Least action hero
Just for the record: I don’t care what Arnold Schwarzenegger does with his private parts — that’s his business. It’s the public-policy hypocrisy that’s galling, because that’s our business. For example: vetoing gay marriage because it might somehow ruin the sanctity of his own. (And this from a guy who made his millions in gay-friendly Hollywood, too.) Even worse was the fiscal state he left California in, as detailed here by George Skelton. Please click and read that and then do some basic math: by cutting the vehicle license fee, which was purely an election move, Schwarzenegger created a budget hold of $4 billion that grew into $6 billion annually. Multiply that by seven years and you get about $35 billion. Now, what was the size of California’s budget hole? About… $35 billion. So what did we get for our $35 billion? Enormous cuts to programs and services (most ruinously to our educational systems, especially the higher-education system that was once the pride of the world). Oh, and enormous ego gratification for the movie star who made it all happen.
May 19th, 2011 at 5:47 am
I’ve found it interesting how “deregulation” is supposed to help the economy when it leads to layoffs at the newly “deregulated” companies and the loss of the spending power of those who were laid off.
For example, N.J. Governor Christie put in place “emergency deregulation” of the casino industry to booth the economy. Part of the new rules release the casinos from having certain levels of management watching the table game operations. The casinos no longer needing those levels of supervision have now laid off about 300 employees. Thus losing their buying power and placing them in an already overburdened unemployment system.
The “winners”? The companies that saved a few hundred thousand in payroll. The losers, besides those laid off? The taxpayers who now need to cover the unemployment expenses.