Brooklyn before I’d buy a word out of the mouth of Debra Bowen or Bill Lockyer.

California’s Dems spent us into our $40 billion – yes, that’s right, $40 billion – deficit, but now the state’s six elected Dems are not willing to take even a symbolic step to cut costs.  Worse, they’re united in grandstanding against it in order to send a signal that the Dems will not be forced into cost-cutting, no matter what.

Sacramento budget negotiations are going nowhere because Dems want to raise taxes and fight all cost-cutting measures, and the GOP wants to see real cost-cutting before considering any tax increases.

Both sides are intransegent, which leads to kudos for the GOP and unspeakable epithets for the Dems.

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s there a rock the media and their friends in the Obama camp have not turned over since McCain named Sarah Palin to the ticket? Probably. But here’s one turned-over rock you may have missed.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president, has urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto a fee on cargo containers going through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, setting off a wave of criticism from California environmentalists.

Palin’s letter to Schwarzenegger is dated Aug. 28 — one day before presidential candidate and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced that he had picked her as his running mate. The letter argues that both consumers and the economy in California and Alaska would suffer as a result of the fee.

Though the issue might otherwise be viewed as a relatively parochial port matter, Palin’s newfound status as a national political figure has raised the stakes in what state environmentalists consider to be their most important pollution reduction effort this year. They say Palin has no business getting involved in the California issue.

“Why should Gov. Schwarzenegger take into account what out-of-state interests are saying?” said Lisa Warshaw, a spokeswoman for the Coalition for Clean Air. “It’s unfortunate that she is using her popularity to push her agenda on this state.” (LA Times)

To those unfamiliar with governance and eager to find whole new ways to hate McCain/Palin, this all may make sense, but it is nonsensical. Governors of states comment routinely in the interest of their state on the matters of other states. These letters, drafted by staffers, legislative committees, special interest lobbyists – and almost never by governors themselves – flow like currents from capital to capital across the country.

It’s unlikely that Palin even read this particularly unimportant letter before signing it. She probably knows more about the current state of Uzbek-Azerbaijani relations than she knows about this issue. And “using her popularity to push her agenda?” The letter was signed before Palin had any popularity outside Alaska.

Air quality lawyers for the Center for Biological Depravity Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others, have been focused on California’s shipping and trucking industries, in part because it does create a lot of air pollution, and in part because it generates good money for them and is another weapon in their battle against economic advancement. So having Palin to attack instead of some unknown face in the governor’s office in Juneau is a great benefit to them. They are shedding crocodile tears in their statement. In fact, the Greenies are disparate to save this bill from a likely Schwarzenegger veto, and are happy to have Palin to throw into the mix. Otherwise, it’s an anonymous, second-tier bill that’s getting no visibility, making it easy for Schwarzenegger to nix.

The two govs share common concerns: That the new fee, in effect, a new tax on shipping, will increase consumer costs with no proof provided that the money will be spent as effectively by government as it would be by the private sector. The tax is $60 per container, or about $400 million a year.

Palin said many Alaskan communities lack road access and depend entirely on goods shipped by container, something that has significantly increased in cost in recent years. Many of those containers pass through the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports before arriving in Alaska, and Palin argues that the fee will add even more to the cost of goods shipped to her state.

“This tax makes the situation worse,” Palin wrote. “Similarly, the tax may harm California by driving port business away from its ports.”

The letter concludes by requesting that “due consideration be given to our state and that you not sign Senate Bill 974.”

“Due consideration” is hardly Palin throwing the weight of national celebrity around.

Warring Arguments

The bill’s author, Cal. Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Natch -Long Beach), makes two points: That the $400 million raised can be used for pollution-reduction schemes like installing low-pollution engines in trucks and trains, or creating grade separations at railroad/roadway intersections, to reduce long lines of idling vehicles. And , second, he argues that air pollution kills 3,400 Californians a year.

Schwarzenegger and Palin argue that it’s just another tax, and that it’s been proven over and over again that taxing money to government to solve problems doesn’t work as efficiently as incentivizing – positively or negatively – the private sector to do the work itself. As a free marketeer, I think the govs prevail over the Senator on this score.

As for the 3,400 (not 3,412 or 3,371?) dead Californians, show me one who died of air pollution. Just one. The statistic is so bogus it makes me hack violently and cough up phlegm. Air pollution can be a complicating factor in someone who’s already dying of something else – say lung disease brought on by years of smoking – but it’s quite impossible to scientifically nail down 3,400 Californians killed by pollution.

So it’s all nonsense, except that the Greenies went to the LA Times with their little, inconsequential story. And being all cuddled up under the covers with the Greenies the way the LA Times is, they actually put this nasty thing on their front page yesterday.

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aced with another Annual Festival of Ridiculousness – otherwise known as the yearly California state budget crisis – Gov. Schwarzenegger started strong, temporarily cutting salaries of workers in our overblown state bureaucracy. But any toothy grins that position won him got lost today with this news:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a temporary one-cent increase in the state sales tax for the next three years in exchange for long-term fixes he believes would solve the state’s perennial budget woes, several sources familiar with the negotiations said Monday.

The governor’s proposal comes as he and lawmakers are 35 days into the fiscal year with no approved spending plan.

Schwarzenegger has said he opposes tax increases, but was willing to consider all options to close an estimated $15.2 billion shortfall in the $101 billion general fund. (SacBee)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you oppose a tax increase, don’t propose a tax increase. If we give the Sacrementals more money, they’ll just figure out uncreative new ways to waste it.

For those of you who don’t get to experience the joy of living in CA, the state sales tax rate is currently 6.25 percent – but I pay 7.75 percent because my county has tacked on various tax bumps to pay for our fantastic roads and incredible government services. With Arnie’s lame-brained, solution-foiling idea, my sales tax will be getting dangerously close to 10 percent – the level at which all impulse to spend money collapses and I turn into a hermit.

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Was Jimmy Carter Right After All?

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ow there’s a question I bet you thought you’d never be asked, but it’s official: Historian Joseph Wheelan asks it on History News Network in a little piece he titled Is it Safe Now to Admit Jimmy Carter Was Right?.

No, of course he’s not alluding to Carter’s flaccid stand on Iran and terrorism; it’s his 1979 “Crisis of Confidence” speech that’s got Wheelan all hopped up on Karter Kool Aid.

We admirers have long endured ridicule whenever we dared to defend Carter’s prescient plan for reducing U.S. dependence on oil.

But today, after all the abuse and scorn heaped on Jimmy Carter and his supporters, we find ourselves paying more than $4 a gallon at the pump to fill our hulking gas guzzlers.

It turns out that Carter was right after all.

He was?! Let’s review the list of Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” recommendations:

• Requiring auto manufacturers to deliver by 1995 an auto fleet that tools along at 48 miles per gallon. The Smart Car, which gets very unstable at high speeds, gets 36 mpg. The Prius does get 48 mpg, so we’d need an all-Prius fleet to achieve Carter’s goal. Oh. Boy.
• Asking Americans to turn down their thermostats. Conservation is always a good idea, but the amount of energy saved if all Americans had donned dorky cardigans is a pittance compared to what we now save with energy-efficient systems brought to us not by government mandate as much as free market demand.
• Establishing a tax on “windfall” oil profits to finance a crash program to develop affordable synthetic fuels. Yeah, those synthetic fuels have fared wonderfully. And taxing corporate profits is always a great way to encourage business innovation, which explains all the technological innovation coming out of France.
• Setting a goal of 20 percent solar by … eight years ago. He apparently never computed the cost, which would make $4 a gallon gas seem like a gift, nor amount of acreage that would be required for solar farms, nor the protests of the environmental movement against any such idea.

Wheeler is just another historian who refuses to learn from history and still thinks that somehow government knows better than the free market. Besides being utterly unrealistic, Carter’s ideas are as bad today as they were in 1979. So of course Barack Obama pretty much did a Carter cut-and-paste to come up with his energy policy. Continue Reading »

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ur government continues to fritter away money on anti-smoking ads directed at children. I’m fine with fewer kids smoking, but it’s peer pressure that makes the difference, not advertising. Here’s a bit of just one of many studies in that regard:

Goldman and Glantz use data on total cigarette consumption per capita to assess the cost-effectiveness of the advertising campaigns in each state. Children consume only 2% to 3% of all cigarettes sold. The authors thus appear to be evaluating Massachusetts’ “more youth-oriented approach” solely by examining adult cigarette use. From 1993 to 1996, cigarette smoking among Massachusetts students in grades 7 through 12 remained unchanged3 but increased in California4 and the rest of the United States. (emphasis added; source)

Billions of dollars were spent during that period to discourage kids from smoking (and from doing drugs). The result? The media made a lot of money off of ad sales, the tax payers got their pockets lightened … and the kids just kept on smoking (and doing drugs).

So yesterday the guy in the photo, our cigar-smoking governor, was on hand to announce yet another advertising campaign directed at kids.

This one is more of a forced exaction than an ad campaign: Major movie producers have agreed to run anti-smoking ads on DVDs of youth-oriented movies (G, PG, PG-13) movies in which characters smoke. Arnie thinks it’s great:

“The anti-smoking crusade is taking now another giant step forward. As a matter of fact, by agreeing to include our anti-smoking ads in the opening minutes of the DVDs, especially those that contain tobacco use, the studios will help us reach tens of millions more viewers.”

Yeah, they’ll reach ‘em, but what good will that do? In fact, some messages – particularly ones that encourage parents to talk to their children about smoking – backfire and actually encourage kids to smoke.

That’s Arnie’s method, by the way. “I let them know, ‘Don’t ever try and start smoking,’” he said at yesterday’s event. But at least he’s got a great excuse for his smoking – He blames the Dems:

“I, of course, have a wonderful excuse because I can blame my father-in-law (Sargent Shriver) for getting me to start to smoke cigars. Because I never smoked until 1977, until he offered it to me in Hyannis Port. Since then, I’ve been smoking one cigar a day.”

The first one was free, it seems.

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