After months of waiting for another chance to use the New America Foundation’s mind-reading machine (the boys back at DC headquarters have been hogging it for use on Ahmadinejad), I finally got some time with it last week, and pointed it in the direction of the governor’s head.
Here’s what the machine spit out:
“It’s kind of nice being a Republican again.
I almost left the party, you know. Some of my genius advisors wanted me to do that before the special election—they thought it’d be easier to sell the measures if I were a decline to state. Maybe they were right. The GOP is in a bad place. But what I’ve learned in my second term is that the only thing worse than being a Republican these days is being a Democrat.
My personality and celebrity is so big that the media, or what’s left of it, is missing the real story.
Here’s the tale in a nutshell: I tried to give Democrats what they say they want– universal health care and higher taxes. I did this at huge political cost to myself.
And they said no.
1. Let’s take health care first. I was willing to raise all kinds of fees – which got me called a traitor and a promise-breaker by Republicans – in order to make sure everyone in California had health insurance. I was wiling to create an individual mandate for everyone to purchase health care and to force insurance companies to sell to everyone—which is sort of socialist. But I withstood the pressure from my own party and stuck to my guns. Remember, not a single Republican was prepared to vote for my health care proposal.
The speaker worked with me and we got the legislation through the assembly. But in the senate, the liberal folks who wanted single payer worked with Republicans to kill it.
Just think about that for a second. The liberal Democrats had me, a Republican governor, willing to do universal coverage. We brought all these interest groups to the table.
But these foreheads—the very left and some of the union people – said: No, not now. We can do better.
That’s insane. Just look at Washington right now. The Democrats have 60 votes in the senate. They have a president who wants to health care reform. And they can’t even get as far as I did. And wouldn’t it have been helpful for national Democrats now if they could point to successful legislation passed and defended by a Republican governor of California? This state could have shown the way to health care reform.
Now I’m sure if you talk to the foreheads, they’ll tell you that they’re going to get a single payer paradise under Gov. Newsom. Good luck with that. Why don’t you send me a note in 2011 (I’ll be in my Jacuzzi full-time then) and let me know how that’s working out?
2. Taxation. No one seems to remember it since it was a whole five months ago, but in February, I actually signed a budget that raised income, sales and even the car tax for the next two years. Yes, the car tax – the very same vehicle license fee I built my campaign for governor around cutting. I repeat: I raised taxes. Yes, I do have brass balls, if I do say so myself. And I dropped in the polls like Lou Ferrigno in a pose-off, as I knew I would.
People also forget that the deal we cut in February would have extended those tax increases for another 2 years if voters approved Prop 1A. They also forget that I got moderate Republicans to go along and vote for this thing. For voting for tax increases, they basically got eaten alive by their own party. At least one of them faces a recall. But those Republicans supported the deal, and I went out and campaigned for it, additional taxes and all.
And what do the unions and liberals do? They oppose the tax increase. Because they don’t like the soft rainy day fund and spending limit that we attached (and which were absolutely necessary to get the Republican votes we got). It wasn’t a hard cap. It wouldn’t have prevented future tax increases. But the foreheads opposed it anyway.
And you know what, that was fair as far it went. The foreheads were within their rights. But then! Then they win the election, beat 1A through 1E, and suddenly they’re mad at me for not raising taxes. Hello? I just raised taxes and you opposed me!
So let’s review: I commit political suicide once on health care and the foreheads fought me. I committed political suicide a second time (taking the few moderates in the party brave enough to vote to keep the state in a ditch) and pushed for taxes, and they opposed me. You’ll forgive me for not committing political suicide a third time.
The foreheads say I went back to the right in the last two months. Excuse me, but what other choice did they leave me? I’m quite sure that if I would have introduced a budget after late May that increased taxes again, those guys on the left would have found some way to oppose me again.
And so now, when we get this terrible budget, full of health cuts that I hate (remember: I’m the guy who put my neck on the line for universal coverage), this is somehow my fault? You want someone to blame, foreheads? Try a f—–g mirror.
No one in the press will write this. But it’s the liberals who are kicking kids off health insurance, who are making it harder to stay on CalWORKS, who have forced the tuition increases at the universities, who are making it so hard to pay back education, who screwed the local governments. I’ve spent nearly six years in office trying to save us from having to do these things.
There are a couple lessons here:
1. California liberals hate Republicans – even a Republican like me – more than they like advancing progressive policies.
2. Republicans are right about at least one thing—you really can’t help people who won’t help themselves.
Which is too bad. For a while there, I was a hell of a good Democrat.