Davis has proved you can't improve education without funds. Not wanting to raise taxes (he lowered the auto registration fee for one) to provide funds (as property taxes don't provide nearly enough money), he spent the surplus on improving education. That's all going on hold and rollbacks on what is spent on education are now in the works. Will Arnold, a pronounced advocate for education be able to perform a miracle? He's never played God.
The fact is that California started the trend in tax rollbacks quite some time ago. Then Oregon got in on the act, then Washington did. Now the chickens have come home to roost. It's dreadful in California, bad in Oregon, and getting worse here.
Californians can blame Gray Davis all they want, but you can't provide services without revenues. And I mean, for instance, schools. Education is something every politician pays lip service to, from Bush on down.
But as long as voters pass these tax rollbacks, this trend will continue. Maybe the other states can adopt California's free-wheeling approach to recalls, too. Only don't call what's happening there "populist." This recall was paid for by Issa, just as the tax-cut initiatives gather signatures using paid collectors. It's a corruption of the democratic process.
Although it's not to the extent that we just set up state governments as corporations and promote from within, with the ability to hire and fire within management's chain of command. Gee, they could let go of the top man within weeks with some severance pay (much cheaper than a recall election). And doesn't that kind of government rather sound like, well, Facism or Communism?
Ol' lady here says, Wait a couple of years. Watch the gradual recognition that a) Davis had some good points and b) the recall was a crock.
I have a tendency to think that might be right -- it won't be the first time our state government and voter bloc shot themselves in the foot.
Recall should be like impeachment in my opinion -- it should be judged in a court whether the electee has done anything wrong that couldn't be chalked off to circumstances. This method of firing the number of person of an opposition party is peculiar and the cost of the recall is going to sink California into more debt and devisive politics. How come the Republican influence in the legislature is so mamby pamby that they can't have some influence in what the direction the state is going? There's just too many question without answers. Arnold could bully his way into office off name recognition and end up being the hare in the tortoise and the hare.
(I think Issa and the rest of them were gambling on riding the wave of a major economic recovering nationwide. I think they should play Lotto).
Davis spent a huge budget surplus by making shady deals with out of state energy companies. Then, when the money was all gone, the first thing he cut was education. Next fall, there will be no after school sports in my city for K-12. No football, no basketball, no baseball, no soccer, absolutely nothing other than privately funded clubs and leagues. That sucks folks.
We are fortunate to have AYSO, CYSA, Little League, and the Y so our kids can participate in organized sports.
What are these shady deals? You mean, illegal? Hey, proscecute the son-of-a-bitch. Hmmm...maybe it wouldn't hold up in court?
Dubya has declare he will stay out of California politicis -- giving rise to a paraphrase of an old one. Fools stay home for mortals fear to tread.
Light -- I think you're right about that -- the recall being a judicial matter. Brilliant.
All I can say to the privileged Cjhsa is, Aw, geeeee.....
California voters love to think they are controlling things. They want to believe they can move the players about the stage and change the results. It's the air out here. I think it's full of marijuana smoke.
Priviledged? What are you talking about Tart?
I've told you before, public funds pay for that library Internet terminal you're using.
I just love it. Tart is so beyond reason, she thinks kids who participate in after school sports are "priviledged". Believe me, half the kids on my son's Little League teams come from homes that can hardly put food on the table. Priviledged my ass. People love their kids, that's all. It's called sacrifice.
I'm out in the boonies on a ranch, Cjhsa. Land line.
cjhsa, you sound angry. Where's it coming from?
Light -- Can you fill me in on the "energy deals"? That's something I know a little about but from another point of view -- and not about a nefarious Davis connection.
Pete Wilson began making the energy deals of who would come in and operate the California newly psuedo-private enterprise distribution of power. Davis didn't do much to question the set-up which looked like Rube Goldberg machine from the beginning. Some districts still had their own power grid and management, usually municipal. It was neither fish nor fowl and any nitwit could have seen the integral failure of the whole system. I do not give Davis credit for seeing the handwriting on the wall although the mess was handed to him. He saw it but it was too late. The "deals" Davis agreed to at the eleventh our in order to stop the blackouts was pure and simple gambling. He lost. But politicians as I have pointed out before are always gambling. There are too many things out of their control and maybe it's best even with the present crisis to leave it that way. Can Arnold barge in and solve the problems? I have little confidence that he can. He's gambling on an upsurge in the economy which may or may not take place.
All this, from Pete Wilson on, was to save the consumer money on their energy. A bigger joke has neve been perpetrated -- even Bob Hope couldn't come close. The world is full of stupid people and I think most of them are in government.
Just breaking in to tell you that Arnold plans on going door to door to meet us all. Get ready!
Or---Run for the Hills!!!!
LW -- During my Abuzzard days, a couple of us cronies would step aside now and then and research some of the more arcane stuff. Thus, post Enron, we checked into the current doings of Enron subsidiaries, to see what games they were still playing... El Paso Energy appeared to be sticking it to California (this was just pre-energy-crisis in CA).
If I were still an Abuzzard, I'd be rushing off right now to look for evidence to back up my dawning conviction that the recall effort began a long time ago with the collaboration of many of the energy companies who Just Happen to be Pals of Certain Parties in the WH (but I'm just whispering this to you). California Here I Come is a little song Karl Rove has been humming under his breath for a couple of years. This doesn't mean Gray Davis hasn't been, at the very least, a fool, but it does mean he's likely being pushed by external forces, not pulled from office by righteous citizens of California. If I were one of those citizens, I'd sure want the details.
