Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is up to his classic black Terminator shades in the worst budget mess in modern CA history. His address to a rare joint session of the Legislature this week made clear one important point…he has not a single thing on his mind right now except how to cut roughly $25B dollars and do it quick. He indicated absolutely no interest in tax increases, and appeared to attempt to provide political cover for both the left and right for this position based on the outcome of the May 19 Special Election. In his view, voters essentially said “get your act together in the Capitol, get it done, and don’t bother asking us for any more money.” While Arnold had in the past talked down tax and fee increases, this time he seems a lot closer to really meaning it. This point is important, because state budget negotiations over the past couple of deficit-ridden years have taken on almost surreal, never-to-be-trusted quality that goes something like this…”we’ve got a really big problem, but we can’t burden the people further, oh wow it’s a bigger problem than we thought, OK we’ll have to go ahead and upset the folks after all.” Forces inside and outside The Building (as insiders refer to the place with the big white dome in Sac) therefore simply tried to wait out the storm…and often were successful in avoiding a fiscal tidal wave by doing so. Deals were cut, most of them involving lots of accounting and fund shuffling that put the real tsunami off for another day. Well the Cat 5 storm has now hit, and those running up and down the halls of California’s statehouse, regardless of party or interest, seem to know it intuitively. The gig is up. And it ain’t going to be pretty. Most Californians are only beginning to get what those inside The Building already know all too well – what happens in the next 12-18 months is going to make past budget problems look like kindergarten. And Arnold looks reprise his K Cop role in a wholly different fashion…this time riding herd on a process that is going to make millions angry…many of them intensely so. Look for political forces to begin rising up soon talking about ballot measures for 2010 that have only been whispered about up to now…including a possible measure to return CA to a part-time legislature…the ultimate political sword hanging over the electeds tasked with cleaning up a fiscal mess unparalleled even in the minds of those who’ve been around Sac since before cell phones…heck…before fax machines and computers for that matter.
Tags: arnold, budget, California, citizen voice, crisis, gary dietrich, governor, nonpartisan
