Remember when Arnold wanted to sell all the state properties? And remember how that selling the properties won’t actually help the budget mess? Well, it turns out Arnold has noticed that his idea of, um, about a month ago was pretty dumb:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday said this is the wrong time to consider selling state assets — less than a month after he proposed doing just that.
During a news conference in Escondido, the governor responded to a question about his proposal to sell the Del Mar Fairgrounds and other state properties. He announced the proposal in May as part of his revised plan to address a $24.3 billion budget deficit.
He acknowledged the timing was poor. The commercial real estate market is just one part of California’s economy that has been pummeled by the recession.
“And it’s also not always the best time right now, when we are in a financial crisis where people pay you much less for those properties, to go out and sell them immediately,” Schwarzenegger said. (AP 6/14/09)
So, basically, 4 weeks ago, you were young and immature, and, um stupid. Thing is, that a bunch of bloggers around here, in addition to Asm. Evans, said it was a dumb idea back then. The question is then, a) who comes up with all of these bad ideas and b) why do they make it out of the Horseshoe?
What’s up with Arnold trying to make Dan Quayle look brilliant?
… by his own anti-tax ideology. If you can’t raise taxes ever ever ever, you have to resort to desperate measures to make up the difference.
I do give him a little credit, though; he will admit to mistakes, and a lot of politicians won’t.
The plan for selling assets was one of the parts that emerged from Arnold’s Big Lie, that he could pay for the car tax cuts by getting rid of waste and mismanagement.
This was studied extensively when it was first released, and one by one, the proposals for selling the really valuable assets, like the Del Mar or the Orange County Fair Grounds, were shown to be completely unworkable for dozens of compelling reasons. Then the local Republicans legislators rebelled against selling the assets in their districts, and they weren’t about to come up with a plan for selling assets in Dem districts only.
But Arnold and his handlers are smart enough to realize that our media has absolutely no institutional memory now, and that you can peddle ridiculous failed ideas over and over again. While a plan like this should immediately draw withering criticism as the revival of a stupid idea, instead it’s news all over again.