Arnold arrived in Sacramento with a political blank check from the voters. He could have put any reform, any amendment, any policy question on the ballot, and the voters would have backed him. Instead he chose to try and be popular with the legislature by selling out reformers, BONDING the state out of an annual OPERATING deficit, passing a phony budget reform initiative to “tear up the credit cards” (which actually ran up the debt), and blowing a massive hole in state revenues by repealing the mythological “car tax” increase.

Arnold’s abandonment of the voters the minute he was elected and his unprovoked, unilateral, and frankly unexpected surrender to the legislature (before the first shot was fired) is consistent with the style of leadership he has employed every day in office: “What can I say to the people standing in front of me right now to try and make them like me?”

That’s Arnold in a nut shell — no ideology, conviction, or principle — just pure celebrity popularity.

By the time his popularity pendulum had swung the other way in 2005 the voters already had his number. Most voters stayed home, and those who came arrived with clenched fists like jilted lovers. Not because they love the legislature and hate reform, but because the man who said he was a reformer was a worse politician then the guy they recalled.

True to form, Arnold took to the stage in Century City that election night in 2005, and without a hint of irony, immediately embraced the message of the voters who had just broken his jaw. That is, until the next budget meeting of the Big 5…

Also Ms. Rose pointed out that Arnold keeps proposing cuts to vital services instead of restoring the tax cut on vehicle licensing. Implicitly, the suggestion would be “Don’t be a borrow and spend Republican; restore this tax that alone would bring $5 billion a year.”

As Ms. Rose column indicates, Arnold has been a disaster and for all his bluster, is a pariah in his own party. At this point, the only relevant suggestion one could offer Arnold is to leave quietly and go back to acting…

We’d do well to remember that when we consider his legacy, which I think will be that he demonstrated how deep the sociopolitical paralysis in Sacramento really goes.

Barring that, I’m willing to believe both Mr. Crane and Ms. Rose. Especially since Mr. Crane did not dispute Ms. Rose’s figures, but simply claimed they’re not the REAL problem. From the outside, it would appear that both retirement costs and revenue issues are problems.

Dropping the license fee was a stupid PR move that has cost the state plenty–though not, I believe, enough to really make up our deficits. The lost income would surely have helped. One aspect Ms. Rose didn’t even address is borrowing costs. With that additional income, we would not have had to borrow as much as we have. That would have lowered our annual costs because we wouldn’t pay so much interest.

Another thing neither article talked about was the corporate tax cuts extorted in last year’s budget “negotiations.” The 6 largest corporations in the state got tax cuts totaling $2.5 billion a year. Not a one-time cut. Every year. That wouldn’t have closed the budget gap either. But you know what they say, a billion here and a billion there–pretty soon it adds up to real money.