The Myths, Rhetoric, and Reality in Schwarzenegger’s State of the State Speech This Year

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

This is the Governor’s week in Sacramento—from the State of the State speech delivered yesterday to Thursday when the other shoe drops and the proposed state budget for 2008-2009 is unveiled along with, for the first time, a declaration of a fiscal emergency under Proposition 58 of 2004 and the convening of yet another special session of the legislature to deal with this year’s budget deficit.

In the space of these three days, we will be going from the abstractions and symbols of what is typically in a State of the State speech to what will hopefully be more concrete, palpable, and understandable elements of public policy. But we shall see.

Before the Governor’s speech, there was a briefing by his cabinet of plans for a Constitutional Amendment for budget stabilization mandating that money be set aside in a “rainy day” account in good years and requiring budget cuts in bad years if revenues are not as forecasted. The problem is that, like the Governor’s vaunted health plan of last January, these are concepts that have not been reduced to legislative language and appear to be rehashed versions of what the voters rejected in the special election of 2005 and the legislature has previously rejected.

The budget should be a good deal more specific—as well as the proclamation under Prop 58 which requires that it “shall be submitted by the Governor to the Legislature, accompanied by proposed legislation to address the fiscal emergency.”

The problem is that although there is much talk about cutting the budget, Republicans who are doing much of this talking, have been remarkably silent in public as to what they are proposing to cut. You may recall that last June 15, the Constitutional deadline for passing a budget, the Assembly Republican leader said it was up to the Democrats to make cuts and in the Senate there were closed door discussions and even an all night session and Senate Republicans failed to come up with a public specific budget proposal.