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"No more Mr. Nice Guy - please! Gov. Schwarzenegger must stand firm on budget. It's why we elected him.

By JON COUPAL
President, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

Did you ever see an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie where he was hesitant to use whatever weapon was in arm's reach? Neither have I. Gov. Schwarzenegger - locked in the annual dance of the state budget - has two huge weapons at his disposal which he is not using: his mandate from the voters in last year's recall election and a positive rating from California voters that is over 70 percent. Combined, these weapons represent extraordinary political capital. He needs to start spending that capital to force a spending plan reflective of his administration's proposed budget in January - a budget that relied on less borrowing and more cuts. Instead, the governor is giving ground - some say retreating - while his rapid-fire machine gun is still full of ammo. This is especially true regarding his negotiations with public employee unions. It was reported that union members actually cheered last month when they learned the details of governor's deal with union leaders. Defenders of the governor's newly found "kinder and gentler" negotiation style might argue that the budget process is far more complex than the plot line of an action flick. After all, instead of good guys and bad guys, aren't there simply competing interests at the table, all of which are equally legitimate? In a word, no. From a strictly personal perspective, Schwarzenegger should give the unions no quarter. These are the people who fought tooth and nail against both the recall election and his candidacy. They pulled all the stops - money and manpower - in a failed effort to put Cruz Bustamante in the governor's office Nor should the unions be given special treatment from a policy perspective. These are the folks who have demanded - without compromise - that milk testers and billboard inspectors are "public safety" workers entitled to the richest of pensions. They have openly and willfully harmed school children by refusing to permit local school districts to contract for lawn work or transportation services, which would save scarce educational dollars. As in action movies, the budget battle has some fairly well-defined good guys and bad guys. The good guys here are ordinary Californians who pay more in taxes than they take from government. The good guys elected Schwarzenegger. They sang along to his theme song, "We're Not Going to Take It Anymore!" They loved his no-tax pledge. They abhorred "business as usual" in Sacramento. To be crude, they sent Arnold to Sacramento to kick some butt, not get along with the bad guys. The fact that budget negotiations have stalled may actually be a good thing. It might give the governor an opportunity to disengage and check his weaponry. If he goes to war with his adversaries, is there a risk that he will he lose some political capital? Sure. The "net tax receivers," ably represented by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and ultraliberal Senate leader John Burton, will claim he's become just another heartless Republican. But the governor's short - and truthful - answer to such criticism should be, "I was elected governor to follow through on one simple concept: Don't spend more money than you have." That needs to be repeated often and should end the debate, at least as far as voters are concerned. Schwarzenegger also needs to keep something else in mind: Taxpayers care a whole lot less about government slowing down because of a budget stalemate. To most of the voters who elected Arnold, government represents primarily that entity which takes money out of their paychecks. It is for that reason that he should never have made such a big deal about an "on time" budget. But now that that issue is moot, it may work to his advantage. In a gathering during Schwarzenegger's inaugural, former Gov. Pete Wilson urged him to "use his political capital" when needed. If his mentor's advice isn't enough, Arnold ought to consider the example of another former California governor. Shortly after being elected president, Ronald Reagan was confronted with an illegal strike by the nation's air-traffic controllers union. He fired them all."

No more Mr. Nice Guy - please! Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack