When Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the Democratic budget solution last week he gave a lump of coal to every Californian. His veto places the state in danger of bankruptcy as Arnold demands spending cuts and rollbacks of laws protecting workers and the environment. Arnold has become California’s own Ebenezer Scrooge.
Guest appearances by the Gipper speaking of raising taxes. Maria Shriver Morgan Freeman, and GW Bush also weigh in. Enjoy!
Governor Schwarzenegger,
We, the undersigned, wish you Happy Holidays. We also wish that you would stop playing the role of California’s Scrooge. When you vetoed the Democrats’ budget you put the state at risk of bankruptcy and ruined the holidays of millions of Californians who depend on schools, health care, and other public services.
The original Scrooge eventually embraced the holiday spirit of giving and mended his miserly ways. Won’t you do the same by signing a budget that provides adequate funding for our state services, a budget that averts economic catastrophe instead of creating one?
Sincerely,
The undersigned
If you wish to sign the California Carol Card, it is available.
The habit of negotiating the budget and putting things in or out in order to get votes for it is ridiculous. Figure out what we need to run the current programs properly each month and shut down the government when the tax money runs out. No police, fire, education, building permits and inspections for two or four or six months of the year. Lets see how that works.
Anonyms,
I agree with you a lot and we agree on this issue as well. I think that one of the laziest budget solutions I have ever heard of is when they “cut 20% ACROSS THE BOARD!” Like all programs are equally essential.
I liked the video. It summed up some of the positions quite well and I think that this California recession is going to take a lot more work than Arnie wants to do. Obama promised stuff to state govenors who are in deep financial crisis, too, so we’ll have to see what can be done.
I’m thinking that my strategy of voting for the incumbents if my life is better and voting against the incumbents if my life is worse might still be the strategy to pursue in California. None of these state reps has done anything to comprehensively address this problem in the five years the Terminator has been in office except to blame the state’s employees for the problem.
Well it looks to me like the electeds are the problem and if they don’t figure it out then we throw the bums out, que no?
Red, if I agree that not all programs are equally essential lets agree that all programs have been cut to the minimum where many are becoming ineffectual and unable to carry on their stated purpose with the funding they currently have after the most recent cuts. So lets cut those completely instead of pretending that the program is still there on skeleton crew staffing.
Lets cut out all the tax breaks and loopholes, lets stop giving away money to poor mothers of infant children, lets let everybody out of prison and jail. Lets show the electorate in California what we can buy with their current level of taxation. The first thing to be done is to pass the budget to balance with the expected income and stop paying all of the expenses that go into running the State Legislature and all the State Offices for the rest of the fiscal year.