Arnold Bucks!
The following text is from the Courage Campaign web site.
California faces financial "Armageddon," as Arnold Schwarzenegger bluntly stated a few weeks ago. And yet Arnold and his fellow Republicans are rejecting compromises by Democrats to rescue our state from a catastrophic budget crisis, unparalleled in the history of California.
Because of the ridiculous 2/3rds budget rule—the super-majority required to pass a budget in the California state legislature—and Arnold's failure to twist the arms of a small cabal of recalcitrant Republicans, Californians will be getting IOUs in the mail next week instead of financial aid checks or tax refunds.
Many Californians are so overwhelmed by this paralyzing crisis that they've just tuned it out. As a result, Arnold is not being held accountable for his failure to lead.
That's why we decided to try something a bit unorthodox—raise awareness by using humor to highlight the absurdity of these IOU's, or what we like to call "Arnoldbucks."download your Arnold Bucks here...
Has Gov. Schwarzenegger been a disaster? Surely so, though not for the reasons the Courage Campaign says. Despite his promises to the contrary, he manifestly failed to bring fiscal responsiblity to Sacremento. Indeed, five years into the Era of Arnold, the governor has blown out the state budget from $100 billion to $145 billion, with a whopping project deficit of something on the order of $28 billion. In such a situation, it's wrong to argue that the problem is not spending even more money or that super-majority rules are a bad idea. The problem is the spending in the first place.
SSH | January 30, 2009, 1:29pm | #
Just to be clear, the text accompanying this video is directly from the Courage Campaign, a group of progressive Democrats. The video is good, but their characterization of why California doesn't have cash on hand right now isn't. Issuing IOUs at this time has nothing to do with the super-majority rule. In fact, because passing a budget takes longer with a super-majority, and this year the budget was three months late, the state's budget should have been even more up-to-date than if it were passed on time last summer, when revenue forecasts were warmer than today. There's no reason to think that we would have had a more accurate spending plan in California if a simple majority of Democrats had written it all themselves.
Don Lovell | January 30, 2009, 7:44pm | #
Whoa - Does Reason TV actually support "Courage Campaign" ? These freaking union idiots are sinking the state of CA by virtue of the special interest lobbying they have done over the years. A highway patrol officer after 20 years, without a college education retires with a package of $105K per year. That is absolutely unsustainable. Look I really enjoy Reason but if this is the type of bullshit you people support FU.
thinkfree | February 4, 2009, 7:03pm | #
A little more dissociation from the CC would be in order, but the video is hilarious.
"Get the f*ck outta here." Priceless.
adina | February 9, 2009, 3:29am | #
Yeah, I really don't get this campaign at all. When, each year, government spending constitutes even greater percentage of CA's GDP, it is unclear to me how the people who oppose increased spending are the ones "holding things up."
yan zhang | February 26, 2010, 1:32am | #
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