When more is less


Thanks in part to the tax amnesty, and in part to increased revenues from a robust California economy, there's more money to go around this year, and Schwarzenegger has released a revised budget that gives more money to highways and a bit more (though nothing like the $2 billion he owes) to education.

More is more, most of the time. But increased revenue is not necessarily good news for Governor Arnold.

Better times challenge governor
ANALYSIS: HIGHER REVENUE BLUNTS POLITICAL WEAPON
(San Jose Mercury News) Schwarzenegger won the election appealing to a broad spectrum of voters, but with his own popularity falling in public opinion polls, his proposed spending blueprint seems designed to appeal to middle-class voters who are stuck in traffic and whose kids go to public schools. Further muddying the waters, the extra money he added to education and transportation could slow the momentum for the special election he has promoted. ...

Cain said it would be easier to tell educators they need to make further sacrifices ``if you have a huge structural deficit facing you, but when you have more revenue coming in it's hard for them to accept that they can't have their $2 billion back.'' For Schwarzenegger, he said, the return to better times is "bad luck politically."


The increased revenues make it harder for Schwarzenegger to justify his belt-tightening budget-balancing ballot initiative, "Live Within Our Means" (see here for a complete rundown of the ballot measures currently in play for the fall 2005 special election). Simply put, if there's more money, it's harder to convince people that now's the time to make cuts, or that now's not the time to pay back educators the $2 billion you owe them.

Of course, it's also going to make it harder for Democrats in the Legislature to convince Californians that we need to reverse some of the Bush tax cuts and/or raise taxes on the richest 1%, which seems to be the most popular revenue-raising idea from our side of the aisle.

On the balance, I think that the news is better for us than for Arnold: The increased dollars work against his ballot initiative and spending cuts, both of which he's invested a lot of political capital in supporting.

Posted: Mon - May 16, 2005 at 11:33 AM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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