By snoadmin
Whether they read it in the Sacramento Bee or the Daily Forty-Niner last year, or had some prophet read tea leaves this morning, most of the California State University knows some big hits are coming that will leave serious emotional and economic scars for at least the next decade.
When we started writing about it, the projected shortfall was in the neighborhood of $10 billion. Since those early warning sounds went out (and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger swore to cut up the state’s credit card), it seems we should have also taken away its checkbook.
In its most recent hole, California finds itself in the higher rent district of $16 billion. Given the gap in debt predictions he made just before Christmas, and those that are currently being tossed in the headlines, one must wonder if the governor and the Legislative Analyst Office have ever seen the same light bills or rent receipts.
When the Educ-Hater told the state he was cutting 10 percent across the board in January, he was hoping to create a firestorm of resistance. He made this sweeping threat so he could terrorize Californians into forcing tax increases, without raising taxes himself.
The terror campaign is working. The Cal State Long Beach community is rightfully in dread mode. President F. King Alexander sent out a call to arms in the form of a campuswide e-mail announcing a budget forum scheduled for next week.
Schwarzenegger says he isn’t in the market for another political office, but many analysts recognize his actions with this budget crisis as political chest thumping.
In the eyes of many (including most California Republicans), it would be political suicide for Schwarzenegger to raise taxes and then try to run for, say, Congress.
It’s already been proven by California’s past Republican governors that raising taxes can help alleviate the type of anxiety Arnold is mongering.
Ronald Reagan balanced his budget deficit in the 70s by raising taxes more than 16 percent, according the Los Angeles Times. He even left a surplus for his Democratic successor, Jerry Brown, the current Attorney General.
Pete Wilson inherited a $14 billion debt during the state’s recession in the early 90s and escaped by taxing his way out.
Neither one liked it, but they salvaged the state from crises and saved major cuts to education and the poor.
California developed a societal ulcer when we found out Gray Davis was trying to tax us out of debt with DMV fees. Schwarzenegger will give us a bigger ulcer by pretending a combination of cuts and increased taxes are not the intended solution in his closet, but he doesn’t want to be the one to open the closet door.
When Wilson did his tax hike, he had buyer’s remorse for the rest of his governorship, but it pulled the state out of its quagmire. To top it off, most of his taxation was reversed in the ensuing years.
The problem with our current governor – or at least the problem that’s important for this editorial – is one of stubbornness. He’s just too obstinate to admit that this budget mess is a result of his fiscal idiocy.
The last time we had such wide-sweeping gubernatorial ignorance, we canned his butt, if you may “recall.”
