Ah-nold - "I'll just take my toys and go home"
Leadership is stated as the "process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task."
What makes leadership is the ability to get people to do what they don't want to do and like it. ~ Harry Truman
Apparently those inspirational words have been lost on California's Governor. Swept into office on a wave of Republican propaganda and manufactured resentment of the status quo our current debacle sitting in the Capitol has managed to blame everyone else for his shortcomings.
"If I don't get all of the things that we need in order to be fiscally responsible ... I will not sign a budget and it could actually drag out until the next governor gets into office," Schwarzenegger told reporters after meeting with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
In 2003 the current economic girlyman was elected and one of his first orders of business was to slash the vehicle license fees. Costing the state $5 billion annually to bail out local governments counting on those fees. Only to raise them in last years budget.
Next on the docket was to take the debt Gray Davis acquired and borrow on it.
"Second, the new governor used his star power to persuade the Legislature and the voters to borrow $15 billion to pay not only for inherited debt, but the initial car tax cut and other daily expenses. The state still is paying off those bonds and the money's long gone. The annual cost: $1.2 billion."
In 2008 the Governor signed off on a budget that was ready made to fail. Instead of addressing real causes with real solutions Schwarzenegger chose to move boxes around.
Last year the Governor begged, borrowed and stole from everywhere in order to patch together a budget.
Recall that in May Gov. Schwarzenegger chose to draw a line in the sand... his target? California's children and poor.
"Among the options Schwarzenegger presented is eliminating CalWORKS, the state's welfare-to-work program that serves about 1.4 million poor people, most of them children, with monthly grants, job training and child care to enable parents to become self-supporting. He reneged on cutting Healthy Families, which provides health care to nearly 700,000 children from low-income families."
All the while he postures how difficult decisions have to be made to preserve California, he never bothers to mention it has been his choices that have created much havoc on the budget. His tough choices have been to preserve the $2.1 Billion in corporate tax cuts from last year, the number of tax loopholes enacted in previous years.
He stands by the Republican mantra of creating a business friendly state while unemployment in California is one of the highest in the nation. No jobs are being created, and data doesn't support the hard line stance that any jobs have been created, but the rich keep getting richer.
"I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, young or old." ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
Stomping your feet and holding your breath until you get your way is the definition of failure. At every turn Schwarzenegger has blamed others for his failures. California deserves better than a washed up body builder with delusions of preserving his legacy.
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How many more teachers, police, firefighters, CDF, trash collectors, park maintenance, state and local park rangers, fish and wildlife guardians, state biologists, college professors and lecturers, etc will LOSE THEIR JOBS under the slash and burn of an e meg Whitman ?
How many people will die of bad air quality ?
How many American children will be deported to be terrorized by foreign drug gangs and their parents murdered ?
How many people go hungry ? Lose their state jobs ? Go homeless ?
How many tax havens do we need for the uber wealthy here ?
How long until our rivers run dry, our valley has no crops to harvest and no one is here to do it anyway ?
How much in per diem payments is the Republican wing of the CA State legislature earning per day for not passing any sort of budget again ?
Why is Tom McClintock financially supporting those who vow to stop the budget from passing ? Why does Tom McClintock hate the hand that feeds him ?
Its a matter of priorities and the legislature has never heard of this word...no! That is obvious... when your state's budget goes from 58 billion to 108 billion in just ten years...in the real world that would not be impossible to do...but not here in California anything is possible. You can't blame the Rooster if you left the hen house wide open......and all the chickens got out.
No, I can lay this one right at the feet of this failed administration. As chief executive of the State he has a lot to say about what goes on here.
Take for instance ... the vehicle license fees. In any one year it cost the state $5billion in revenue .... compounded over the six years it was in effect and waa-la .... there is roughly $30 billion the state was short.
Remind me again what the deficit is?
Spending under Ah-nold has skyrocketed
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/California_state_budget
* California's state spending has ballooned in the last decade at a rate much higher than the rate of inflation and rate of population growth in the state. According to Tom Campbell, California's finance director in 2004-2005, if the 1999-2000 budget of former California governor Gray Davis had been increased over the next decade by a factor representing the inflation rate and California's population growth in that time, California would now be experiencing a budget surplus, rather than a deficit even with the recent revenue decline due to the state's economic recession. Instead, California has had a 50% spending increase over the past five years.
Which party controls the California State legislature?
2 words: pop politics. Jon is correct, it takes both sides to consistently turn the budget into a disaster. They are ALL responsible, but no one ever gets held accountable.
jwd, do you realize that it costs more to register a motor scooter in CA than a Rolls Royce in most other States?
The dificit would still be there because our politicians will continue to spend whether they have the money or not. Although most Governors have been Republicans for the past 30 years they have had a Democratic majority in both Legislative chambers during that time.
A lot of the expenditures are due to unfunded mandates from the Feds, of course the State is also very good at doing the same to the Counties.
I have couple of questions. One, since last year Californians were gifted with the largest tax increase in their history, how much more should taxes be raised. Should raising taxes be a yearly ritual? How high should they go?
Number two, when the revenue stream is greatly reduced due to economic downfalls how will the State finance all the programs? By cutting services or raising taxes? What would you do if your household income took a hit? Would you go out and get a part time job? What if there are no part time jobs to be had? Or would you cut expenditures?
The Governor let the people decide on how to solve most of the problems in California, The State Unions spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat the propositions. Do you think that the unions had the best interest of the citizens of California on their mind.
I'm not a fan of the Gov but fair is fair. He has been sabotaged by the Democrats and the unions since the day he took office.
I am glad he cut vehicle registration. And the unions have killed the propositions Arnold wanted passed, if these would have passed, we would not be in the shape we are today....
"The unions spent millions of dollars to beat Schwarzenegger's propositions to limit the use of their member dues for political purposes, cap state spending, redraw legislative districts and restrict public-school teacher tenure.
Voters overwhelmingly defeated Proposition 76, the governor's centerpiece proposal to slow the growth of state spending. Proposition 77, which would have redrawn legislative and congressional districts, was knocked down by a similar margin.Failing by slimmer spreads were Proposition 74, a plan to make teachers work longer to achieve tenure, and Proposition 73, which would have restricted political spending by public employee unions."
Joes: You apparently don't know leadership when it hits you in the face.
Arnold's "I won't sign" claim is exactly that, leadership. He set the goal (a balanced budget) and he is directing the legislature to provide it to him at the risk of having no budget at all.
It reminds me of techniques used by many great leaders. They do not offer alternatives, they offer the minimum acceptable solution and insist that you achieve it.
Whether it was my coach telling us we had to run 25 wind-sprints before we finished practice, or it was a teacher telling me we needed to turn in 25 pages for a report...not 22, not 24, but 25 or he would flunk us.
Its actually ironic that you complain about Arnold failing to provide leadership when in fact, he is doing EXACTLY that.
Ironic, and telling.
It tells me that when you don't like the answer (25 pages?? Why should I have to do 25 pages?? The prom is this Friday Night.. 25 pages is unnecessary..blah blah, blah) you will attack the coach/teacher/governor rather than accept their leadership.
JWD:
If you think Arnold is a Republican you have some real reality problems.. Arnold is a Liberal Democratic in a Republican suit....
Any Governor of this state can only sign a budget or deal with a budge AFTER it has been presented to him by our state legislature... Now who has had control of that branch or our Gov for many, many years Joe.... Hint it is not the Republicans: Independents, Libertarian, Green Party of the Tea Party.....JOE... it is the Democrats.. Joe... nice try on this hit peace to deflect the responsibility of our budget problems on Arnold when a good portion of that responsibility falls squarely at the feet of the Democrats in Sacramento.
Besides Joe... Arnold only has a few days left in Office. Then maybe we can have Moon Beam back and if that happens then our state will be under 100% control of the Dems.. and they will still be blaming Arnold for the states problems...or for the Dems. more appropriately they will blame Bush.
Ownership and Responsibility.. two words that are not in the Democratic party's dictionary.
Joe the problem was not ..not enough money...they had plenty...way to much...they spent it all ...all of it and more.. and what they did spend became an out of control budget that could not be pulled back or shrunk fast enough...when the 10 year government created ponzi scheme collapsed. You failed to remember city managers 800K etc. salaries being dished out...it has been a money fun fest and still is...on all our combined dimes and nickels. Simply poor governance that wants us to bail them out again.....or lets just blame Prop 13 for our problems instead...not! What ever you do...do not however... look at the real facts.
Obe - you are correct. Politicians are not ones to let a pile of money sit around without spending it. But like a public addicted to "going shopping" its a hard habit to break. However ... cutting taxes for the top 2% and not having the subsequent cuts in spending is a manufactured crises.
Is it? I am not so sure about that statement...clearly at 13 trillion in the hole...a top 2% tax break is miniscule and really a non event in the big picture of why we are broke at all levels of governance. "like a public addicted to "going shopping" its a hard habit to break"...it appears to be the time for an intervention of sorts and stop the bloody addiction...don't you think? If not now...when....or do we wait until we collapse as a nation or state? Remember we must not let a created crisis ever go to waste...this is a crisis!
State taxes are going up, that is a fact along with corporate taxes, that is why i am disbanding my california s corp and incorporating out of state, it will save me almost 6 figures a year. Arnold tried to put controls in place, but as I said before, the unions did a good job of spending millions in spinning the propositions, ...and they were defeated, on more than one occasion all at taxpayer expense. kicking arnold around is nothing more than deflecting the blame where it belongs...
Joes: Its a free country. If you raise taxes on the most wealthy, mobile, and flexible people, they will buy a piece of land in Nevada and move their residence to that state. Then they will keep a California vacation home on the coast and continue to live here. They will register their vehicles in Nevada, purchase their big ticket items in Oregon where the sales taxes are low, and avoid taxes.
Look at John Kerry mooring his boat in Rhode Island to avoid Massachusetts taxes. The rich do not *have* to pay state taxes. They can avoid them.
Thus, the revenue you expect is not what you will get.
The way to bring the budget into line is to quit giving away money to state worker pensions, cut the frills in our prison system..in fact, outsource the prison system to Nevada, stop mandating union labor on state projects, do not give unemployment to healthy people who refuse to work, cut welfare and medi-Cal, stop giving education grants to kids who get C averages, don't pay people to upgrade their woodstoves, etc. There is a ton of waste, fraud and abuse.
There are plenty of ways to save money.
Joey-Why did PERS ask the Democrat controlled state legislature for $600 million. Was it because of the wealty in CA? Is that why they should pay more? Pigs at the trough......
I wonder if that's a Rocky or a Gurkha or...... Arnie is enjoying?
auburn - Arnie riding on a wave of Republican power grab over reached. It wasn't just the unions ... it was the voting public that shot it down. Face it ... bad law is bad law. He didn't just lose one or two.... he lost them ALL.
Prop 73 was an attempt for right to lifers to make abortion illegal.
Prop 74 was a blatant attempt to make school teachers temp. employees ... seen that act before as they just continue to rotate new people in. The school voucher program loved this one.
Prop 75 was typical Reagan union busting propaganda placed into a ballot initiative. What a bunch of garbage this was.
Good ol Prop 77 - The Tom Delay Texas Two step ... Fortunately CA didn't fall for that piece of legislative garbage.... another power grab attempt by the Republican minority.
ghillie - because the state, under Ahnold, has not been contributing their portion and instead spending it elsewhere. Real simple.
oh that and ... top executives like those in Bell CA., robbing the pension fund blind.
Obe - no doubt, but I think carefully directed to actually address the source of the problem and not just trying to score political points by throwing around a bunch of lies and catch phrases.
As I pointed out, Arnie cost the state nearly $30 Billion alone with his car tax debacle that he had to roll back.
How much has Arnie's furlough cost the state? This poor program was designed to balance the budget on the backs of 200K state employees. The savings was not as great as advertised and actually the multiplier effect probably cost California much more.
Remember his multi million dollar audit that went nowhere? Instead he has appointed more 6-figure officials than Davis ever did. And in typical fashion blamed everyone else when his tax cuts didn't pay for themselves. Wow, whocouldanode?
Arnie cost what?...clearly I do not see your logic. Here lets try this one...the car tax... should never have existed in the first place! How much money has been squandered and stolen form the public since its inception...tax me more now for my air with the entire smog program..wake up!
while it should never have existed ... it does none the less.
As well as many other taxes ... the purpose being to provide services for the benefit of the population. When they start cutting services then one needs to ask ... were is the coinciding cut in taxes?
The furloughs are back on.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2010/07/schwarzenegger-orders-more-fur.html
CA04 - oooohhh .... but with a fancy new twist.
"Face it ... bad law is bad law. He didn't just lose one or two.... he lost them ALL"
You missed 76, slow down state spending? Bad law?...right,..... the unions had everything to do with 73, 74, 76,77 not passing, the millions spent on spin benefitted the unions....i dont know where you came up with 75...its not about the person leading the state, its about those in legislature...at least arnold is not getting a pay check....a lot more than i could say about Davis...
auburn - there are only a little over 200K state employees ... I guess it was all their fault that Arnold's power grab failed? Much like our Governor blaming everyone else for his pathetic administrations continuing failure.
joeshwingding
I don't think what he is doing with the furloughs will hold up in court. I don't think that those laws were written to be selective. It will be interesting to watch.
The problem with this state is pretty much a combination of the initiative process and the legislature. Arnold is pretty much insignificant. I like to think of him as Grey Davis with a stogie. Not much more or less.
joe: You sound like a public employee who is bitter.
CA04 - I think you are correct as his arguments have been changing as the process continues.
Once his stance was heard outside of Judge Patrick Marlette's court his case has fallen apart at every turn.
Now with all these arbitrary exemptions I think it weakens his case further
g_p - from a number of your posts and comments I would say 'bitter' is something you know a lot about.
At least Arnie is headed in the right direction by cutting the government and all the pigs at the trough that feed from it.
JWD, Have you ever heard of the process of initiative that has ballooned our debt? In fact, our miserable law makers are responsible for most of the initiatives being placed on the ballot as they, being elected representatives don't want to be aligned with the out of control spending that has been created by we the stupid voters in California saying - Yes to often. We need part time legislators and a re-write of the initiative process.
Joey-Sources on your PERS bluff please.
I'll save you the time. Your wrong as usual.
Has to do a lot with greedy employees, under union negotiated contract, "electing" to pay their own contributions during their final year. This artificially inflates their final year's (highest) salary and subsequent retirement payments beyond what was designed into PERS. The draw on the retirement system has eclipsed the intake and investment income of the system.
That's only a small part of the problem created by unions and greedy government employees
Nothing to do with Arnie though. Nice try little one.
Joe, let me give you some advice. Research before you write. You opened a minefield, walked through it and got blown to bits.
by what? Rumor, innuendo, unsupported opinions from an already biased crowd. I would expect nothing less from this forum. :o)
But I appreciate your concern as I always consider the source as I know how the right is enamored with false bravado and phony hero's.
Ghillie - I've already asked you for your source on this soap box mantra you have uttered .... TWICE now, and yet you have produced none. Show me the union contract that says this! Show me where this is common practice for the average person. Show me where this applies to the average state employee and not some 'exception to the rule ... like CHP or Executive staff, which I have already said abuse the system.
Otherwise STFU you dont know what you are talking about.
But here.. I found something for you.
But the analyst said CalPERS may have overstated the rate increase by assuming payroll growth that will not happen because of furloughs. And much of the $600 million rate increase comes from special funds, not the deficit-ridden general fund.
“In any event, it is important for the Legislature to understand that the widely quoted CalPERS actuarial estimate of a $600 million state payment increase in 2010-11 is (1) going to be borne largely by funds outside of the general fund and (2) almost certainly not going to increase the already-identified general fund budget problem in 2010-11 by $600 million,” said the analyst.
The number of people effected by the current crisis will be huge. Cutting the mentioned programs to help the indigent and children will bite CA in the fanny. You think you are bothered by the homeless now? Just wait until the programs that have been keeping families off the street has been eliminated. No available jobs, no assistance, how are people going to pay for food and housing? Not many options for them.
In addition, can someone tell me how furloughs and paying state workers minimum wage is supposed to balance the budget? What Arnie is doing is using the "little guy" within the state payrolls to coerce unions into making a deal. Many state workers are suffering financially at the hands of the politicians for something that is not their fault. Not everyone is making big bucks in an administrative position. Most are just "workers" at prisons, the DMV, public records departments, etc. These are not wealthy people, just regular folks who are caught in the cross fire.
What a freaking mess. Not something to be solve easily by a Democrat or Republican. And probably not a worry for that top 2%.