Arnold Schwarzenegger swept into the California governor's office in 2003 with great popularity, and a mandate to change government in the Golden State. Instead, the Republican governor teamed with the Democratic Legislature to run up massive budget deficits that could not be covered during the economic downturn.
The budget gap in California was $15 billion in February, $22 billion in May (when a ballot package raising taxes failed) and now it is estimated by the governor to by $24.3 billion. Clearly, something is wrong with California's political leadership, and it starts at the top.
Schwarzenegger addressed a joint session of the Legislature on Tuesday, and said the government's "wallet is empty." I think we already knew that, governor. With voters turning down tax increases, the only alternative is massive cuts to state programs.
That means education (which has the biggest share of the budget) has the most to lose, along with the most vulnerable: children, elderly and the poor. They don't have lobbyists looking out for their programs.
The only way this budget can be balanced is for a lot of needed programs to be devastated. Unfortunately, that's the price Californians are going to have to pay after the state has been on a spending binge for most of Schwarzenegger's tenure as governor.
Schwarzenegger has the rest of this year and all of next year to turn around his governorship. Plenty of time to resurrect his image if he comes up with a plan to save California. So far, though, his ideas have been lacking.
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