The Governator and his legacy..

As the state faces the prospect of going broke, it's clear that the Governor has challenges ahead of him. His real problem, like that of Gray Davis, is that much of the problem is out of his hands, mandated by ballot initiatives, and that his options are severely limited. Still it hasn't helped that Arnold's tenure as Governor has been marked by the same bullshit conservative philosophy that has brought the rest of the country into depression.

My hope for him, when elected, was that he'd behave like a true adult, in the sense of bringing a far more mature perspective to state politics, given that he was elected as a Republican, without the real support of the party's state organization. He could be a Republican, philosophically, but wouldn't have to pander to the kooks and crazies in his party.

But he hasn't done that. He pushed for tax cuts at a time when we should have been saving for the future, knowing full well that we could smell the rain of a recession on the horizon. He has wasted his unique opportunity of being a true populist, and failed to introduce and support the kind of reforms that would have allowed California to escape the brunt of the depression.

It's not too late, only because the state faces chaos. What is needed is a change to the state constitution that takes general spending away from the ballot box, and puts it back into the hands of legislators, but leaves the decision to levy taxes in the hands of the populace. In addition, the state should remove the cap on property taxes, and replace it with a means test. There are too many people not paying their fair share of property taxes, despite being full capable of doing so.

In exchange for that power, the constitution should mandate a balanced budget, with a small amount of leeway to deal with reductions in revenue.

If the Governor takes those bold steps, which he should have no trouble doing, because both Democrats and Republicans will benefit from it, and changes the political dialog in this state, he will have done a good thing.