How is Arnie Doing?

[End User]

I was having lunch today, and something prompted me to wonder "Hmm....how is Arnold Schwarzenegger doing as the Governor of California?"
I'm from Australia, and after he won the seat, there was nil coverage.
Does he suck, or is he getting the job done?
Has he broken any campaign promises yet?

[Kaos]

You know, I was thinking the same thing the other day...there hasn't been one word (that I've heard) about Arnold's progress.

[numist]

Ive been keeping track of the news in my state, and I must say, given what hes faced with, hes doing a good job. I approve.

In order to address the deficit, hes hired a team of 3rd party accountants, so they arent people who say "you CANT cut that" they are people who say "this has to be cdone to balance the budget". While a lot of programs face cuts like that, I think it is a highly effective idea that will succeed in the end.

Its time this state made some sacrifices, and Im glad he sees it and is able to work with it. He has some good ideas so far, and has innovated.

I never thought Id say this about a republican, but I approve.

[bermuDa]

he cut education funds after he promised not to. other than that he's letting his advisors do all the thinking, which is a good move.

[filtherton]

All i've really heard about him was that after being elected he dropped any investigation into his past"gropages". That seemed to piss a few people off. Aside from that i haven't really heard anything positive or negative about him.

[matthew330]

....hmmmmm, "he" dropped them. So he was investigating himself? Interesting.

[filtherton]

Originally posted by matthew330
....hmmmmm, "he" dropped them. So he was investigating himself? Interesting.

Yes, if i remember correctly, in an attempt to battle the arnold-as-gropaholic image he announced that he would look into it. Then, once safely elected he decided that it wasn't important. Pretty slick.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...ec04.g.arnold/

Prior to the election, Schwarzenegger issued a blanket apology to anyone he offended, and he said that after the election, he wanted to look into the complaints.

Look, he's such a good person even arnold is concerned about the allegations. So concerned he wants to "look into it". I guess his memory must be bad.

But he said Tuesday that the vow to investigate the charges "was meant much more for me, that I wanted to look into it myself."

Oh, oh, good of him to clarify that point after he's already been elected.

He said, "And so that doesn't mean that I won't do that. But the bottom line is, right now, I'm focusing on this, and there is no investigation."

I'm sure it is only a matter of time.

[smooth]

He's doing a terrible job.

He cut education funding--oh wait. he didn't cut it, he just isn't going to give K-12 their constitutionally mandated, yearly increase.

Higher education--cutting classes, claims people should go to community college. UC and Cal State rates slated to rise 40% (after all, he only claimed he was interested in primary education, right?)

No taxes--instead, fees are going through the roof. Drink water out of your tap lately, take a shower, water your garden? Get ready for triple prices! Go to the beach? Don't plan on parking there. Instead of $5 dollar parking lots we will soon be paying twice that.

The one thing he did follow through on? Giving back the car tax. Wait, raise your hand if you actually got any money back, I know I haven't! Plus, local communities are taking it in the ass. Good thing the fires raged last year, we don't have enough money to keep the firemen employed in the coming year down south. Local police--who needs them? Los Angeles thinks they do...

Let's see, wants to change our state constitution to allow his bond measure because "no new taxes." Wants to borrow 15 billion dollars. States right in your ballot pamphlet--we will pay 15 more billion dollars in interest over the next 30 years. How will we pay this off without new taxes or cutting stuff?

Cut it now if we need to eliminate waste. He ran on a platform that Dems just wanted to tax and spend. How is borrowing and spending any different...other than being more fiscally responsible in that at least then we are spending money we take in?!

Out of staters haven't heard anything about him because he was elected as a celebrity. We didn't hear about every move any of our last governors did, why would this be any different? If you want to hear how the politicians are doing you need to read the Times or listen to NPR--not watch the Letterman show.

[yellowgowild]

It can't be easy to repair the damage that was done before he came into office. I'm just guessing, but maybe he didn't know how bad things were until the real numbers were opened up to him. I seriously doubt he's cutting these things because he just felt like it, there has to be a carefully calculated reason behind it, and I'm sure it's not to "fuck california".

[smooth]

Originally posted by yellowgowild
It can't be easy to repair the damage that was done before he came into office. I'm just guessing, but maybe he didn't know how bad things were until the real numbers were opened up to him. I seriously doubt he's cutting these things because he just felt like it, there has to be a carefully calculated reason behind it, and I'm sure it's not to "fuck california".

I don't know what the quotes around fuck california are for, I didn't say that was his intention. Are you in Tampa, CA or another out of stater explaining how bad things were here from your couch?

It certainly isn't easy to repair the defecit damage, regardless of what caused it. Borrowing 15 billion dollars isn't going to get us anywhere but deeper in debt--where is the money to repay that going to come from?

Here's an interesting tidbit--the 15 billion in interest we're going to have to pay on the 15 billion loan (I have my pamphlet right in front of me [page 16 and 4 from the supplemental]) is being estimated at a 5.25% rate. Anyone remember we are coming out of the lowest borrowing rates in the past 40 years? I wonder what the rates will be in a few years, much less 30 years from now.

On top of that, we're also going to borrow 12.3 billion for education and repay the principal plus 12.4 billion in interest. Go, go, gadget finance wizards!

Anyway, he's not cutting things because he feels like it, he's cutting things and raising fees because the members of his party are too stupid or uninformed to recognize that increased fees amount to higher expenditure--albeit not due to "taxation." Since he promised not to raise taxes, he's chosen to raise fees and borrow against our future.

/scratches head

Maybe he's doing this because he promised the citizens to fix our deficit mess, deal with special interest groups, and fix the shit in the big house without (magically) raising taxes or cutting necessary services--all the while refusing to engage in public debate as to how he was going to do all this wonderfulness for our great state. Now he gets to revel in being governor while continuing the same (or extremely simiar) fiscally irresponsible shenanigans that got us in trouble to begin with.

I guess the most interesting thing is he has to convince the voters to alter a 150 year old section of our Constitution that prohibits this type of shit from occurring.

[nanofever]

I'm pretty upset about the tuition increases for the University Of California. I knew it was going to happen but a 30-40% increase in a year depending on the UC is a bit absurd. If I get into Cal or LA, I'm going to take it in the pants so hard when it comes to debt.