|
Schwarzenneger
must address spending issues
Let
me first say that I like Arnold Schwarzenneger.
I think it's great for California to have
a kindergarten cop policing what I believe
to be a sophomoric, fumbling legislature
torn by partisan bickering. Sacramento produces
more bad ideas than good ones, most of which
eventually find their rightful place as
crumpled pieces of paper floating down the
Sacramento River.
During
the recall election, it seemed very clear
to Californians that the Legislature and
former Governor Gray Davis had failed us.
Change was needed. Cue Schwarzenegger. Backed
with an already amazingly successful life
story, he entered the spotlight with vision
and unprecedented criticism. The Terminator?
Detective John Kimble? Sacramento? For some,
it didn't add up.
After
an initial flare of election promises, earning
a substantial portion of the vote and a
moderately successful first year in office,
the Arnold of today faces his biggest problems
and his most scathing criticism.
Of
greatest concern to us, the students, are
the budget cuts to education and rising
tuition. I don't like it, and I'm sure you
don't either. But despite our displeasure,
the facts remain. Education costs money,
but a considerable amount is wasted or misused
as it trickles through the hands of the
bureaucracy. In fact, according to the State
of California Department of Finance, 52
to 55 percent of the State General Fund
Budget goes to K-12 and higher education
expenses.
Maybe
it's because I'm not a math major, but if
over half the budget of the world's fifth-largest
economy goes to a single large entity, it
should be enough. Apparently it's not. I
propose the following. Rather than complaining
to our government, and specifically, Senator
Arnold, about not providing enough money
for education, we should investigate how
the money currently being distributed is
spent. The bureaucratic administrators in
charge of our education need a systematic
review of where our dollars are going and
why. After all, it was not Arnold or even
the legislature who said we need a tuition
raise. That raise was just a reaction to
the education administration lobbying for
more money because over half of the budget
simply was not enough.
Does
anyone else smell greed or mismanagement
here?
The
question of mismanagement brings me to a
second issue that Arnold, a fiscal conservative,
fights about continuously with his Democratic
majority colleagues. He wants across-the-board
budget cuts, meaning nothing is spared.
His State of the State Address said California
does not have a revenue problem, it has
a spending problem. The numbers don't lie.
California's revenue increased by $5 billion
since last year, and even with that increase
it will stay in deficit mode because of
problematic laws and formulas in the state
budget. This has to be changed.
Arnold
believes increasing taxes is not the answer,
and that the money needs to be used more
efficiently through cuts and "blowing
up the boxes" of Sacramento's bureaucracy.
This seems the most sensible solution to
me, because increasing taxes simply skates
around the problem at hand — bad spending.
Arnold
vowed to fight special interest groups hurting
the people of California. Yet in a manner
seemingly against his word, Arnold supports
the "special interests" of big
business. Why does he do this? I've got
some very good reasons. Businesses provide
jobs and lots of them. Businesses of all
sizes provide work, from the McDonald's
Corporation to a little corner store in
Belmont Shore. Businesses bring money to
the state. Businesses bring people and power
to this state. It is because of business
that California has the world's fifth-largest
economy. Arnold supports that broad category
of business because they bring money into
the state, not out.
The
days ahead will be filled with fascinating
political heroism and idiocy from all sides
of the political spectrum. I encourage all
students to watch the news as the budget
gets re-worked into something that hopefully
will be the best for California.
Bradley
Zint is a second year journalism major and
the calendar editor for the Online Forty-Niner.
|
