The Governator: What a sad artifact of a bygone era that moniker is. Arnold Schwarzenegger circa the 2003 “total recall” election was going to sweep all before him as California governor, bringing the same élan and toughness he had on the big screen to fighting special interests and restoring his beloved state to competitiveness.
That was before Gov. Arnold got a severe beat-down in a November 2005 special election from the unions and Democrats (aka “girly men”) he had taunted during his ascendancy. Schwarzenegger pushed four far-reaching, reformist ballot initiatives that all went down under a blizzard of spending and propaganda by California’s entrenched interests. With no screenplay to save him, the much-reduced Governator simply buckled and switched sides.
His new role is as a supporting actor in the Golden State’s fiscal destruction. If the future happens in California, we all should tremble at its ever-expanding debt, falling credit ratings, crushing pension obligations, suffocating regulation and rising taxes — with environmentally preening, ill-considered restrictions on carbon emissions thrown on top. California Democrats are only slightly ahead of national Democrats, so the country’s fiscal future may be in preview in Sacramento.
Schwarzenegger presided over the creation of a budget deficit worse than the one that led to his ousting of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. The state has a $42 billion deficit that state legislators have been holding all-night sessions to try to patch over and that sent Schwarzenegger begging to Washington for a bailout. The state has been buffeted by the housing crisis, but the ultimate cause of the mess is relentless, heedless overspending.
California has roughly doubled its budget during the past 10 years — like the recently passed stimulus bill, except spread out over a decade. Over five years, Gray Davis boosted spending from $75 billion to more than $100 billion, and his “fiscally conservative” vanquisher got it north of $140 billion. Davis managed to keep spending even during the devastating dot-com bust, and Schwarzenegger’s election brought only the briefest respite on the inexorable upward climb.
The politicians aren’t entirely to blame, although at every sign of the unsustainability of the state’s fiscal practices their reaction has been to resort to more gimmicks and borrowing. California’s voters have recourse to an initiative process they have used to make responsible budgeting as hard as possible. They passed a proposition in the late 1980s that basically locked up half of state spending for the schools, no matter what. Even in November, with fiscal disaster looming, they passed another $10 billion in bonds for high-speed rail, apparently on the theory that a state can never have enough debt.
The new budget deal will cut about $15 billion in spending and raise roughly the same in taxes, including the car tax over which Schwarzenegger pounded Davis in 2003. The deal has its worthy provisions, but fundamentally it is more of the same. California will remain overtaxed, overregulated, and overburdened by a public sector that is the state’s sole boom industry.
Schwarzenegger spoke movingly during his first campaign for governor of what California meant to him, of its dynamism that fostered entrepreneurial dreams. That California is disappearing. Schwarzenegger now governs the Michigan of the West. California has the fourth-highest state unemployment rate in the nation and is routinely ranked among the worst states in its business environment. Almost 1.5 million more nonimmigrants have left the state than moved to it during the past 10 years.
Once, Schwarzenegger was supposed to be a model for a more appealing, more moderate Republican Party — socially liberal, yet fiscally conservative. All he has demonstrated is, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, that moderation on the road to fiscal ruin is no virtue. The GOP’s social liberals are overwhelmingly fiscal liberals, too — witness the party’s social liberals in the Senate signing off on the stimulus bill, liberalism’s proudest fiscal accomplishment since the 1970s.
As for the Governator, he said hasta la vista long ago.
Friends, there is a danger hiding in practically every home, office and school. It masquerades as a harmless office supply but in reality, it has the ability to make people mentally unstable, disable a school system, and virtually bring a small town to its knees. It's known as (cue scary music), the post-it note.
As a resident of Plainfield and frequent walker on our excellent trail system, I have often wondered what the laws are concerning the marked pedestrian crosswalks throughout town. So I talked to the Plainfield Police Department.
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I'm back from a few shows at the security theater.
I slogged my way through four airports this past month, and played my interactive role in that daily, multi-billion-dollar production brought to us by the federal government with the colossally misleading name of "airline security."
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Human remains may be embedded in the mud of the North Atlantic where the New York-bound Titanic came to rest when it sank 100 years ago, a federal official said.
Commentary
Goodbye to the governator
BY RICH LOWRY
The Governator: What a sad artifact of a bygone era that moniker is. Arnold Schwarzenegger circa the 2003 “total recall” election was going to sweep all before him as California governor, bringing the same élan and toughness he had on the big screen to fighting special interests and restoring his beloved state to competitiveness.
That was before Gov. Arnold got a severe beat-down in a November 2005 special election from the unions and Democrats (aka “girly men”) he had taunted during his ascendancy. Schwarzenegger pushed four far-reaching, reformist ballot initiatives that all went down under a blizzard of spending and propaganda by California’s entrenched interests. With no screenplay to save him, the much-reduced Governator simply buckled and switched sides.
His new role is as a supporting actor in the Golden State’s fiscal destruction. If the future happens in California, we all should tremble at its ever-expanding debt, falling credit ratings, crushing pension obligations, suffocating regulation and rising taxes — with environmentally preening, ill-considered restrictions on carbon emissions thrown on top. California Democrats are only slightly ahead of national Democrats, so the country’s fiscal future may be in preview in Sacramento.
Schwarzenegger presided over the creation of a budget deficit worse than the one that led to his ousting of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. The state has a $42 billion deficit that state legislators have been holding all-night sessions to try to patch over and that sent Schwarzenegger begging to Washington for a bailout. The state has been buffeted by the housing crisis, but the ultimate cause of the mess is relentless, heedless overspending.
California has roughly doubled its budget during the past 10 years — like the recently passed stimulus bill, except spread out over a decade. Over five years, Gray Davis boosted spending from $75 billion to more than $100 billion, and his “fiscally conservative” vanquisher got it north of $140 billion. Davis managed to keep spending even during the devastating dot-com bust, and Schwarzenegger’s election brought only the briefest respite on the inexorable upward climb.
The politicians aren’t entirely to blame, although at every sign of the unsustainability of the state’s fiscal practices their reaction has been to resort to more gimmicks and borrowing. California’s voters have recourse to an initiative process they have used to make responsible budgeting as hard as possible. They passed a proposition in the late 1980s that basically locked up half of state spending for the schools, no matter what. Even in November, with fiscal disaster looming, they passed another $10 billion in bonds for high-speed rail, apparently on the theory that a state can never have enough debt.
The new budget deal will cut about $15 billion in spending and raise roughly the same in taxes, including the car tax over which Schwarzenegger pounded Davis in 2003. The deal has its worthy provisions, but fundamentally it is more of the same. California will remain overtaxed, overregulated, and overburdened by a public sector that is the state’s sole boom industry.
Schwarzenegger spoke movingly during his first campaign for governor of what California meant to him, of its dynamism that fostered entrepreneurial dreams. That California is disappearing. Schwarzenegger now governs the Michigan of the West. California has the fourth-highest state unemployment rate in the nation and is routinely ranked among the worst states in its business environment. Almost 1.5 million more nonimmigrants have left the state than moved to it during the past 10 years.
Once, Schwarzenegger was supposed to be a model for a more appealing, more moderate Republican Party — socially liberal, yet fiscally conservative. All he has demonstrated is, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, that moderation on the road to fiscal ruin is no virtue. The GOP’s social liberals are overwhelmingly fiscal liberals, too — witness the party’s social liberals in the Senate signing off on the stimulus bill, liberalism’s proudest fiscal accomplishment since the 1970s.
As for the Governator, he said hasta la vista long ago.
(c) 2009 by King Features Syndicate
Friends, there is a danger hiding in practically every home, office and school. It masquerades as a harmless office supply but in reality, it has the ability to make people mentally unstable, disable a school system, and virtually bring a small town to its knees. It's known as (cue scary music), the post-it note.
May 18, 2012
As a resident of Plainfield and frequent walker on our excellent trail system, I have often wondered what the laws are concerning the marked pedestrian crosswalks throughout town. So I talked to the Plainfield Police Department.
May 18, 2012
Mitt Romney went into the wrong line of work. If only he had been a lecturer in constitutional law, he wouldn't have a business record vulnerable to distortion by a desperate incumbent president.
May 18, 2012
And now, hold on to your hats because it's time for ...
Dentists In The News!
May 15, 2012
Now that the Obama administration has officially sided with corrupting man-wife marriage to also mean two men or two women, it's time for Christians to reflect on what's going on in the culture. To be sure, the measure must pass certain hurdles to be the secular law of the land. And, if the Republican candidate wins come November, there may be a further delay in its implementation. But don't count on it.
May 15, 2012
I'm back from a few shows at the security theater.
I slogged my way through four airports this past month, and played my interactive role in that daily, multi-billion-dollar production brought to us by the federal government with the colossally misleading name of "airline security."
May 14, 2012
President Barack Obama insists that he didn't announce his support for gay marriage out of political considerations. He's right. He did it out of self-regard.
May 14, 2012
Is that smoke? I think I smell something burning. Something is definitely scorched. Did someone just burn a ham or did Patricia Krentcil, a.k.a. "tanning mom" just walk into the room?
May 11, 2012
U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar - vanquished by age, longevity, barrel bottom congressional approval ratings, and an aggressive opponent in Treasurer Richard Mourdock - seemed to be bridging a divided party when he took the stage shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday as the magnitude of the 61 percent to 39 percent landslide against him registered.
May 11, 2012
The Cleveland Five are a sad-sack collection of wannabe terrorists if there ever was one. The amateurish young men who plotted to destroy a bridge outside Cleveland last week give the impression of needing the attention of a guidance counselor as much as a federal prosecutor.
May 11, 2012
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Human remains may be embedded in the mud of the North Atlantic where the New York-bound Titanic came to rest when it sank 100 years ago, a federal official said.
April 16, 2012 3 Photos 3 Stories
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