Just Say Nein

Matt Welch | October 1, 2004

The legislative year in the state California ended yesterday, and the Austrian-oppressed Governator has vetoed nearly one-quarter of the 1,270 bills that came to his desk, "a greater percentage of bills vetoed than in all but one year since 1967," according to the L.A. Times. The peeved spokesman for the California Assembly Democrats, Steve Maviglio, complained to the LAT that

Voters are beginning to see what a Schwarzenegger Republican is, and that's a California version of George W. Bush on economic issues.

The rest of the country should be so lucky.

Comments

|10.1.04 @ 1:01PM|#

A friend asked me how being a libertarian and Libertarian influenced my voting on California's incessant stream of propositions. I told her that if it costs money, I vote against it. Period. I only wish that Arnold had gone for a real world record and vetoed ANYTHING that cost ANY amount of money, regardless of how many logs, old ladies, babies, or small-town streets it saved. It's buck-up time here in the Hollywood state. If I have to pinch pennies, so does my state. Far be it from me to heap praise on a member of the GOP, but I'm perfectly OK with Arnold's terminating pen.

|10.1.04 @ 1:06PM|#

Arnold is a California version of GW Bush? So, what has Bush vetoed?

Xrlq|10.1.04 @ 2:02PM|#

The reason that Arnold has vetoed so many more bills than George is simple: Congress is not the goofy, hard-left body that the California Legislature is. Bush has never vetoed a bill because he's never had to; every time he's threatened one, the threat itself was enough to prevent the bill from passing. If Arnold had that option, he'd use it too. He just doesn't haev that much sway with the Legislature.

Contrary to Matt's dumb aleck remark, the last thing that the rest of the country needs is to be so "lucky" as to elect a Congress that is as out of control as the California Legislature. But apparently, it would make the bean counters happy; after all, we would get more of those precious Presidential vetoes that way.

Matt Welch|10.1.04 @ 2:12PM|#

Xrlq -- "Dumb-aleck"! Well, the remark was about the governor & prez, not the respective legislatures, but now that you've brought it up, I reckon the only way you can say Bush has "never had to" veto a bill, is if you believe Congress hasn't sent him a single steaming pile of pork. And if you believe that, then I guess you're truly getting the federal government you deserve.

|10.1.04 @ 2:16PM|#

Bush has never vetoed a bill because he's never had to; every time he's threatened one, the threat itself was enough to prevent the bill from passing.

That explains McCain-Feingold.

Xrlq|10.1.04 @ 2:31PM|#

Matt: I don't think you can intelligently discuss one issue without addressing the other. If Congress churned out the same kind of crap that our Legislature does, in comparable proportions, there would be vetoes aplenty. I just don't think it would be a good thing. Counting only the actual vetoes (which Bush has never done), and not the legislation headed off by a credible threat of a veto (which Bush has done quite a few times) is as dishonest as ignoring all defensive uses of handguns except the ones where the homeowner actually kills the intruder.

That doesn't mean Bush hasn't signed any bills he should have vetoed. Federal pork is one example, and that horrible McFeingold bill is another. But those were bills he never really opposed in the first place - and it's not clear that Arnold would, either. As to CFR in particular, Bush made it clear all along that if that turkey passed, he would sign it. It did, and he did. That doesn't separate him from Arnold, who has also signed his share of bad bills. Ass. Bill 50, for example.

|10.1.04 @ 2:46PM|#

In the 2000 campaign, Bush was clear that he opposed McCain-Feingold as an infringement on free expression. One of many flip-flops.

|10.1.04 @ 2:48PM|#

Xrlg,

But those were bills he never really opposed in the first place...

Bush openly opposed McCain-Feingold before he signed it into law.

|10.1.04 @ 4:59PM|#

With all due response, Xrlq, saying "Bush signed McCain-Feingold, but Arnold signed Bill 50" is like saying "I may be a rapist, but my opponent stole gum from a candy store". The two don't even compare.

|10.1.04 @ 6:40PM|#

Matt Welch:

I reckon the only way you can say Bush has "never had to" veto a bill, is if you believe Congress hasn't sent him a single steaming pile of pork. And if you believe that, then I guess you're truly getting the federal government you deserve.

Yep, and as much as federal spending has exploded, Bush has asked for even more spending, and if the Democrats in congress had fully gotten their way, we would have had a substantially larger growth of government than even what has Bush requested!

The ones that showed relative fiscal restraint were the congressional Republicans. Democratic members of congress tend to vote for far more spending then do their GOP counterparts:

http://www.ntu.org/main/components/ratescongress/

|10.1.04 @ 6:41PM|#

Matt Welch:

I reckon the only way you can say Bush has "never had to" veto a bill, is if you believe Congress hasn't sent him a single steaming pile of pork. And if you believe that, then I guess you're truly getting the federal government you deserve.

Yep, and as much as federal spending has exploded, Bush has asked for even more spending, and if the Democrats in congress had fully gotten their way, we would have had a substantially larger growth of government than even what has Bush requested!

The ones that showed relative fiscal restraint were the congressional Republicans. Democratic members of congress tend to vote for far more spending then do their GOP counterparts:

http://www.ntu.org/main/components/ratescongress/

|10.1.04 @ 10:57PM|#

Excellent, so we're agreed: we need a Republican Congress, and anybody but Bush as president. Man, that actually makes me feel a lot better about Kerry, if I can believe that, in absence of Bush's malign influence, congressional Republicans would regain some fiscal sanity.

|10.2.04 @ 4:23AM|#

Man, that actually makes me feel a lot better about Kerry, if I can believe that, in absence of Bush's malign influence, congressional Republicans would regain some fiscal sanity

Right now, what the Republicans want is pork. What Bush wants is pork. What Kerry wants is lots more pork.

With Kerry as President, the Republicans will be left with two choices: shut down the government again, or compromise on the budget. The compromise between "pork" and "lots more pork" is not "less pork". It's "more pork". That's just simple pork mathematics. :)

|10.2.04 @ 1:12PM|#

Dan-

What the Republicans want is a little more complicated than just "pork." They want pork administered by "the good guys".

They want to know that those funds will go to faith-based charities so that the good reverend can buy a new car with siphoned funds. They want to know that those school funds will be based on standardized tests that may or may not measure important skills. (Some measure skills that will matter outside the classroom, and others measure how well your teacher prepared you for the test.) They want to know that the health care funds will go to Aurora and Kaiser and Glaxo, as well as redundant clinics in rural areas.

They would be outraged if those funds went to a secular charity and enabled the executive director (who might even be a lesbian!) to buy a new car with siphoned funds. They would be outraged if the metrics for dishing out school funding were devised by teachers' unions instead of executives at Educational Testing Service. They would be outraged if those health care funds went to redundant inner-city clinics, manufacturers of contraceptive pills, and nurses (believe it or not, a few years back reimbursements to nurse anesthesists became a minor partisan issue in my district's House race, and the dividing line seemed to be feminism as opposed to fiscal conservatism, even though nurses charge less).

Under a Kerry administration, some of the Congressional Republicans would learn to fear Leviathan again, or at least learn to fear a Leviathan run by the other side, and their demand would be less spending (for now, at least), rather than more pork.

|10.2.04 @ 5:59PM|#

Neither of the two major parties is all that serious about reigning in spending. Programs are designed all too often for their emotional appeal instead of their overall usefulness. It's passing out candy in a slick sort of way.