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Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Meg (Whitman)

March 6, 2012 by B. Daniel Blatt

California slipping toward bankruptcy, again:

California is going broke. Again. The state controller has estimated that the state will run out of money sometime this month. California will need to find $3 billion in cuts or revenues to keep the state in the black through the rest of this fiscal year.

And next year looks even worse. California’s Legislative Analyst Office projects that, even with billions in one-time revenues from Facebook’s impending IPO, Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget will run a $6.5 billion deficit.

Must be George W. Bush’s fault.

RELATED: Victor Davis Hanson, In California, Whom Will They Blame?

Filed Under: 2010 Elections, Big Government Follies, California politics

Comments

  1. Cinesnatch says

    March 6, 2012 at 4:03 pm - March 6, 2012

    Thanks Arnie for getting the ball rolling.

  2. North Dallas Thirty says

    March 6, 2012 at 4:13 pm - March 6, 2012

    And here we see this applied to finances.

    The unspoken assumption – and Ann Althouse helped me see this – is that there is some sort of consistent principle which the left applies. There isn’t. Other than the Goal. Everything else is ad hoc and contingent. Yesterday we have no problem with intemperate language – against conservatives. Today we are outraged by intemperate language – against leftists. Yesterday we offer an apology and that should be the end of it. Today we demand an apology and when you offer it it’s not good enough. Yesterday we’re outraged you didn’t include our pet activist in your hearing. Today she’s the only one speaking at our press conference.

    The left is simply grabbing whatever rhetorical and emotional weapon is available for attacking anyone who would stand in the way of their agenda. So to say “only liberal apologies are accepted”, while maybe true, is to assume there’s some sort of consistent principle here. There isn’t. I think this whole episode has demonstrated that quite well.

    Comment by Rick67 — March 5, 2012 @ 7:02 pm – March 5, 2012

    To be criticized by you as fiscally imprudent or wasteful, Cinesnatch, is meaningless. It doesn’t have anything to do with fiscal policies or government spending; it only means that Republicans are standing in your way and you want them shut up.

    People recognize that. As Rick67 brilliantly put it, you are operating off no objective principle, no reciprocal rule of civility, or anything fixed and unchanging; you are simply making it up as you go, creating ad hoc standards one day that you discard the next.

    Why? Power. You want other people shut up, and you want other ideas and perspectives silenced. You want no challenge to your pronouncements, and you want nothing that would ever indicate that your understanding was incorrect or that the actions of your Obama Party were wrong.

  3. My Sharia Moor says

    March 6, 2012 at 4:57 pm - March 6, 2012

    Thanks Arnie for getting the ball rolling.

    Comment by Cinesnatch — March 6, 2012

    According to snatch, California was in tip[top shape until Arnold.

    My God, these people are so far behind stupid, I find myself almost in agreement with their eugenics fantasies.

  4. Sonicfrog says

    March 6, 2012 at 5:26 pm - March 6, 2012

    Yes, Arnie was the wrong guy for the job. He was a horrible Governor. And then Brown rescinded the deal Arnie made with the Prison Guard union that would have saved the state billions.

    That said, at least Brown is trying. One day he’ll do something I agree with, then the next he’ll turn right around and do two retarded things, but at least, unlike Arnold, he’s making a genuine effort.

  5. V the K says

    March 6, 2012 at 5:40 pm - March 6, 2012

    Yes, Ahnuld Schwarzenrino… one of those enlightened ‘socially liberal, fiscally conservative ‘ Republicans we are always told will be the savior of the Republican Party. A guy who embraced compromise to the extent that he increased state spending 60% on his watch and signed on to all of the horrendous environmental regulations the Democrats wanted, pushed universal health care and amnesty for illegal aliens.

    Yes, Arnold Schwarzenerino… a worthy role-model for all those who despise so con Republicans.

  6. ILoveCapitalism says

    March 6, 2012 at 7:11 pm - March 6, 2012

    Arnie was the wrong guy for the job

    No, actually. What happened was that:

    1) The people of CA elected him in 2003 to fix the Gray Davis mess. Which, indeed, Ahnuld started to do. Then:

    2) The people of CA changed their minds and decided they didn’t want him to fix too many things, after all. There was an election in 2005 where he put serious and important reform proposals on the ballot. They were legally necessary (the Governor could not legally do much more in terms of reform than Ahnuld had already done, without the changes). They were things Ahnuld had already talked about. The people of CA decided: Nah, we were just kidding. We weren’t serious. We don’t really want anything to change.

  7. ILoveCapitalism says

    March 6, 2012 at 7:18 pm - March 6, 2012

    (continued) Which made him basically a lame duck.

    Now, it is to his discredit that he stayed as a lame duck, and drifted left from then on. Arguably, he should have resigned after the 2005 election (i.e. refused to work further, under such conditions). So yeah, Ahnuld made his bed. But never forget the People’s huge, and I should say foolish, role. They elected a reformer, they had decent reform proposals in hand, and then for some reason, chucked it.

  8. V the K says

    March 6, 2012 at 7:26 pm - March 6, 2012

    Arnold just followed in the footsteps of other great Republican moderates: Charlie Crist, Arlen Specter, Mark Foley, Lincoln Chaffe, Michael Bloomberg…

  9. Sonicfrog says

    March 6, 2012 at 8:25 pm - March 6, 2012

    No, actually. What happened was that:

    1) The people of CA elected him in 2003 to fix the Gray Davis mess. Which, indeed, Ahnuld started to do. Then:

    2) The people of CA changed their minds and decided they didn’t want him to fix too many things, after all. There was an election in 2005 where he put serious and important reform proposals on the ballot.

    Boy, it’s amazing how you can craft the narrative when you leave important information out.

    Arnie and the Republicans offered four initiatives.

    * Prop 76 – Slow the growth of state spending.
    * Prop 77 – Redraw legislative / congressional districts

    Now, these first two make total sense for a guy who was elected on the issue of getting the states budget and government back in balance, which was why he was elected in the first place.

    But then he went and blew the whole thing by trying this:

    * Prop 74 – Increase time it takes to acquire tenure for teachers
    * Prop 73 – Restrict political spending by public unions.

    WTF???? Those have nothing to do with immediately balancing the budget! He did these two to mollify his Conservative handlers. And both did nothing but turn union support against him. Without those two, the first two measures may very well have passed. But the addition of the two very anti-union initiatives in a very union state woke up a sleeping giant. They spent more money to defeat all these propositions and embarrass Arnie than they ever had in any election in the states history.

    And it worked. Depending on who you talk to, Arnie either became neutered and rolled over after this defeat, or the defeat gave him cover to revert to his actual political beliefs, thus dooming California to be in the position where it is now.

    The sad thing is, if Arnie would have stuck to the first two propositions and not soooooooo pissed off the unions and got them into vote or die overdrive, he might have been able to get the more important propositions passed.

    It wasn’t that the people “change their minds”, it was that he managed to anger the exact group of people who had the power to totally utterly defeat him, and for no good reason.

  10. JimG says

    March 6, 2012 at 11:13 pm - March 6, 2012

    ILC in #6 is spot on. I remember that election in 2005 and I was one of the very few people who voted for his measures. They were all defeated and the state continued on its downward spiral.

    And it is amazing how people will lay the state of the state at his feet, as if the governor is a King! They conveniently forget that the state has had a democratic legislature for most of my lifetime at least!

    He was always frustrated because the people would cry for reform, but every time it came down to “who had to give up some of their funding” he met the old brick wall. I live in Sonoma County and it is a sad thing to see such a wonderful state going down the tubes.

  11. DaveO says

    March 6, 2012 at 11:13 pm - March 6, 2012

    Let California be California !!! The rest of America is reaping the benefits of California’s anti-business, anti-people policies.

  12. John R says

    March 7, 2012 at 12:43 am - March 7, 2012

    Yes, ILC, you are exactly right. This is a one party State. And almost all the state reps are Democrats. Arnold could not get anything done even though they voted for him to “clean up Davis’s mess”. The county that I live in a dog catcher running as a republican could not get elected but they voted for Arnold.

  13. ILoveCapitalism says

    March 7, 2012 at 2:25 am - March 7, 2012

    Thanks guys!

    And don’t worry, I don’t mind any comments from jackasses who think they’re scoring some sort of hit on me, but in reality, only post further information in support of what I had to say.

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