Arnold Blinked
posted in General |ARNOLD BLINKED
With much fanfare, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his intentions to take four issues directly to Cailfornia voters in the form of ballot initiatives. He did so since it was a forgone conclusion that he would win no support from the Democrat controlled State Assembly. The four issues were mandatory spending caps and controls, revised teacher tenure plus merit pay, re-districting of the State elective offices, and reform of the public employe pension system. Underlying all of this is the financial mess in which the State finds itself.
Last week, Arnold blinked. He pulled the pension reform issue off the list. Could be that his close advisors urged that he do so since he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Better to back off and fight another day. Translated, that means that he couldn't win against the powerful opposition of the well-funded labor unions and the Democrats. At least right now.
Many believe that Arnold has a lot of good arguments going for him on the pension issue since the costs are clearly out of control and will continue to get worse. But he didn't make the case very well, and the Unions beat him to the punch with quick and dirty TV ads. Now is swimming upstream. If the big issue is restoring fiscal sanity to the State budget, the abandonment of pension reform is a huge step backwards. To put it another way, without pension reform, it is virtually impossible to achieve budgetary control of State spending.
Maybe he will try again in 2006, but that is a long way off, and Arnold's popularity is waning. The brass ring doesn't come around very often. I hope he hasn't missed it.