A Sad State of the State

Last Friday in Gov Schwarzenegger’s annual State of the State address, he unveiled his budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year. If you’d like to watch it, check it out here: http://gov.ca.gov/ And let me tell you, you’re in for a laugh!

In a bold (and honestly not-too-bright) move on his part, Schwarzenegger has written additional federal funding (that we can’t and shouldn’t count on) into the 2010-11 budget. How much would the plug be for? Oh, only about $6.9 billion. In an interview this morning with David Gregory on Meet the Press, Gov Schwarzenegger stated that for every dollar that California sends to Washington DC, we only get about $0.78 back. This would be grim indeed, if it were an updated figure. However, since California is receiving so much more than other states under the Federal Stimulus packages, the current amount is closer to $1.45.

Don’t get me wrong, the state of California certainly has some unfair disadvantages compared to the rest of the country. For example, immigration. We only received about $96 million from the Federal government to incarcerate illegal immigrants convicted of felonies (these prisoners account for approximately 10% of inmates and cost around $973 million every year).

But, I think our current Governator might be going about this the wrong way. In his interview with Gregory, Schwarzenegger said, “We also will inspire and push extra hard the California congressional delegation, the bipartisan delegation, because they’re not …. representing us really well in this case.” If he thought that writing extra Federal funds into the budget was going to be “inspiring”, well… here are some of the actual comments that his statement inspired:

“[Schwarzenegger] sounds like he’s trying to avoid responsibility. He’s the governor. We’re not. There has been a financial storm brewing in California for years. They haven’t dealt with it." - Rep. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose, head of the California Democratic delegation in Congress.

“What I don’t think is helpful is it’s the federal government against the state government. We’re representing the same people here.” - Sen. Barbara Boxer.

“The federal government is not responsible for the state of California's budget, and we look forward to hearing a sustainable plan for the state to get its house in order.” - Drew Hammill, spokesman for Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, Speaker of the House.

Hmm, good luck with getting the dough from those guys Schwarzenegger.

At the end of the day though, all the finger pointing is pretty useless (although it is what makes for entertaining politics!) since the chances that the California legislature will actually pass this particular budget are slim to zero. So never fear everyone, there is plenty more budget madness to go around!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/09/AR2010010902207.html?wprss=rss_politics

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=54968

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/01/governor-says-california-doesnt-get-its-fair-share-of-federal-money.html