Famous Gassed Words

Matt Welch | January 11, 2006

From California's illegal-motorcyclist in chief, Arnold Schwarzenegger:

When I ran [for office], I thought it was easier to balance the budget.... But it is very, very difficult.

So difficult that the Austrian Oak has basically given up, using an unplanned surplus carry-over to patch the hole in his spendtastic 2006-07 budget, and proposing a $68 billion bond issue for infrastructure. Says Sac Bee columnist Dan Walters:

The fine print of the voluminous budget reveals just how much spending, and deficits, have increased under Schwarzenegger. The $97.9 billion in general fund spending that he proposes for 2006-07 would be $18.1 billion or 22.7 percent more than his first budget spent two years ago, historic data show, while revenues would have increased by just $9 billion.

Links all harvested at Rough & Tumble.