(10:30AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
Leadership is stated as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task.”
What makes leadership is the ability to get people to do what they don’t want to do and like it. ~ Harry Truman
Apparently those inspirational words have been lost on California’s Governor. Swept into office on a wave of Republican propaganda and manufactured resentment of the status quo our current debacle sitting in the Capitol has managed to blame everyone else for his shortcomings.
“If I don’t get all of the things that we need in order to be fiscally responsible … I will not sign a budget and it could actually drag out until the next governor gets into office,” Schwarzenegger told reporters after meeting with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
In 2003 the current economic girlyman was elected and one of his first orders of business was to slash the vehicle license fees. Costing the state $5 billion annually to bail out local governments counting on those fees. Only to raise them in last years budget.
Next on the docket was to take the debt Gray Davis acquired and borrow on it.
Second, the new governor used his star power to persuade the Legislature and the voters to borrow $15 billion to pay not only for inherited debt, but the initial car tax cut and other daily expenses. The state still is paying off those bonds and the money’s long gone. The annual cost: $1.2 billion.
In 2008 the Governor signed off on a budget that was ready made to fail. Instead of addressing real causes with real solutions Schwarzenegger moved boxes around.
Last year the Governor begged, borrowed and stole from everywhere in order to patch together a budget. Recall that in May Gov. Schwarzenegger chose to draw a line in the sand… his target? California’s children and poor.
Among the options Schwarzenegger presented is eliminating CalWORKS, the state’s welfare-to-work program that serves about 1.4 million poor people, most of them children, with monthly grants, job training and child care to enable parents to become self-supporting. He reneged on cutting Healthy Families, which provides health care to nearly 700,000 children from low-income families.
All the while he postures how difficult decisions have to be made to preserve California, he never bothers to mention it has been his choices that have created much havoc on the budget. His tough choices have been to preserve the $2.1 Billion in corporate tax cuts from last year, the number of tax loopholes enacted in previous years.
He stands by the Republican mantra of creating a business friendly state while unemployment in California is one of the highest in the nation. No jobs are being created, and data doesn’t support that line of bs, but the rich keep getting richer.
I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Stomping your feet and holding your breath until you get your way is the definition of failure. At every turn Schwarzenegger has blamed others for his failures. California deserves better than a washed up body builder with delusions of preserving his legacy.
Update: According to the SacBee Governor Schwarzenegger, is determined to exact his pound of flesh on just certain State employees.
Like the policy that ended June 30, the governor’s new executive order requires employees take three unpaid days off per month. But unlike that policy, it has no termination date: Furloughs will end when lawmakers pass a 2010-11 budget. That could be weeks or months after the Legislature reconvenes on Monday.
If you read above that unless California’s steroid juiced Governor gets his way:
“If I don’t get all of the things that we need in order to be fiscally responsible … I will not sign a budget and it could actually drag out until the next governor gets into office,”
However unlike last time Gov. Schwarzy is now playing favorites.
The order exempts the following departments:
California Highway Patrol
California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection (CalFIRE)
Franchise Tax Board
Board of Equalization
Employment Development Department
State Compensation Insurance Fund
California Housing Finance Authority
California Earthquake AuthorityIt also excludes Bargaining Units 12, 16, 18 and 19, which along with unions representing CHP officers and state firefighters
At this point it is almost easier to count who is being furloughed vs. who is exempt.
8 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
Governator needs to supplement his retirement. Good riddance!
…. these 2 businesswomen are really experts in how to run a business and personally profit from it enough, that one can then take the golden parachute to buy a governorship or senate seat.
facepalm.
head desk.
I can see exempting police and firefighters; any savings they’d get from furloughs in those departments would be outweighed by the damage furloughs would do to public safety.
But really… why is the State Compensation Insurance Fund exempt? The Franchise Tax Board? California Housing Finance Authority? Sheesh!
Thanks Ahnold!
Many of these disabled people work and pay taxes. But their disqabilities make it impossible for some to do things like dress themselves. Without “In Home Support Sevices”, these people would have to be put in nursing homes, unable to work.
And putting them in nursing homes would Cost 6 Xs what is paid for IHSS.
If California voters are foolish enough to elect e-meg Whitman, she’ll make Arnold look almost like FDR by comparison.