Ah, but one year later, things have changed!
Check this column by Arianna Huffington. (Yes, she ran against him in the recall elections, and lost. But I take this column as evidence of the reasons she ran in the first place, not sour grapes.)
In the last few months alone, Schwarzenegger has reneged on well-publicized commitments made to educators, environmentalists, public servants Ă ± and voters.He promised teachers and students last spring that if they agreed not to fight his plan to withhold $2 billion owed to them, he would never again dip into money earmarked for schools to balance his budget. "Trust me," he said. "Over my dead body," he guaranteed. But at a time when a recent Rand Corporation study reports that California ranks near the bottom nationally in both school funding and student performance, Schwarzenegger's new budget gives schools $2.8 billion less than they are owed. He promised environmental groups that he would not support Prop. 64, a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored initiative that prevents citizens from using the courts to protect consumers and the environment. The California League of Conservation Voters plaintively called his promise "a commitment he personally gave to environmentalists." Then he turned around and endorsed Prop. 64, which, with his considerable weight behind it, passed.
He promised State Sen. Gil Cedillo that he would back a revised bill to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses. Based on this pledge, Cedillo agreed to help repeal his own law. After the two came to their agreement, Cedillo asked Schwarzenegger if they should put their deal in writing. "He shook my hand," remembers Cedillo, "he looked me in the eye and said, 'No. I give you my word. I keep it.'" Of course he didn't. And he doesn't.
He promised police officers, firefighters and labor leaders he wouldn't overhaul Ăthe state's pension system if they went along with his 2004 budget proposals. They did ± and now the governor is betraying them by pushing to privatize California's pension plans and replace them with individual 401 (k)-style private accounts. This is a move right out of the Bush "Let's Privatize Social Security" playbook.
He promised voters that if they passed his balanced-budget initiative, he would "tear up the credit card and throw it away." They did Ă ± but his new budget calls for $6 billion in new borrowing. As California Treasurer Phil Angelides sums it up: "The new debts and deferrals would bring the state's total credit card balance to $31 billion, a 68 percent increase since the governor took office."
And then there's "The Truth About Arnold"
(from
Salon.com)
But Schwarzenegger's environmental record, which supporters and the national press spotlight as evidence of his moderation, is seriously flawed. The record shows that Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation requiring utilities to generate 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources. He vetoed a bill to make public schools energy-efficient, a bill to reduce energy pollution in the Port of Los Angeles and a bill to limit the use of gas-powered vehicles in wildlife refuges. He put political muscle behind November's victorious Proposition 64, which weakens the public's ability to sue corporate polluters.
Implementing his anti-labor, anti-consumer agendas, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill penalizing employers for locking workplace safety exits. He vetoed a 50-cent raise in the minimum wage, a bill requiring employers to tell employees that their e-mail is being read and a bill protecting used-car buyers from fraud. According to a UC-Davis study, Schwarzenegger reduced workers' compensation insurance benefits by as much as 70 percent, while failing to significantly lower the price of insurance.
The people's governor has consistently vetoed bills opposed by the hospital and drug and insurance industries. He rejected a reduction in prescription drug prices, a law requiring pharmacies to disclose kickbacks from drug companies, a law protecting uninsured people from excessive hospital charges, a mandate to reduce hospital-acquired infections and an attempt to improve breast cancer screening practices.
Six months into his term, an emboldened Schwarzenegger created a commission to reorganize government bureaucracy. This was nothing new. Since 1968, there have been 29 such commissions. But Schwarzenegger's version, called the California Performance Review, pursues a right-wing agenda and would centralize power in the governor's office. Focusing on ways to abolish government regulation and reduce business taxes, the panel's recommendations included killing property tax relief and renter assistance to low-income seniors and disabled people, and cutting state subsidies to child care providers. The panel advised eliminating regulatory restrictions on oil refining, weakening pesticide laws, and abolishing oversight of mining and dredging in San Francisco Bay. In January, the governor adopted many of the panel's suggestions. If the Legislature does not rubber-stamp his reorganization plan, the governor threatens to put it, and a series of constitutional amendments that disempower the Legislature -- including a redistricting plan that could give California Republicans more sway at the polls -- to a popular vote this year.
At the core of the "reform" plan is the abolition of 88 citizen-run boards that meet in public and operate independently of the governor's will. Many of these boards -- whose members are paid $100 per meeting -- make important regulatory decisions affecting workers' compensation, energy, waste management, water, seismic safety, pest control, library construction, education, guide dogs for the blind and oversight of managed-care corporations. Some of the boards targeted for elimination are responsible for licensing and monitoring technical professions, such as doctors, pharmacists, mortgage brokers, registered nurses, accountants, general contractors, dentists, optometrists, physical therapists, security guards and veterinarians.
Sadly, I don't think we'll get anywhere until people lose their
partisan blinkers and their Hollywood worship, and see what the guy is
really doing. By then, we'll be in even worse shape, I fear...
