Schwarzenegger in Washington: All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt?

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

You'd think the guy who promised to be the "Collectinator" and who stumped for President Bush in his re-election would be able to do more than whine about the lack of federal funds for California and the Administration's pulling of much of our state's National Guard equipment to fight the war in Iraq. But judging by the reports on Gov. Schwarzenegger's trip to the nation's capital, it appears that our Republican Governor has about as much clout with the Bush Administration as he does with the California legislature.

Over the course of his governorship, Schwarzenegger hasn't moved the needle in the amount of federal funds the state gets from D.C. It's stuck at about 79 cents that we get back from DC for every tax dollar we send. The Governor's D.C. lobbying office has gone thru several directors over his administration and Congressional insiders privately  say it hasn't been rejiggered to take into account that Democrats now control Congressional purse strings.

On top of that, Schwarzenegger is proposing to forfeit millions of dollars more in federal because of his budget cuts. Several proposals in Schwarzenegger's slash-and-burn budget proposal means losing state dollars that the feds match on a one-to-one basis.

The Governor's press releases tell a tale of high-level visits while he's in D.C.  But the suitcases sure aren't coming home full of cash.

In fact, there's some irony that Senator Feinstein was here in Schwarzenegger's Sacramento office asking state taxpayers to put up billions of dollars because Schwarzenegger has been unable to win federal funding for his proposals to subsidize dam developers. Shouldn't it be the other way around?