Gov. Schwarzenegger is giving his first major address on the budget today. Now we'll see if he has any more acceptable solutions to the problems than his predecessor did.
State librarian and well-known California historian Kevin Starr seems to be entranced by the new governor's star power:
State librarian Kevin Starr, who has written extensively about California, had grand predictions for Schwarzenegger's speech, calling it the most important State of the State address since Hiram Johnson ushered in the Progressive Era in California in 1911. It was Johnson who persuaded Californians to adopt their now-famous recall provision.
Starr noted that no governor has faced a financial crisis as severe.
"This is unprecedented in 154 years of California history," Starr said. "This man has taken hold of the government with great dramatic flair. He's taken his media attraction and turned it into something."
The latter judgment is probably somewhat premature. First let's get a good luck at what he wants to turn his celebrity into, in terms of his actual budget proposals. Starr might have added that if Schwarzenegger's predicament is more serious than Gray Davis', it's largely because of the $4 billion vehicle tax reduction Schwarzenegger made on his first day in office.
This article from November gives a good background on the current budget dilemma: Governor's tough task: finding the waste to cut San Francisco Chronicle 11/27/03.
"The problem I think the new governor is confronting is public services have a cost," said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, "and for too long people have been told you can have a tax cut, you can have quality schools, you can have environmental protection, you can have a higher education system that was at one point the envy of the world. You just can't do that. At some point, you have to decide, are you going to take care of the frail elderly, or are you going to get a car tax cut?"
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