« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

Arnold: 1, California Democrats/Unions/Liberals: 0

By: Mike Krempasky (Diary)  |  July 21st, 2009 at 10:23 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t exactly my kind of Republican. He’s squishy on a lot of issues I care about. He seems a little too concerned with the opinion of some in the media. All that said, how can you characterize the news today that California political leaders have reached a budget deal as anything but a crushing win for the Gov? No new taxes, deep budget cuts, some reform to the state’s welfare system AND access and fees for offshore oil drilling?! [insert Conan joke about lamentations]

SRSLY? Holy crap.

Don’t get me wrong – the deal’s not perfect by any means. And folks with many more accounting degrees than I will find reasons to object to some of the shifts of both revenues and costs. And don’t forget – the very existence of the budget standoff that Arnold just won is a direct result of the failure of several of his key ballot initiatives.

But as I was driving to work this morning, listening to NPR lament the deal as one of the sharpest contractions in government anywhere in the country in recent memory, I couldn’t help but smile. When the chips were down, Arnold held firm. Well done, sir.

If this means (to steal the phrase) that Arnold’s back on the juice – can we pass it around at the next RGA meeting?

P.S. And meanwhile, across town – while Arnold was winning almost every concession he asked for..the SEIU is authorizing a strike. Good luck with that.

Tags: , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • Cheryl

    because given the choice (which the voters said no), Arnold would have raised taxes.

    • Kyle-MI

      It would probably be short-term bad, but long-term good if they struck and lost. Anyone know any polls on voter support for the SEIU?

      • Achance

        that the employer will have the Devil’s own time “winning” a strike. These are the sorts of employees that SEIU Local 1000 represents: http://www.seiu1000.org/Bargaining_Units/Default.aspx

        The CA Correction’s system is bedeviled by the Courts and lots of the SEIU represented employees work in prisons, so the Governor will have three enemies, not just the ususal two; the union and the Democrat legislature. Somebody will sue saying that prisoners are being deprived of their rights if these people stay out on strike and some judge, hoping for good things from Democrats for his great service, will step in and save the union even if the Governor has the guts to stick it out.

        I’ll guarantee you that by the evening news on the first day of the strike, the union will make it look like the World is ending, people are dying, babies are starving, and all the prisoners are running loose. Every elected D in the Country will be raising Hell and Rahm Emmanuel will be threatening the Governor with an army of FBI agents and auditors/investigators. Comrade Obama ain’t going to willingly let a Republican Governor beat his SEIU comrades. Maybe I’ll flip the Governor a copy of my resume, looks like fun, and I’ll actually be near Sacramento in early August.

        • IJB

          I’m getting the strong impression that the usual “widows & orphans” pleas are really falling on deaf ears this time.

          I think “widows & orphans” works when the economy is generally good, and people can be “guilted” into favoring certain policies (see: 1995).

          However, this time, pretty much everyone in CA is hurting, and the impression I’m getting is that if they try to roll out “widows & orphans” this time, most California voters are going to respond with a big “So?! MY FAMILY is starving!”

          Even watching local news, I’m getting the strong impression that the usual antics of the teachers unions, et al. in local school districts is having basically no positive impact for them this time. I think most people in CA have come around to “Just cut, cut, *cut*!”, at least this time around.

          • The_Gadfly

            ‘riots in the streets’ is still probably a winner, hence some of my reservations about what has been cut.

            Even so, you are right that denying them the use of ‘think of the children’ is a significant advance.

          • IJB

            I don’t even think CA Dems are dumb enough to try to uncork that one. But if they do, that will absolutely blow up in their faces (remember, the L.A. Riots of ’92 is one of the things that helped lay the groundwork for massive GOP gains in CA in ’94).

            I see them going Art’s route of random strikes (and even that will play poorly popularly, even if it nets them short-term gains legally).

            But I don’t see the Dems pulling out the ‘riot’ card, unless they expect to get shellacked anyway…

          • Achance

            IF I were calling the shots for the government side, I would ignore the rolling strikes and such and every day and every way, I’d get on every media outlet that would let me and assure the People that things are fine, they’ll get their welfare checks, if they can’t get their plates or license renewed, there’ll be a holday on that sort of stuff, everything I could do to assure the public that we weren’t missing the striking employees and I’d call in every chit from every interest group that should support me and have them singing my praises about how well the government is working despite the strike.

            Now, being the little Alinsky disciples that union goons are, they’re taken aback because, honky dog Republican that I am, I’m supposed to have set the cops on them and had them arrested, beat a few of them, and all that stuff that makes such good TV, but instead, I’m boring everybody to death. So, as a union goon, I have to do something to get some attention and I start to ramp it up but the employer is still ignoring me. The employer ignores the idiots until they do something really stupid, preferably violent, and then you spring on them. See, I read Alinsky before it was cool, and I’ve actually done this to unions.

          • Finrod

            .

      • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

        …if enough people thereby discover that the state runs just fine or even better, and decide “why do we need all these people- let’s just let them stay out on strike forever”.

        Or maybe even Arnold will defund the departments on strike with his line-time veto.

        Or course, this could all go to naught if the Democrats will the governorship in 2010 – we’d be stuck with John Edwards clone Gavin Newsom or Gov. Moonbeam redux.

        • Achance

          California has a bazillion separate bargaining units, somewhat along craft lines but also delineated by function, or department, or just plain politics apparently. So, a strike by one union or bargaining unit would have the effect of having some people or some functions absent from a department, but no shut down of a whole department. This is why unions love craft units, they can hurt the employer with a stike but the employer loses the effectiveness of a lock out. The old CIO lefty unions used to love the wall to walls and many of the public unions still have them and like them, but an employer in an adversarial relationship with a union learns to like the wall to wall as well. As an employer, you have the certain knowledge that wall to wall white collar and most gray collar units CANNOT sustain a strike for more than a few days, and they won’t get 100% participation for even a few days. The union response is the propaganda campaign and the virtual strike using their friends in the media, and the media is ALWAYS friends with the union. The employer response to a union strike is to make it a real strike; don’t let them do rolling strikes or have just enough people out to make it inconvenient. Make ‘em go whole hog and lock them out. In a week, they’ll be begging to come back to work. After one missed paycheck, they’ll kiss your butt on the Capitol steps and give you three days to draw a crowd if you’ll LET them come back to work.

          Teachers are the only exception since Johnny who can’t read is guaranteed 180 days of school every year, so the teacher will get their salary no matter what and they don’t care about missing a paycheck, they’ll get it back. Now, if you have the guts, if you can take the People’s babysitters away for more than a month so mortgage payments and such get missed, then you can bring teachers’ unions to heel.

    • IJB

      The fact is, I don’t get the impression that Arnie was going to sign off on tax increases this time regardless.

      What, however, is true is that if there were just half-a-dozen *fewer* Republicans in CA’s Legislature, the CA Dems could have raised taxes regardless of what Arnie wanted.

      I hope CA votes have gotten that message, and add to Republican numbers in the CA Legislature in the 2010 election. But I fear CA voters still *haven’t* gotten that message, and 2010 may well be the year the Dems cross over the 2/3 Legislature number, and then it won’t even matter if CA elects a Republican governor like Meg Whitman… :(

      • Cheryl

        giving credit to Arnold vs. the Republicans in CA’s congress. It appears so far they’re giving him the victory and they certainly deserve a large share of the credit. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve wondered why I gave my vote to Arnold and not Tom McClintock.

        I too hope CA will see the light, unfortunately I don’t see it happening either. The time is sure ripe of a CA revolution.

        • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

          Last time he preemptively capitulated on taxes.

          This time he supported our legislative leaders and held the line.

          That’s all we needed from him, and this time he seems to be coming through.

          Plus on top of that he’ll be able to line item veto later.

          • The_Gadfly

            I have to agree with Cheryl, his previous and unnecessary capitulation on the issue of raising taxes has to come with some penalty. After reading some of the details, I agree it is better than I expected and Arnold gets some credit for that. But I still think he did it mostly because the people of California and the Republicans in the California Congress backed him into a corner where he had no choice but to fight.

          • Achance

            Governor Swartznegger’s initiative attempt against the CA unions was one of the bravest moves a state-level political leader has ever attempted. It ranks right up there with President Reagan firing PATCO. And when he did it, he looked around and he didn’t have a friend in the World including all those “brave” Republicans who’d been egging him on to take on the unions. He was abandoned and had his head handed to him. Since then, I don’t much blame him for not being very agressive against the Democrats and the unions; why fight alone? So, now some people have bucked up, we’ll see how long it lasts when the unions actually do strike and Comrade Obama and the Democrats and unions Nationwide unleash Hell on Swartznegger and Republicans. I’d hate to know my job depended on their sticking with me – I’ve been there when you suddenly found yourself alone.

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            I think you have to evaluate every budget on its own merits.

            Evaluate his entire term in office however you like, but this was as good a budget deal as we were going to get.

          • Cheryl

            thanks

  • Thomas_Hauber

    The devil is in the details. I am waiting to see if this is truly reform or if this budget is just full of gimmicks and one-time events.

    • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

      But look, you can’t gimmick away a tax hike. If we’re not raising taxes, we’re off to a good start. Spending *is* coming down to less unrealistic levels.

    • The_Gadfly

      According to The Washington Times There are some significant wins. A number of budget lines have been straight out reduced (amounts in Billions):

      4 City and County transfer payments
      6 K-12 Educational funding
      3 Sate University funding
      1.2 State prison system
      1.3 Medi-Cal (California’s medicare program)

      Granted, it’s not even 50% of the current budget shortfall, but it is more than the usual 1-3% government critters call “painful.”

      Probably the biggest wins are:

      Under that plan, drilling would be allowed from an existing rig off the Santa Barbara coast, generating about $1.8 billion in revenue over time. The proposal, opposed by many conservation groups, would be the state’s first new offshore oil project in more than 40 years.

      and

      The governor will get authority to sell some state assets, such as the Orange County Fairgrounds and state office buildings.

      There are also changes to welfare eligibility duration, but the article doesn’t specify the exact nature of those changes.

      The problems I see are:

      * all the services which were cut, are the ones most people in the state will feel the hardest. It looks to me like the programs that would least impact the taxpayers have been pretty much left alone.

      * some of what has been cut is essentially making it somebody else’s problem instead of the state in the case of the transfer payment cuts.

      * Art may have a good observation in his comment above about pointy headed Judges.

      • Achance

        Say, five years of appeals all the way to the USSC. Even if you win at the USSC, the Environazis will just sue on other grounds and you get to go to the USSC all over again, and again, and again, World without end.

        We and Couer just took them all the way to the USSC over the Kensington gold mine near Juneau. We won and the courts ordered the Corps to re-instate the permit and allow work. The Environazis called in a chit with Comrade Obama, probably through that scumbag former AK Senator Kim Elton of Palin infamy, and now the EPA has stepped in to stop it and its another several year grind through the courts as you lose in district and circuit court but win at the USSC. Companies lose interest in projects over stuff like this. I know I’d be very reticent to spend my money in a state with as unstable a government as CA has.

        • The_Gadfly

          ‘think of the children’ meme, even in CA. But I see your point. Still somewhere along the line if the judges don’t stop overruling the people, the people will change what judges are allowed to do. And even judges aren’t so insulated they are unaware of that. They might not ever be willing to go on record as having permitted popular opinion sway their legal decision, but occasionally it does.

          • Achance

            or nothing to gain with Republicans, they don’t have to care what “the people” think. Just look at the Bush Administration, left hardly a mark on the federal judiciary except the two SC appointments that didn’t actually change the makeup of the court. The Democrats can stop the Republicans from putting honest to God conservative judges in office, not that there really are a lot of conservative law school graduates, and if you’ve ever breathed a conservative breath, they can stop you from ever getting appointed. We also foolishly often let far left Democrat Senators dictate Republican appointments to the federal district courts and the appeals courts that are in or effect their states. If we’re appointing, it’s because we won, why should we care what a Democrat thinks?

            Anyway, until Republcans get over being Rotary Club nice and actually learn to use the power of government, judges will be liberal and be so with impunity.

  • DavidSage

    I definitely think we need to give credit where credit is due, and holding the line not raising taxes when you have the biggest budget shortfall in history takes a lot of guts. I know a lot of “conservative” Republicans that would have folded.

    I actually had high hopes for Arnold when he first ran for Governor, and he does deserve a lo of credit early on, but he got his head handed to him when he found out that California was still a very liberal state. Ever since then, he’s mainly been a disappointment.

    I do think it’s important to note that it is worthwhile to have Republicans in blue states, even if they’re not social conservatives. Does anyone doubt for a minute that if there was currently a Democrat Governor in California taxes wouldn’t have been raised and these spending cuts would not be nearly as deep?

  • http://cannedjam.com cannedjam

    because of this California will be in the best shape out of any state in a few years. The power of tightening the belt is tremendous. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take the collapse of the federal government for Washington to figure this out.

  • mustango

    That’s a bit of an overbid, as we say at the bridge table. There are plenty of states (like, oh, say, ALASKA) that CA just isn’t ever going to surpass in terms of financial stability. Not that it necessarily needs to.

    Aside: Was wracking my brain for a Conan O’Brien joke about lamentations before I finally Googled it — d’oh!

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    But if this is a trend, we should be on our way up from being the next Michigan.

  • tankertodd

    Ahnold won the argument – not sure how great that is given that his back was to the wall. When your state starts printing frikkin’ IOUs, I don’t know how you can back down any more. That’s the equivalent of Israelis fighting with the ocean at their back – I don’t know if I really admire stepping up when your feet are wet – what choice do you have?

    California enjoyed a big run-up in spending in recent years, so does this budget deal bring them back down to a normal level of spending, or does it being them down to a lower-than-normal level of spending? One would assume that the former eliminates the immediate problem, but if you’re mired in debt, you really need the latter. If they can get to the latter I would say the battle is won and perhaps someday I can move back to my home state!

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Not raising taxes is a big win when the Democrats really, really want to raise taxes instead of cutting spending.

    He could have done what he did last time, and open the bidding with a tax hike. He didn’t.

    I’ll take it, even if it is partially a shell game. Better a shell game without a tax hike, than a shell game with one, which is what he wanted with the last budget slate.

  • The_Gadfly

    California taxes are now back to 2005 levels. So a win, but think: Churchill’s speech about it not being the end, or even the end of the beginning, but a the start of a long hard fight.

  • $peciallist

    ‘tighten’ up the border…enforce existing laws

    otherwise the pain will continue…

  • http://cannedjam.com cannedjam

    I admit I got a bit carried away with that comment, but I was just so happy that a government in the Obama era chose cuts in spending over taxes.

  • bk

    You’d think a major proponent in these budget discussions would be “gee, if we could reduce the $X billion we spend on illegal alien health care and the $X billion we spend on illegal alien education and the $X billion we spend on illegal alien welfare and the….” As long as they are willing to give carte blanche to anyone who comes across the border, they will never solve their budget problems.