Arnold Schwarzenegger: Sticking It to "America's Best"
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is accomplishing right now what he failed to do in 2005 when he tried to put the state's major labor unions out of business and downsize the state government. At that time there was no economic catastrophe to point to as an excuse to shred the social safety net. But today, thanks to an economic crisis his good friend George W. Bush gave us, he's launching a frontal assault against virtually all of the state's public sector institutions. California Republicans have always hated social programs they believed mirrored Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and they've tried in good times and in bad to dismantle them. Now they're seizing the current crisis to enact their wildest free-market fantasies.
"No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background," Schwarzenegger told an adoring crowd at the 2004 Republican National Convention, "America brings out the best in people. And as governor of the great state of California, I see the best in Americans every day -- our police, our firefighters, our nurses, doctors, and teachers, our parents."
And now he's proudly sticking it to those same people he praised so fulsomely five years ago when it was politically expedient for him to do so.
History is always full of surprises. In the 1930s, this nation responded to a similar economic collapse with sweeping New Deal reforms that created for the first time at the federal level a social safety net to provide security and relief to the most vulnerable Americans. Today, in California at least, Schwarzenegger and his right-wing Republican allies are "responding" to the current economic collapse by dismantling those same kind of institutions that are designed to provide minimal security for the most vulnerable Californians, even including (since Saturday anyway) the state's pension plan. If Schwarzenegger can shrink the state government by about 15 or 20 percent and eliminate Democratic programs -- no matter the terrible social consequences of rising crime, homelessness, illness and despair -- he'll be a hero among the right-wing corporate elites he serves so well. And that's all he seems to care about: His next elective office?
Hopefully, what we're seeing today in California is the last-gasp of the Bush era -- something akin to those dark days in the summer of 1932 when General Douglas MacArthur's troops tear-gassed and clubbed desperately poor WWI veterans who had marched to Washington to demand their service bonuses. Or perhaps (less hopefully) this sadistic assault on California's public sector is a new blueprint for dealing with economic crises. The captains of industry are using their political tools like Schwarzenegger to inflict pain on an already hurting population through rolling back public institutions that might have softened the blow for millions of people during this wholly avoidable, yet prolonged economic meltdown.
Newspapers are falling by the wayside and there's very little coverage of state government aside from some good reporting in the Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Times,and San Francisco Chronicle. Few Californians are paying attention to the kind of reckless brinkmanship Schwarzenegger and his Republican allies are playing in Sacramento. And this lack of attention doesn't mean what's happening is not going to change the social climate of the state. Normally, with divided government a legislature throws bills on to the executive's desk and sends the ball into the governor's court to veto them and take the political heat. But in California the two-thirds rule in the legislature means the Republican minority can kill any bill before it reaches the governor's desk thereby shielding the Terminator from being the focus of the voters' wrath.
Schwarzenegger can sit back and point fingers at the Democrats without suffering the political consequences that his authoritarian demands and cruel budget cuts would elicit if the public could see what he's doing. A strange sadism has surfaced as Schwarzenegger reaches the waning period of his first venture into politics. The sooner the state is rid of this man the better. The correctional officers' union last fall had the right idea when they launched a short-lived effort to recall Schwarzenegger. I wish the rest of the labor unions in the state had had enough sense to join them.
Schwarzenegger's budget cuts are going to be devastating to the city of Sacramento because there are over 80,000 state workers in this region. At a social gathering this past weekend I spoke to a California Highway Patrol officer who is worried about the local layoffs of sheriffs and police and how they are going to increase his work load. Another person I spoke with is a probation officer and he told me his work load is going up from about 105 cases to 180, and most of those are just going to be more paperwork without any real outreach because he has to spend the bulk of his time tracking sex offenders. I met two other people who are "furloughed" from their state jobs and since they're a couple their family has been hit with about a 25 percent cut in pay (and Arnold is threatening even more furlough days for state workers). It's a Republican wet dream in the Golden State and they're not even in the majority!
In Sacramento they had to close a local 110-bed facility, the Warren E. Thornton Youth Center, that helped juveniles stay out of the criminal justice system that had operated without a hitch for forty-one years, just to save a measly $8.9 million a year. Now the boys, age 13 to 16, and the girls 13 to 18, are being farmed out to juvenile halls and foster homes, which also have taken huge budget cuts.
Given the cut-backs on sheriffs and police officers, the economic depression, and the lack of social services for people falling through the cracks, California over the next eighteen months is going to begin to experience levels of poverty, crime, and homelessness the likes of which the state has not seen since the Great Depression. If Schwarzenegger gets his way -- and all indications are that he will -- kids are going to die due to a lack of adequate Child Protective Services staff, probation officers or going to lose track of their violent charges, people are going to be thrown off welfare and food stamps, and there's going to be an overload of new cases in an already strained prison system. It seems like Schwarzenegger is following George W. Bush's model during his last eighteen months in office: Make the biggest mess you can on the way out so your Democratic successors will be occupied for years cleaning it up instead of passing their agenda.
As this goes to print, Schwarzenegger and the Republicans in the legislature not only refuse to compromise one iota from their maximal demands but have added new demands as the hours tick away to IOU time. What Schwarzenegger means when he talks about a "full budget solution" is getting EVERYTHING he wants without compromise. Schwarzenegger and the Republicans have given the legislature a set of all-or-nothing demands. And then they throw out a few crumbs here and there to give the appearance that they're negotiating in "good faith." "Good faith" it is not.
A small minority of conservative ideologues is tying the legislature into knots with parliamentary tricks while the Republican governor demands a rubber stamp for his right-wing anti-government agenda. It's authoritarian and dangerous. They're not budging on a host of retrograde initiatives they've tried to pass in the past (but failed) to ram down our throats. These miserable proposals threaten to turn California into Mississippi. Their special targets are any institution that helps the poor, educates our children, or brings health care to the uninsured. Right now Schwarzenegger's style of governance seems as if he'd like nothing more than to dissolve the legislature and impose his "full budget solution" from a bunker in the high Sierras.
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See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
If the Republicans' free-market prescriptions for creating a prosperous and efficient society work so perfectly -- then why, after three decades of setting the agenda for our nation's economics, do we find ourselves in this predicament?
Maybe someone should ask Alan Greenspan or Grover Norquist or Arthur Laffer or Stephen Moore or Larry Kudlow or John Taylor or . . .
Or maybe we could summon the ghosts of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman and ask: "Annie, Uncle Miltie, you both said that individual greed would translate into collective prosperity. We tried the greed part. What gives?"
If this is in response to me, read my comment again. In no capacity did I say the Republicans' methodology was correct. I stated you were rude and arrogant toward anyone who disagreed with your assertations.
Thanks for proving my point. And your lame attempt at humor shows you aren't capable of actually debating a point, but content to ridicule.
Amen, Joseph.
Joe, how condescending of you to dismiss any dissenting opinion as "Republican talking points."
People here have pointed out their own personal experiences, not blindly parroting rhetoric based on as you seem convinced of in your delusional, narrow-minded conspiracy theories.
You have too thin of a skin. Be a grown up and encourage honest discussion rather than jumping like a feral jackal on anyone who doesn't agree with you.
Lame comments about unions casuing economic woes when unions represent about 18% of workers in the economy, and lame comments about illegal aliens get old and show a lack of thinking. These groups are traditional Republican scapegoats and have little to do with our economic woes. Who would do the jobs illegal aliens perform, anyway? Many of the fiscal problems of California lie in its inability to increase revenues because of Prop. 13 and not the traditional conservative bogeymen.
Yes unions are 18% of the population. Yet the Majority of the state spending goes to employees who work in unions (teachers, prison guards, state workers, health care workers being in the top). During the "good times" the dorks in Sac-town allowed contracts to be signed with unsustainable benefit packages to the union workers...
As for the illegals, they take way more in tax money than they contribute, they clog our hospitals causing some to shut down, and they increase our costs for medical and car insurance to cover the fact that they don't have any. As to that old tired argument "who will do the work if they weren’t here?" ....Who do you think did the jobs before the illegal alien invasion? It also harkens back to the questions the plantation owners in the South asked after slavery ended....
And don’t get me started on welfare recipients. The State has 12% of the US population and 30% of the welfare case load. We must adopt the federal welfare guidelines like every other state.
The only solution is to redo the union contracts, enforce the current laws on illegal aliens and fix the broken welfare system. It’s the only way to save the state. And taxes don't have to be raised.
The cost of homelessness to society must be very great. Tourists may longer decide to visit cities, some of which heavily depend on tourism like San Francisco. It may make the downtwown areas of cities almost unliveable, like the homeless encampment near downtown Los Angeles (although I have only seen reports on it in the media and not seen it personally), Homeless people visit emergency rooms for their medical care at a very great cost to society and may be in and out of jail even at no fault of their own, which also imposes high costs. Also, when the governor makes his cuts it may send many near homelessness into living without shelter. So there are enormous costs to the cuts Schwarenegger would like to make to the budget.
Europe has a fairly strong social safety net. With the recent severe recesion, European heads of state argued that did not have to do a great deal of deficit spending to revive their economies because they have a strong social safety net in place. Their citizens are more protected from the vagaries of the economy than ours. Professor Palermo is right! During times of hardship, state and the national government should be looking at ways to strengthen the social safety net and not dismantle it.
Mr. Palermo, he himself employed by the State of Calif, feeling a little insecure Sir? Watching every other industry layoff workers, downsize, cut beneifts. Starting to feel that your cushy position is at risk? Don't want to lose that retirement plan?
You certainly must have a lot of sympathy for the people of California when your only comment is to shoot the messenger ... really, you don't have anything else to whine about? ... pathetic
The messenger is trying to save his publicly paid butt. You cannot refute the fact that a big reason calif finds itself where it does today is its bloated bureaucracy and the fat benefits they receive.
This is the conservative plan: Bankrupt the government so Plutocracy can rule. The Bankers and the multinationals. The DLC "dems" are also conservatives, as, apparently is Obama.
So which is better: Democracy or plutocracy?
Democracy: the 51% leading the 49%, the worst form of government, except all the others.
Plutocracy the .1% ruling the 99.9%, with the iron corrupt fist of robber barons.
That's it. There are no other options.
Choose.
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Good point, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the one who said in 2004 that he just love "teachers" -- I didn't say it, he did. So I don't see why some of these comments are so anti-public worker, Arnold himself embraced them when it fulfilled his political needs -- even George W. Bush pranced around uttering sentences in Spanish and talking about leaving "no child behind." So what gives? We should as those commenting here in favor of Arnold, like the choice that research raises -- you want teachers and public infrastructure and a high quality of life or do you want to be ruled by a Plutocracy unresponsive to democratic demands?? Mississippi beckons!
As Olephart pointed out to me, the plan has always been to return us to the era when a working person was paid a dollar a day. Go back and look at what history in this country looked like before unions, social safety nets, and a thriving middle class. The bosses were tyrants, the police and army their enforcers and most Americans lived short, brutal lives of squalor and poverty.
Sounds like we'll be there again in short order.
Looks that way. the GOP, the DLC and Obama all seem to work for the bankers.
"A strange, Austrian sadism has surfaced as Schwarzenegger reaches the waning period of his first venture into politics."
I've attempted to object to this article on-site, as have a number of other people. It has received a generally negative review from the commentators -- but all the objections that list -- I'll be careful -- r.a.c.ism as a concern are removed from the comment section, and the article stays up.
This sentence is inserted into what is otherwise an argument against the financial choices made by the California governor. There is no other mention of the governor's place of birth, no explanation or excuse offered for using his heritage as an adjective to an attributed kink for receiving pleasure from dealing out pain.
This is r.a.c.ism, pure and simple. Please let HP know that, in these times, it is not something that you will accept. News reports of r.a.c.ism, the people involved and responsible for such things, are the responsibility of any legitimate news source. But in an opinion piece, blatent hatred of a naturalized citizen -- or a foreign national, for that matter -- based on his place of birth, is not acceptable. Please help make that clear to HP.
This article should be removed from the site, and the author advised as to the reason.
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Those poor Austrians have always suffered such indignities from racists -- I apologize -- I guess we'll be getting letters from the National Association for the Advancement of Austrian People (NAAAP). I meant nothing by it.
Since there isn't a plethora of remarks made in the US about Austrians, it is morally correct for you to outright state that an entire nation is guilty of sexual perversion -- and as such is embodied in a political figure. You meant nothing by it. Mr. Palermo, there isn't a southern lawman, with his boot on the neck of "one-a them" that can't offer the same excuses. And certainly, if someone with *authority* doesn't hold you to a civilized standard, and impose a consequence for r.a.c.ial baiting, then it doesn't merit an apology, or serious rethinking.
In California, the police force is ratcheting up violence against the gay community. It is doing so without fear of consequence from anyone in authority. By your standards, that makes their mindset and their actions 'mean nothing.'
You are wrong, in every possible way. And in citing, tongue-in-cheek, an organization that works endlessly to achieve parity, you prove that you understand perfectly what you are doing by promoting tension directed toward other r.a.ces.
I am a left wing Democrat. Have never once knowingly voted for an R.
I deserted California in 2004 after all of the hatred grew, from each side.
I was told I did not believe in god because I believe in science. I was told I did not support the troops and was unpatriotic because I was opposed to the war and did not believe that Ireaq was any threat to me or my country.
I decided to take the money from the housing bubble and move where, perhaps I could afford to live out my life.
I am now living in a county area in North Carolina. Taxes are low. Wages are low, social services are low, healthcare is ok for me, on Social Security but my wife pays dearly for insurance that is nearly useless.
We have the Democratic Senator that is holding up the public heallthcare option for America.
How emberassing for us!
Shame on Kay hagan for not supporting the America People. Shame the hell out of Arnie for raping the poor and middle class of California.
Thankls for participating in the conversation Joseph. I will now become a fan.
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Thank you.
Simply hilarious Palermo. GW has destroyed California
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Yep, it was liberalism that destroyed the state by creating the CSU and UC systems and the infrastructure that allowed you to get a thing called a "computer" and another thing called "the Internet." Have you been to Silicon Valley? Do you think the computer engineers were all self taught? Wozniak went to a public high school not far from where I grew up -- so liberalism that values investment in education is the cause of all CA's problems? And Arnold blew a $5 billion hole in the budget the first day he entered office by repealing the car tax and his friends -- and I mean friends -- at Enron bilked the state for billions illegally -- just as Jeff Skilling, no "liberal" he, who is sitting in a federal pen.
It is really the enormous costs of its prison system and, of course, not education that is helping to sink California. If California would get rid of three strikes and de-criminalize some small drug possesssion offenses, it probably could save billions.
It's about time the public sector took some heat. After years and years of expanding programs, increasing taxes, and doing everything possible to make sure business is not welcome in the state, the time has come for bureaucracy to take the same lumps everyone else is. Raising taxes is the last thing any government should be doing with these economic conditions. Yet that is the only solution our elected leaders know.
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It's funny, no one brought up an obvious solution to all of CA's problems a friend talked to me about over the weekend: Legalize Marijuana and tax the hell out of it! Immediately Humboldt and Mendocino counties would become as prosperous as Beverly Hills and we can pay down the debt -- FDR got rid of Prohibition at exactly the right time, it created tax revenues and made people feel good during the capitalist downfall -- California should do the same thing, it would relieve the law enforcement people from shaking down hackey-sack kicking dread-locked Burning Man burn outs so they can focus on the real criminals, and the tax could be earmarked directly to education, drug addiction prevention, and finding the recipe for the crunchiest cheese snack!
I am all for legalizing marijuana, but why must you liberals put a tax on everything?
Let me smoke my weed in peace.
Besides, wouldn't it be a monster regressive tax. Wealthy people drink cognac, the rest of us smoke the reefer.
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
Oh, there's plenty of wealthy people who smoke weed, my friend, just ask Snoop or Willie Nelson or Woody Harrelson or Bill Mahar etc
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
Yes, what's wrong with majority rule, the Republicans seem to like it a lot when they have a majority, remember Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich?
http://www
We need a petition on the next ballot for a majority rule for passing a budget.
Ah yes where is Gray Davis when you need him let's all re-call Arnold why not we did it before we can do it again for good ole KaliFornia!!!!!!!
Greedy unions are a big part of this problem - I should know mine is one of the most powerful. Giving a person 100% of his/her pay when they retire at 50 is insane. CA is one of the highest taxed states. We need to live within our means and cut programs and jobs to do that. We must fine and jail people who hire illegal aliens. When we do so illegals will self-deport.
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Thanks for repeating, robot-like, the Republican talking points -- the unemployment rate is about 12 percent right now in CA -- so decimating state workers is really kind of like pouring gasoline on the fire and making it harder to recover here -- if businesses don't like it in CA they can move to Mississippi anytime, the sooner the better.
So those that disagree with you are mindless robots?
And business are moving out of California. So are the wealthy.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. (Not sure who I am quoting here, but the thought isn't original with me.)
12%? On paper maybe. In reality, I'll bet it's double that. My family, and many others in California, are self-employed (and are now effectively un-employed) and are not counted in this statistic. Neither are those that have already used up their unemployment benefits, not to mention those that could only get part-time employment.
In any case, deregulation, a GOP favorite, is reponsible for much of our pain, here as elsewhere. It was certainly responsible for the housing bubble, and has certainly aided in widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Unfortunately for us, Arnold wants Main Street to pay for the greed of Wall Street. I guess taxing the rich will cause too much undue suffering for the wealthiest.
I agree that to blame our economic downturn on unions, which represent about what- 13 or 18% of workers now, is just ridiculous. Yea, Nee is just unthinkingly going through the Republican litany of villains.
Great strategy Joe. Let's drive all those big greedy businesses and those mean selfish rich folks out of California for good!! And they can take their big tax payments with them. I am sure other states would be more than happy to get them. Not sure who is going to provide jobs or who is going to pay the bills for Ca then but I'm sure you and your buddies in Sacramento will figure out something.
Ooo. Please tell me what Union you're in.
I'll only get 80% if I retire after I'm 65 after 40 years. 100% at age 50 sounds great.
Well mlaiuppa it might not be too late for you to become a police officer, fireman, or prison guard. Then you could retire at 50 with 100% of your pay.
OK, so you're either a law enforcement officer or a firefighter. If you're in the state's most powerful union, then you're working in our one of our overcrowded prisons. This is all dangerous and stressful work and I believe your retirement is well earned. The rest of us, I'm retired from state service, don't get those generous terms. We will never solve California's problems by trying to live within ever shrinking "means."
If you don't want to believe that our Governator, is the problem, consider this; our legislature has passed two majority budgets either one of which would have solved California's budget problems, Ahhnold has vetoed one of them and is threatening to veto the other. It would appear that Ahhnold doesn't want a solution. Do you think he's working for the people of California? Or more likely just the most wealthy in our state?
CA is already one of the highest taxed states. We were just handed the largest tax increase in HISTORY - When will it be ENOUGH????????
By the way I'm a teacher. A profession I am proud of however my union leaves much to be desired.
No one has "earned" 100% of their pay at 50 no one. These unions were given it because they have the politicians by the balls. Until tax payers wake up, and the last vote has shown me that they are coming around, nothing will change in CA.
California is taking it in the Schwartz. LOL
Anytime public employees are knocked back down to the real world (tax payers) is a good thing. The pensions should be no better than Federal Social Security-- nothing more, nothing less. And with the same age requirements. Did this guy say 80,000 feeders at the public trough were in Sacramento *alone*?? What a waste of our money! There wouldn't be this meltdown if all illegals were kicked out and denied welfare, schooling, medical and food stamps.
Socialism, thy name is California!
You have no clue about either the value of government or the value of labor.
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
Thanks for exposing the bankruptcy of the Republican anti-worker, anti-immigrant backward ideology -- thank goodness the country is not where you are anymore
ILLEGAL ALIENS aren't immigrants. And by the way a majority of the voters are against ILLEGALS.
I pay into a pension for 40 years so I don't have to live on social security.
So you're saying I should pay all of this money and then get back very little because...
What Koolaid have you been drinking?
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