How far will Arnold be tacking left?

[A18]

How far will Arnold be tacking left?
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/opinion/abox/article_930872.php
Editorial: His speech tonight should reveal plans for even more schools spending.

For his State of the State address this evening, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger no doubt will signal, through his proposals, just how far to the left he will move this year as he negotiates with a Democrat-controlled Legislature.

We would hope he would stand on principle consistently, but we have already seen movement to the left.

Among the indications in recent days from the governor and his staff: He will favor a boost of California's minimum wage by $1 an hour and favor prescription drug reimportation. Tonight we'll likely see more left turns, in particular, on education.

His staff Tuesday released plans to partly meet the demands of the teachers unions that he repay the $2 billion he supposedly "borrowed" from schools in 2004 to help with the budget crisis. The governor promised he would repay the money when the budget crisis subsided - which it has somewhat, although the state still runs a chronic $4 billion yearly structural deficit.

Of course, the money wasn't really "borrowed"; the governor just refused to raise taxes, borrow more or cut other programs to pay for the extra school spending.

In 2005, the governor signed off on $3 billion in normal increases to school spending - but the teachers' unions demanded that he add an additional $2 billion to restore the "borrowed" funds. He balked because the budget was still precarious, thereby creating bad blood that led to the teachers strongly opposing his November reform plank.

The new plans call for increasing education spending by 8.7 percent, to $54.3 billion of the general fund for fiscal 2006-07, which begins July 1. It "would be the highest percentage increase in seven years," reported the Jan. 4 Register. "It also for the first time would repay some of the money owed to schools under a 2004 deal." (Total funding, including federal and local funds, would be $66 billion.)

The $54.3 billion "exceeds the minimum funding mandated by Proposition 98," the Register reported. And the governor's proposal would restore $1.7 billion of the money "borrowed" in 2004. However, the accumulated amount over the two years of not paying the "borrowed" money now is $3.7 billion, according to the Department of Finance.

In a conference call yesterday with editorial writers, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, D-Los Angeles, pegged the cumulative figure even higher now, at $5.4 billion. We asked him if he would ask this year for more than the $1.7 billion the governor will propose to restore the "borrowed" funds.

He replied that the $1.7 billion is enough for the 2006-07 budget, with "the remainder to be paid in the out years. It's something we can work out." He lamented that Republicans in the Legislature remain resistant to taxes on the wealthy that could pay for more of that $5.4 billion total.

"I've seen the governor grow politically" in recent weeks, Mr. Nuñez said of the governor's shifts on the issues. But we hope the governor realizes that the teachers unions and their allies in the Legislature will never be satisfied, even with a whopping 8.7 percent boost. When his left turns end, the governor still is going to have to fight.

[Citizen James]

In reality, or in image?

I think he learned all too well in the special election that he cannot rely on the hard right to win elections.  So he is likely to seek a more moderate image and hope people have short memories.  He will probably treat the return of school funding (as required by law) as a generous  gift to the schools, while finding various accounting tricks (as had been commonplace with his predessesor) to remark various monies for other purposes while marking them as "educational".

Unfortuantely, the big reason for the budget crisis remains unabated - the state was extorted into paying exhorbitant rates for energy because of market manipulation by enron and similar anti-ethical orginizations who gamed the market to create artificial shortages driving up rates.  As soon as the extortion was payed, the rolling blackouts stopped.  Of course, the criminals behind this are all but bulletproof as they have a free "get out of jail free card" by the name of George.

I think some of the people who voted for Arnold hoped that his empty promises to convince the various energy companies to roll back their rates because of some misguided belief in honor amongst republicans.

The minimum wage increase idea is interesting, as it may de-facto raise tax revenues slightly.  Generally, most minimum wage earners don't make nearly enough to pay much state income tax (which I have always found to be trivial compared to federal tax, and even withholding - even when I was making 50k a year), it might either lead to; 1) more demand for various products as higher pay leads to higher spending which leads to higher sales tax revenue, 2) lead to inflation to pay the increase in the few workers at or near minimum wage increasing the amount of tax revenue (or both or neither - depending on what economic theory you subscribe to)

I doubt he will do much about the two major real problems with the state budget - the extortion paid to the fuel companies (for which I seem to recall him dismissing the relevent lawsuits as a favor to his political buddies), or finding a solution to the workers comp problem (which would probably require a moderately conservative approach, an image he is currently looking to avoid).

[The Duke]

Unfortuantely, the big reason for the budget crisis remains unabated - the state was extorted into paying exhorbitant rates for energy because of market manipulation by enron and similar anti-ethical orginizations who gamed the market to create artificial shortages driving up rates.  As soon as the extortion was payed, the rolling blackouts stopped.  Of course, the criminals behind this are all but bulletproof as they have a free "get out of jail free card" by the name of George.

This is pure fantasyland nonsense.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Beats me, but everyone with a brain knows he'll move back to the right the day after election day. Hopefully he has already burned his credibility with enough people that his desperation won't save his ass from going down in flames.

[MODU]

This sounds similiar to many executive-level wish lists I've heard over the years.  Maybe 10% of his proposals will actually ever make it to a vote and passed.