Leadership is stated as the "process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task."
What makes leadership is the ability to get people to do what they don't want to do and like it. ~ Harry Truman
Apparently those inspirational words have been lost on California's Governor. Swept into office on a wave of Republican propaganda and manufactured resentment of the status quo our current debacle sitting in the Capitol has managed to blame everyone else for his shortcomings.
"If I don't get all of the things that we need in order to be fiscally responsible ... I will not sign a budget and it could actually drag out until the next governor gets into office," Schwarzenegger told reporters after meeting with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
In 2003 the current economic girlyman was elected and one of his first orders of business was to slash the vehicle license fees. Costing the state $5 billion annually to bail out local governments counting on those fees. Only to raisethem in last years budget.
Next on the docket was to take the debt Gray Davis acquired and borrow on it.
Second, the new governor used his star power to persuade the Legislature and the voters to borrow $15 billion to pay not only for inherited debt, but the initial car tax cut and other daily expenses. The state still is paying off those bonds and the money's long gone. The annual cost: $1.2 billion.
In 2008 the Governor signed off on a budget that was ready made to fail. Instead of addressing real causes with real solutions Schwarzenegger moved boxes around.
Last year the Governor begged, borrowed and stole from everywhere in order to patch together a budget. Recall that in May Gov. Schwarzenegger chose to draw a line in the sand... his target? California's children and poor.
Among the options Schwarzenegger presented is eliminating CalWORKS, the state’s welfare-to-work program that serves about 1.4 million poor people, most of them children, with monthly grants, job training and child care to enable parents to become self-supporting. He reneged on cutting Healthy Families, which provides health care to nearly 700,000 children from low-income families.
All the while he postures how difficult decisions have to be made to preserve California, he never bothers to mention it has been his choices that have created much havoc on the budget. His tough choiceshave been to preserve the $2.1 Billion in corporate tax cuts from last year, the number of tax loopholes enacted in previous years.
He stands by the Republican mantra of creating a business friendly state while unemployment in California is one of the highest in the nation. No jobs are being created, and data doesn't support that line of bs, but the rich keep getting richer.
I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Stomping your feet and holding your breath until you get your way is the definition of failure. At every turn Schwarzenegger has blamed others for his failures. California deserves better than a washed up body builder with delusions of preserving his legacy.