Schwarzenegger paints bleak picture if budget measures fail

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger painted a bleak picture today of what’s to come should budget-related state ballot measures fail next week.

Fire stations will close, prisons will be forced to release inmates, schools will lay off more than 50,000 teachers, schools will be shut down for several weeks, and the state will have to borrow from local governments, Schwarzenegger warned.

He urged 15 or so officials from around Los Angeles County who joined him at a news conference to encourage their communities to approve the measures.

“That’s not a scare tactic,” he said. “Whatever decision people make, I respect that. I just want them to know the consequences.”

Some officials who had gathered at the roundtable at Culver City Senior Center expressed skepticism.

“It’s a hard sell from a local standpoint,” said Downey Mayor Mario Guerra.

But Guerra also said local governments would suffer if the state is forced to borrow from them.

“Hey, we balanced the budget and now you’re taking this subprime loan, if you will…and you’re going to pay it back in three years,” he said. “We don’t have three years. We need to pay our policemen, our firemen, we need to pay our loans today.”

Another official questioned why, if individuals and local governments are balancing their budgets, the state is unable to do so. Schwarzenegger emphasized the impact that the measures’ failure will have on local communities and asked for the officials’ help.

Even though passage of the measures will be an “uphill battle,” with poll numbers showing them behind by about five points, he said the campaign was not over yet.

“Miracles do happen,” he said.

The roundtable lasted about 40 minutes. The officials then gathered around Schwarzenegger, decked out in alligator-skin boots and a red tie, for a photo op.

The League of California Cities, which sponsored the event, later handed out fake credit cards that read "Bank of Local Government Issued by and to the State of California" and "Sacrificing local services to balance the State budget" with the words EXPIRED in red letters stamped on it, making the statement that borrowing from local governments should be a thing of the past.

-- Corina Knoll

Related:

Election Central: California's Special Elections

Comments

[Tom]

Here we go. It's the full court press with the scare tactics from the Governator, the teacher's unions, and the other public employee unions. It's lies, lies and more lies from the usual suspects who are manipulating our fears and using children, police and fire fighters as pawns in their runaway spending game.

Vote NO on 1A through 1F.

[Eddie]

Why can't state workers simply take a pay cut or allow the state to scale back their overly generous pensions? Hardy anyone is earning as much as they did a year ago. State workers are not grasping the reality of the situation. We'll take all the cops off the streets before the teachers union gives a inch of slack.

[DRE DAWG]

Yeah, yeah...and children will be wandering the street hungry and half dead, all wild life will spontaneously explode, and the San Andreas fault will open up, swallowing all of California (but surprisingly not next door neighbors Nevada and Arizona).

VOTE NO ON ALL PROPOSITIONS

(EXCEPT 1F, THOSE PUNKS DON'T DESERVE TO GIVE THEMSELVES RAISES FOR THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS!)

[The Moon]

Why haven't they put on the table asking the Firemen, Police, teacher and other state workers to take a 10% pay and benefit cut. It happens in the private sector so why should government officials be treated any different. That way no one will have to take a layoff and I'm sure when given the option the major of workers would rather have a job. Our government employees have for to long a time gotten way to much from the politicians.

[Chris]

Let's remember here that everytime there is a City or State deficit we always talk about cutting back teachers, police and fire services. Mysteriously we never hear about making the system more efficient to save money, or reducing expensive benefits to the civil service or cutting back or reforming the hundreds of other not so well known services that have exploded in the last 20 years. In other words we always talk about the front line but rarely about the bureaucracy itself.

Without a fundamental reform of the system, the private sector will be asked to fund deficits for the next 100 years.

What is the taxpayer being offered in exchange for their
subsidy. I haven't heard that part yet.

[Kevin Cornwall]

It's a bleak picture, alright - but for the future of the GOP in California.

I am the first to support properly funded public education, and other essential services, but these bills are the worst kind of band-aid: temporary measures deflecting attention from the real culprits here, anti-tax, anti-government state leaders.

In the flush years of the 1990s, California enacted tax cuts, going back to Pete Wilson, that now cost us some $12 billion a year. Half of this tax cost — $6.1 billion — is directly due to overturning Gray Davis’ solution, the vehicle license fee, which our current GOP governor killed as his first act in office. Ironically, the majority of the same people who now complain of the budget cuts to their schools are those who supported Davis’ recall — specifically over the vehicle license fee.

We're reaping the toll for that now. Simply stated: tax cuts have been destroying the state. It’s no accident that California became a global leader in innovation and growth only after the 1960s, when we made the proper investments in public services. We’ve been living off of that investment for over 30 years now, and unsurprisingly, we’ve found that we can no longer do it. The failed “less-spending” proposals of the state’s GOP will continue California on course to becoming a third-rate state.

The fundamental long-term solution must be as it has been at the federal level to vote the GOP out of government so we can get the leadership and services one should expect living in a great state.

Perhaps the Times could publish the voting record of members of the legislature on education bills and any tax measures that negatively impact public education. Just the facts. Then it will be clear to the voters, who are so up in arms over the budget where to squarely lay the blame.

[Meredith Wright]

Of course he thinks the prospect is bleak if the budget measures fail - it means he and the Assembly and State Senate will have to stop wasting taxpayer dollars.

[Ifticar]

Release prisoners? Take money from local governments so that they can no longer pay for police and firefighters? If they are going to cut spending they are going to cut in ways that hurt the citizen the most. Buy some fire extinguishers and learn how to use them. Buy a gun and learn how to use it. You are on your own.

[hpbromine]

Yep...scare tactics; pure and simple.

[jay]

Hard not to feel resentment towards a governor decked out in
alligator skin boots who flies back & forth from LA to Sacramento in a private jet multiple times a week for photo ops.
What does he know about belt tightening?
His kids won't have funding cut at their schools, his job won't be cut, his makeup and hair people won't have to worry.
This whole special election cost money that could have been spent elsewhere; same with the proposed lottery marketing...
If he had some moxie, he would mandate a "temporary" gas tax; oh, but that would anger too many of his major contributors.
1F is the only prop that makes sense.

[Dan]

Don't forget, the SEIU lobbied with the White House to get cut wages back. Gee, Mr. Obama is threatening the state not to issue stimulus money if they don't reinstate. Let's threaten everybody for something, in the end, we are all going to loose.
Standby for further developments from the governator and miss bass. I'm all for closing down fire stations, letting out criminals, getting rid of teachers etc. Love the scare tactics from the governator. Props 1A through 1E will go down in defeat next week. It promises to be a most interesting fire fighting season.
Get your shovel and axes ready boys and girls.

[Bob Johnson]

Tax cuts don't cost anyone anything. All they have to do is stop spending money that doesn't exist. You're free to send your money to Sacramento to watch it disappear down a black hole if you wish.

[bruce]

The state government has grown by 40% since Arnold took office and Obama is doing the same w/the Federal government . Simply cut those newer positions and require a 15% paycut from state employees (except police and fire). In this economy they are ALL lucky to have a job w/such overly generous benefit packages the private sector no longer offers.

[bruce]

California is becoming a Third World state due to the low quality of the immigrants that have been pouring in over the last 30 years. In the 1960s the students in many L.A. public schools had educated parents that stressed education. Those days are over!

[h]

Sadly, perhaps what we really need is a crisis. Nothing will change without one. The poorly written, loophole filled, special-interest-engineered propositions, even if passed, will simply delay the problem until next year's budget crisis.

Public service has turned into self service. Look at the recent article about the teachers who sit around doing nothing and are paid for months or years until their cases are settled. Who nowadays besides government employees get paid like that when they have a beef with their employer? In the private sector you are out on your a$$ with nothing. Why is it different for teachers?

Better propositions, such as forcing the legislature to truly balance the budget without smoke and mirror accounting voodoo and more and more borrowing, would offer a better way forward. But who has the courage to offer such a solution?

[Karl Dahlquist]

I think everyone I have spoken with the past week has already indicated they are voting NO. And most are Democrats.

[doogle]

"I'll be...er...won't be back."

[Peter]

When are we going to WAKE UP and realize that the teachers union is a cancerous albatross choking the life out of California. "NO" on 1A thru 1E. DOWN with the teachers union... PERIOD!!

[Duane]

1) Arnold has been hanging around those Kennedy's too long, he's about as much a Republican as Pelosi.

2) It's always the Police & Firefighters going to be cut, how about the fat slob public shirker union member leaning on a shovel while street work is being done.

3) The hippies from the 60's are running the Legislature.

4) Move to Nevada, my wife & I did when we retired. No income tax, the State Legislature meets only 4 months every 2 years, not enough time to get us into too much trouble.

[jackima]

If prisoners are released, it's because the federal judges have ordered it to happen - not because we've "suddenly" run out of money. The state has had over 13 years to get the prison overcrowding under control, and now they seem poised to blame this crisis on the voter's if it happens,. Gheesh! Besides which, the release would only be a few months ahead of when the prisoners were due to be paroled anyways, and it would only apply to non-serious, non-violent offender's.

Start cutting away - this system is a bloated fiscal mess. I guess it takes a crisis of this magnitude to get the politico's attention, yet they are still hammering us with their fear-mongering and scare tactics. No on every measure except 1F!!! 1F is the only one that makes sense, as it disallows for politicians and government administrators to get a pay raise during a deficit year. NO on 1A-1E, YES on 1F!!!! And why haven't the legislators and their aides had to take a 10% pay cut??? Heck, they should be getting NO PAY until they figure this crap out!

[Rebecca]

The contract YOU signed - as a taxpayer - with YOUR Police, Teacher's and Firefighters - was for their minimal salaries and pension plans.

When someone is breaking into your house, or your child is choking and you call 911, or when you *choose* not to send your kids to a private school but a public school - you don't think twice to call on these public servants.

The contract they ACCEPTED was to be PAID LESS than they would in the private sector - therefore with LESS INCOME TO SAVE FOR RETIREMENT through 401k type plans, but making up for that with the pension YOU agreed to pay them.

Now, like everything else...like your home loans and car loans and credit card payments...you want to live beyond your means and have it all for nothing - OR YOU FLAKE OUT ON YOUR END OF THE DEAL - which is EXACTLY what you are doing to the Police, Fire and Teachers when you talk about taking away their *generous* pensions.

How would YOU feel if after you had signed a contract and worked for 30 years, YOUR employer *decided* he would rather have that money he promised to pay you in your retirement for himself?? Probably not too happy.