From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…
Tom Brokaw and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger are old friends, having met 30 years ago when Mr. Brokaw was NBC’s correspondent in Los Angeles. But that didn’t spare Arnold from tough questioning in the mold of the late Tim Russert when Mr. Brokaw interviewed him for "Meet the Press" yesterday.
Mr. Brokaw began by asking just how much had really changed in California. "When you ran for governor in 2003, you ran as a fiscal conservative who would change the system, who would bring business-like techniques," the host said. "Now, you are facing a $15-billion deficit here in California. Unemployment is running at about 6.8%; you’ve got the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. If you were the CEO of a public company, the board would probably say, ‘It is time to go.’"
Mr. Schwarzenegger joked: "Are you always this positive?" He then launched into a defense of some of his spending — especially on infrastructure — and said economic conditions were sour everywhere: "People are struggling, and I think we see that all over the world."
But Mr. Brokaw wasn’t done. "Before you came in, governor, you said the spending was out of control. Your rate of increase in spending is about the same as your predecessor, Gov. Gray Davis. It has grown at about 34% since you took office."
A startled governor, who rode into office during the 2003 recall campaign excoriating the spending record of Democrat Davis, insisted: "The numbers are misleading. We have paid off a lot of debt. . . . I am very proud that we paid off a lot of debt and that we got the economy going again."
In truth, California’s state government has taken on billions in new debt to pay for infrastructure projects. It also faces massive new obligations. Just last month, a federal court-appointed prison medical czar ordered the state to pay an additional $7 billion to build new facilities for inmates.
California’s tough times have led to a slide in Mr. Schwarzenegger’s approval ratings to about 40%, a fact the NBC host dryly noted by saying: "It is tough to govern under those circumstances."
But the governor was unfazed. "Not at all. I’m having a great time."
No one doubts that. Arnold has the role of a lifetime. But Californians aren’t having a great time. The millions of Californians who voted for the Terminator five years ago in part because of his pledge to "blow up the boxes" of state government are wondering why their state is once again in the same fiscal fix as in 2003.
— John Fund