Yesterday I blogged in response to the Governor’s throwing rocks at Republican legislators over their resolute stand against rewarding the chronic overspending with tax increases. The Governor’s office responded here. I figured that I should, in turn, respond to the Governor… So read on…
Numbers can be manipulated all you want to make the Governor seem like he is a fiscal champion, but the fact remains that spending has increased by over 30 percent under Schwarzenegger, from $78.6 billion when the Governor took office to $103.3 billion today. (See the Legislative Analyst’s Historical Expenditure Chart here.)
We know that California simply cannot maintain that level of spending without causing serious damage to the state’s fiscal health and our economy, and setting up a never-ending drive for higher taxes on the part of Democrats.
Despite the chart and accompanying rhetoric that was sent over, the fact remains that the Governor has done very little in recent years to get state spending under control.
The Governor, unfortunately, is actually part of the problem when he continues to contribute to making our spending problem much worse by passing AB 32 that will lead to a massive increase in state spending, and proposing government-run health care plans that will bankrupt the state and our taxpayers.
Worse, he actually is making higher taxes inevitable when he criticizes Republicans for fighting for the very principles he should be advocating as well – cutting wasteful spending, government accountability, reforms to grow our economy and fix a broken budget system. He should be joining with Republicans in demanding these things, not criticizing them.
He should be joining Republicans in demanding that we immediately implement all of the recommendations of the California Performance Review that his very administration produced, to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in state spending.
He should be joining Republicans in demanding that we find budget savings in fast-growing areas of the budget like health and welfare programs, which grew 6 percent last year despite the deficit.
He should be joining Republicans in demanding that we suspend costly new programs we can’t afford, and find responsible savings in every area of the budget. We need real cuts, not just cuts in the rate of growth.
And, yes, I will concede the point that the Governor has said many times before that he is philosophically opposed to tax increases. But as we know from this Governor, actions speak louder than words.
So, if the Governor is opposed to tax increases, then why is he proposing them?
If he believes, as Republicans do, that tax increases will have a negative impact on jobs and the economy, then why is he teaming up with Democrats to focus budget negotiations not on spending, but on what taxes to raise and by how much?
More importantly, why isn’t he putting the same heat on Democrats that you are on Republicans when it comes to economic growth and job creation? Democrats refuse to even consider any of the ideas that the Governor or Legislative Republicans have proposed to lower business costs and encourage job creation. If, as he says, this is an important priority to include in budget negotiations, they why isn’t ge insisting that Democrats join him in supporting an economic recovery plan as a condition of his support for a special session budget plan?
The Governor must remember . . . Democrats are the problem here, not the Republicans.
Democrats are the problem when they refuse to even consider spending cuts unless the Republicans agree to billions in higher taxes that would be a disaster for our state and our budget.
Democrats are the problem when leaders like Speaker Bass talk about their ideal solution as being half tax increases and half federal bailout from Washington.
Democrats are the problem when they refuse to even talk about a strict spending limit that the Governor has long championed to help government live within its means.
It is their overspending and their reckless priorities that caused our budget problems in the first place and they should be called to account.
The Governor should be focusing his efforts and his attention on that, and making it clear every time he talks about the budget that the overspending of the liberals in charge of the legislature have created this mess. He should not be attacking Republicans for opposing new taxes.
December 11th, 2008 at 12:00 am
The Governor now claims he “never signed an anti-tax pledge.” He did however say in many many speeches that he would never raise taxes. So I guess that in Governor’s mind only things he signs his name to are important and what he says doesn’t count? From now on perhaps the Governor should only issue signed statements and stop talking because whatever comes out of his mouth we can assume is a lie!