Governor Schwarzenegger’s independent streak, celebrated by some as a sign of his nonpartisan and judicious political philosophy, and lamented by others as an inability to deal harshly with people outside his own party, has once more begun to reappear. In his most recent budget plan, the Governor warns that, if federal bailouts are not forthcoming, he will intentionally delay the implementation of several tax breaks/credits which California has otherwise promised to extend, to the dismay of all voters for whom tax hikes are seen as correlating with economic downturn. In other words, the Governor has abandoned his party’s traditional base once more, and as always, his motives are elusive.
The hard facts, however, are not. It is surely true that, whatever Schwarzenegger’s wisdom in suggesting what amounts to a tax hike during fragile economic times, desperate times call for desperate measures, and something must be done to soothe the State’s unsustainable financial course. Unfortunately, it is also surely true that Schwarzenegger is ignoring options, though whether he is doing this purely because of outside political pressure, or because of a genuine ideological commitment to ignoring those options is up for debate.