The Governor spoke at the Sacramento Press Club yesterday and decided to use it as some sort of long-range brain storm session. Hey, why not build prisons in Mexico?

“We pay them to build a prison down in Mexico and then we have those undocumented immigrants be down there in the prison,” he added. “Half the cost to build the prisons and half the cost to run the prisons. That is money, again, a billion dollars right there that can go into higher education. That is an example of one of the things we do that is unnecessary spending.”

Schwarzenegger’s idea had not been vetted. The Governor’s Office was unable to answer, for instance, whether he would like to send all illegal immigrant prisoners to Mexico or just those who have Mexican citizenship. (SacBee)

You know, this sounds like a great idea. How about this, we find a huge island, ship ALL of our prisoners there, and forget about them. Hey, it worked for Australia, right? They’re doing fine there.  And if it doesn’t work we have some great reality TV or movie scripts.

But, even if we are able to build a prison in Mexico, this doesn’t come close to solving any of our current problems. We still would have to come up with the cash to build that prison, and then would have to set up a transfer process. And that doesn’t even begin to factor the possibly huge legal expenses that we’d incur in trying to ship prisoners (especially non-Mexican prisoners) to Mexico.

Look, I’m all about brain storming, and frankly, he’s had far worse ideas than this. But this is why we have offices (without tape recorders this time Arnold)). The underlying fact is that our prisons really can’t wait for several years for some action, they need some answers now.

Arnold Schwarzenegger made a big splash with his budget earlier this month, calling on the federal government to deliver $7 billion to the state or else the kids get hit. As if hostage tactics weren’t enough to piss off the feds, Arnold went around claiming that California’s Democratic congressional delegation had failed to bring home its share of the federal bacon. One might assume that pissing off Democrats facing re-election battles, including those facing off against Arnold’s former finance director, would be a poor way to make your case, but it didn’t stop Arnold.

Instead of giving into his temper tantrum, Senator Barbara Boxer pointed out that in fact CA got a lot more money from the feds in 2009 than we gave in tax dollars, suggesting she’s actually done a pretty damn good job of getting federal aid for her state.

In fact, as the California Budget Project points out, Boxer understated the case:

Never one to accept someone else’s data without question, we reviewed the data and assumptions behind the data. Our own analysis suggests that California actually receives $1.50 back for each dollar in taxes paid, a figure slightly higher than the Senator’s.

The irony is compounded when you consider that Arnold prefers to replace Barbara Boxer with Tom Campbell, who would immediately vote to slash federal spending and join a GOP caucus determined to finish what Bush started and destroy government’s ability to fund its services – a GOP caucus that would have not authorized a dime of the $787 billion stimulus a year ago that’s kept California afloat, and certainly won’t do so again.

Already Arnold’s temper tantrum has cost the state more funds. By calling out Ben Nelson’s Medicare deal, Arnold ensured that the deal was tacitly abandoned by the White House in negotiations with Congress, instead of extended to all 50 states. And the louder Arnold complains and demands a special deal for California, the less likely it is that he’ll get one.

As Jean Ross wrote, California and the other 49 states most certainly deserve and need federal aid:

We strongly believe that there’s a case to be made for federal aid to all states, not just California. With most states facing serious budget shortfalls, there’s reason to fear that another round of state and local government budget cuts could push the nation back into recession or, at a minimum, delay what is already anticipated to be a weak recovery. We hope the Governor will change his tune, join with his fellow governors, and call on Congress and the President to build on the success of the ARRA by providing states additional funds to blunt the impact of budget-balancing efforts.

But Arnold, in typical fashion, prefers to bluster on TV to actually doing the hard work of lining up support and votes for federal aid to the states, and prefers to try and screw Democrats in order to advance the electoral goals of his fellow Republicans.

Worst. Governor. Ever.

“Arnold is nothing if not an optimist. He’s first and foremost a showman. And a showman doesn’t let you see him being a bummer.”

-Brian Leubitz

Arnold is nothing if not an optimist. He’s first and foremost a showman. And a showman doesn’t let you see him being a bummer. So, why not put out a budget that is “exceedingly unlikely” to be any where near realistic.

The nonpartisan legislative analyst warned Tuesday that lawmakers will have to work quickly to solve the state’s budget deficit, with cuts needing to be in place by the end of March, and called the odds of getting nearly $7 billion from the federal government “almost nonexistent.” (SF Chronicle)

Of course, this is nothing that any casual political observer couldn’t predict. Sure, it gets the air of a lot more authority when spoken by Mac Taylor, the Legislative Analyst, but anybody who has watched Congress over the last 13 months will be aware that there is a teensy bit of resistance of anything that could be described in the media as a “bailout.” And given the nature of the California budget crisis, you’d be hard pressed to describe a federal intervention as anything but a bailout.  That the amount requested by the governor of the largest state in the union is dwarfed by the amount given to an insurance company founded in Shanghai in 1919 (AIG) seems not to matter at this point. Apparently, a bailout is a bailout is a bailout.

That being said, if Congress is looking for a jobs program, California’s budget is an easy target.  If we don’t get additional money, look for big job cuts. Arnold seems intent on pushing CalWORKS and IHSS towards the gallows in his hostage program. Both would be massive losses for the California economy and the basic level of decency in our state. Whatever your feelings about welfare, the qualitative and quantitative indicators of success are there http://www.co.sanmateo.ca.us/p…

But Arnold is a showman, and he can bluff with the best of them.  What he’s got up his sleeve this time is anybody’s guess.  But after 6 years, his end goals seem to be consistent. He will slash the social safety net and do whatever he can to help corporations.   So whether Arnold has his plans based in the bluest of blue skies, expect the clouds to return soon enough.

Every so often, Arnold Schwarzenegger attempts to sell the bipartisan/post-partisan schtick to the nation. He’ll talk about how he really, really supports health care reform, but then, back here in Sacramento, continue to fight for the insurance companies.  He’ll talk about his environmental efforts, and then do everything he can do to undermine AB 32 back at home.

So, his Meet the Press appearance this weekend was really no big surprise.  He spoke of the themes from the State of the State. It’s the soft sell, while at home he works to slash and burn through what’s left of our state services.

Over the flip, find the full transcript of the appearance from the Meet the Press website.

MR. GREGORY:  And we’re back with our special broadcast from California.

Governor Schwarzenegger, good morning.

GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R-CA):  How are you today?

MR. GREGORY:  It’s always, it’s always nice to come home to California. Thank you for having us.

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Absolutely.

MR. GREGORY:  This has been a big week for you with your State of the State message and a new budget.  And 2010 begins in a challenging place for a lot of states, including California, in this economy.  Do you feel like the worst is over?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think that economically the worst is over.  I–we see a little comeback when it comes to job creation.  We see also that, you know, homes have been sold again and that home sales are up, and I think that very soon you will see construction again and, and new homes and so on.  But when it comes to the financial crisis that California is in, I think we’re not out of the woods yet, as I said in my State of the State and in my budget speech, in that we still have a tough road ahead of us.  And this year is one of those tough years.

MR. GREGORY:  And for the country as well.  When you think, not just about California, but the country and economic recovery, what do you think is the biggest threat to that recovery?  Is it unemployment?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think that we have to get the economy back.  I think that we have to have money available, loans available so businesses can expand again and people can buy homes.  I think that we just have to get the jobs back as quickly as possible.  That’s why we have tax incentives for people that want to buy new or used homes.  And we just want to do everything that we can as a state and as a country to stimulate the economy.  That’s the key thing because I think that the worst is when people lose their jobs and they have to go home to their family and say, you know, “I have no more money.  We cannot provide for the family,” and so on.  Or when both of the parents lose their jobs, it gets even tougher.  And that’s as–is the case in a lot of families.  And so we have to do everything that we can.  That’s government’s responsibility to stimulate the economy and to help.

MR. GREGORY:  The federal government is spending a lot of money in stimulus, preparing to do so on healthcare reform, if that gets passed.  And there’s a lot of talk about taxes, whether taxes will be necessary on the national level, or even when you’re facing a $20 billion shortfall.  David Ignatius wrote something, a columnist for The Washington Post, that caught my attention, and he wrote, “What worries me, looking ahead,” thinking about the whole country, “is what might be called the `Californiazation’ of America – the growing tendency of our political system to make promises in social spending programs that it isn’t prepared to pay for with tax increases.” Think about California.  How can you stick to a position, as you do, that tax increases are not the way to go?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Well, first of all, we have no option because if you do the tax increases, you immediately kind off stifle the economy.  So right now, where we try to get the–where we see that the economy’s bottomed out and it has a chance now to come back, to go in now, to hit the state with more taxes will be the wrong thing to do.  So what you want to do is you want to do the opposite.  You want to go and put money into the economy and you want to go and give tax incentives for businesses, for new hires, as we did, or for retraining people or for homebuyers’ tax credits and so on.  So I think that it would be a big mistake.  I think that the, the thing that politicians should not do is promise things they can’t keep in that they have no funding mechanism to go and follow through with those promises.  Like, for instance, in California, with the pensions, the public employees? pension.  I mean, it’s a disaster because in the, in the late ’90s, they were promised things that there’s no way the state can keep those promises.  And that’s why I said that we have got to get Democrats and Republicans together and, and fix this problem, because right now we are paying already more than $3 billion towards the pensions, and eventually that amount is going to go up to $10 billion. That’s money that’s being taken away from very important programs–universities, schools, health care and all those kind of other things.

MR. GREGORY:  When you think about the federal government’s budget, which doesn’t have to be brought into–to alignment the way a state budget, like California’s, do you think taxes have to go up to pay for stimulus, to pay for health care?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think that the government has to live within its means.  And, of course, the big advantage that the federal government has is they can ran up–run up those deficits and they can print more money, whereas the state can’t.  And I try to tell the people in California, when you have $85 billion in revenues available, that’s all you can spend, that’s end of that, even though they may want to spend 104 or $105 billion.  And so you have to make the necessary cuts because we’ve got to live within our means.  We cannot print more money in this state.  We cannot go and run up those deficits, as the federal government does.

MR. GREGORY:  You called some of the cuts that you put forward in your budget draconian cuts, by your own admission.

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  One of the things you said so strongly is the federal government has got to come to California’s aid.  What do you mean?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Well, it’s not so much coming to our aid.  The federal government owes us billions of dollars.  You see, there’s a difference.  I mean, in California, one’s got 94 cents to the dollar that we’re putting in on federal taxes.  Now we only get 78 cents.  But you have places like, for instance, Alaska that gets $1.86.  You have New Mexico that gets $2.03.  So we are subsidizing those states.  And that is the thing that is unfair.  So what we’re saying to the federal government, “Look, you are responsible for our border security.  You’re responsible for immigration and for all of those kind of things that, you know, you–if you fix those problems, if you help us, you know, with the incarceration of undocumented immigrant, which costs us almost a billion dollars, yeah, then we can talk.  But right now, you’re not wanting to pay any of those things.” So it is unfair that we are paying in $1 and getting back 78 cents on the dollar.  And so we tried to fix that, and it’s not a bailout at all.  It’s just being fair, and it’s federal fairness, not federal bailout.

MR. GREGORY:  What about the stimulus?  Does it help California?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think the stimulus was very helpful to California, and I think that–I was a big supporter of the stimulus package.  I think they have given us money, and–if it has to do with transportation or with high technology and with all kinds of different things, with our universities and so on, so we were very appreciative.  But it’s one-time money.  One should always know the difference between one-time money and ongoing money.  One-time money, that’s here today, gone tomorrow.  Ongoing money, when I talk about, you know, increasing the level from 78 cents to 90 cents, that’s an ongoing thing.  Or when we talk about health care, that you have health care where we are owed billions of dollars in health care, that’s ongoing.  So we want to make those adjustments with the federal government and work with them so that it’s more fair.

MR. GREGORY:  What happens if California doesn’t get the money that you feel it deserves from the federal government?  What then?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Well, first of all, you know, I never really think so much about the Option B because it’s a loser’s attitude.  I think you always have to just think about–even though it has been difficult up until now to get that money, we’ve been fighting for it for six years, but we never give up.  And it’s just like with the redistricting reform.  Journalists always ask me, they say, “Well, wait a minute.  It has lost now five times.  Why are you back the sixth time with redistricting reform?  Don’t you get it that the people vote no?” And I said, “No, I never give up.” I come from the sports background.  Just because you didn’t lift the weight one time, did you give up, never try it again?  No.  There’s no such thing.  So we’re going to be back.

And then in, in redistricting reform the sixth time, we won.  And the same is with this.  We will never give up.  We continue pushing.  This time we’re going to go back with the four legislative leaders of California, Democrats and Republicans alike, and keep pushing and talking to the federal government and letting them know that it is unfair the way the money’s being distributed right now.  And so we also will inspire and push extra hard the California congressional delegation, the bipartisan delegation, because they’re not being–representing us really well in this case.  I mean, you know, if you think about that the Senate just voted for a healthcare bill that is saying basically that California should pay for Nebraska so that Nebraska never has to pay any extra money, and we have to…

MR. GREGORY:  To expand the Medicaid rolls?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  To expand the Medicaid.  And so if–we have to pay 3, $4 billion extra for those states?

MR. GREGORY:  You said the president should rethink healthcare reform.

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Absolutely, because that’s not healthcare reform, to go and to put that extra burden, billions of dollars, on other states, especially on California.  Just because we’re the best state in the world and the best place in the world and we are the most diversified economy and everyone wants to come to California is no reason to beat up on California and to always ask for more money from California.

MR. GREGORY:  Do–is that how you…

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think it’s time for the federal government to go and do–take care of us.

MR. GREGORY:  Is that how you think about healthcare reform as something that ultimately would beat up on California?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Yes, it is.  Right now it is.  And I just cannot imagine why we would have, like I said, you know, for instance, you know, our senators and congressional people, how they would vote for something like that where they’re representing Nebraska and not us.  And by the way, as I said in my State of the State, that’s the biggest rip-off.  I mean, that is against the law to buy a vote.  I mean…

MR. GREGORY:  You’re talking about Senator Nelson, who got…

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  As Senator Nelson.  That’s like buying a vote to say, “Hey, it’s–I’m going”…

MR. GREGORY:  The federal government will pay for their Medicaid expansion.

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  “I’m holding out my vote unless I get some extra kind of benefits here.” I mean, if you do that in Sacramento, you know, you will be sued.  It is illegal to do that, to buy votes.

MR. GREGORY:  Can I ask you a couple more California issues?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Yeah.

MR. GREGORY:  One of the things you talked about that got a lot of attention is your pledge to move money out of the state budget from prisons into higher education.  I don’t have to tell you, the, the University of California system has raised fees for students.  What is the future of education in California?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think the future of education in California is great. I think we still have the best university system in the world.  The key thing is that we reform education from kindergarten through 14, especially kindergarten through 12th.  Because it is inexcusable for what we had up until now, and we were fighting to change that for years now, and finally we were able to change it.  Just the other day I signed legislation to reform education.  It’s inexcusable that children get stuck in low-performing schools and you cannot get them out without the school principal’s permission.  Of course the school principal will never give you the permission, because it will be–he will be losing money if he lets a kid go out.  So they are stranded–they’re strapped there.  As I said, it was like a chain in the exit door–on the exit doors.  And now we finally changed that.  Or, for instance, that parents cannot be involved in the schools, cannot be involved in which direction a school or education should go.  Now they have, with that reform, they have a chance to turn low-performing schools or failing schools into charter schools or close the school down or move the kids out of the school or fire the school principal or teachers and so on and so forth.  So those are the kind of things, those are the kind of reforms we need to do.  And I’m glad that finally both parties got together and created those reforms that we have been fighting for for years.  And here’s a good example of a good relationship with the federal government, because the Obama administration was very instrumental–Arne Duncan, the Education secretary, to push the states to say, “Here’s $4.3 billion for you guys.  You can apply and compete for this money.” And we can get $700 million, so that kind of put it over the top.  So there, there was, you know, the federal government very helpful in this.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me ask you a little bit about President Obama.  Do you think he’s doing a good enough job keeping America safe?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think that he’s doing everything that he can.  I think that, you know, Democrats a lot of times get the rap, you know, they’re not strong on security and all of those kinds of things.  I think that he has talked about the issues, I think that he’s been fighting for the issues.  This was an unfortunate situation of what happened over Christmas, and I think that it’s a total failure in the communication within the departments.  Let–when you look back, all of the instances that are happening, it’s always been to say, “Well, we, we, we had everything in place, but we didn’t pass on–the dots were not connected,” or something like that.  It’s not like the president has done something wrong, or because he was in Hawaii or anything else.  It’s nothing to do with that at all.  What it has to do with is just simply they didn’t connect the dots.  Within the agencies, within the airport authorities and Homeland Securities and the CIA and everyone else, they just don’t connect the dots.

And we have–we had this problem before we started creating Homeland Security also here in California.  Where California, the law enforcement did not really communicate well with the FBI.  They didn’t want to give them certain information, and the FBI didn’t want to give information to law enforcement, all of this, all this territorial fighting going on.  And I think that that has to get–we have to get rid of that problem and connect the dots.  Other than that, I will say we have very smart people in the leadership.  It’s just working together is always the hardest thing to do.

MR. GREGORY:  Working together.  As you come to the, the last year of your tenure as governor, where do you fit in the Republican Party of today?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I’m a reformer.  I’m an independent reformer.  I came into this job here saying that I want, want to be the people’s governor, not the Republican Party’s governor, but the people’s governor.  I want to represent Democrats and Republicans.  I want to do everything that I can to bring Democrats and Republicans together.  That’s why I’ve been talking so much about post-partisanship, bipartisanship or none partisanship.  I think it’s extremely important, the action is, to bring both of the parties together and to look at what they can do together rather than to just talk about what they want to fight over.  Let’s do it together.  Let’s go in the beginning of the year and say, “Here are the things that need to be done,” and then get them to work together on those things.

We, in California, even though California is known as a state that is not governable–it is very hard to govern in California, probably the toughest state to govern in the United States, but still we got a lot of things done. I mean, I’m very proud–when you look–I always run around with this list, David.  And I put this down:  workers compensation reform, done; budget reform, not done.  We still have to fight for that.  You know, rebuilding our levees, rebuilding our roads, rebuilding our schools, more affordable housing, rebuilding our prisons, water infrastructure, those things were done.  But then tax reform was not done.  You know, campaign finance reform was not done. Open primaries was not done.  So, you know, I think that we have a lot of things we got done, even though Democrats and Republicans fight.  But I think it is much easier when people take party out of the way.  And I know it is very hard to do, but you got to be a servant to the people, not to your party.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think the, the Republican Party is doing that of today, nationally?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I think both of the parties are not doing that because it is so political.  It’s more–they’re thinking more about the party than about the people.  And I think that as soon as both parties come together and have regular meetings and say, “What can we accomplish together,” rather than just worrying about, “How do we get elected?” and “How do we get more people elected for the Republican Party?” and how to get more elected for the Democratic Party, all of this–I know it’s part of politics to do that.  But I think that we should tone that down and lift up of what is important, really, and for the people.  Look, this country need to rebuild itself.  We are still living off the Eisenhower era and off the Roosevelt era when they built the thousands of bridges and the thousands of government buildings and the roads, the highway system and all of those things.  What’s the new thing that we’re building?  We haven’t built anything in decades.  We need a high speed rail. We need new infrastructure.  We need to think about it because we have countries like China and Europe that are very fast gaining on us and surpassing us.  So we got to get our act together and really make this country kind of live in the 21st century, not be with the infrastructure in the 20th century.

MR. GREGORY:  As you look at the political landscape nationally, given your views about the party, do you think the Republican Party’s poised for some big gains in this election year?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Without any doubt.  But not because some miracle was happening that they did or that the Democrats didn’t do.  That’s–by nature, you always see that; that, you know, there’s a huge momentum–two years ago it was a huge momentum for the Democratic Party because the Republicans were in charge for so, so many years.  And they’ve done a good job, the Republicans. But it–the momentum of swinging the other way, and so the Democrats got all the votes.  So now I think the pendulum is coming back and it’s going the other way, and I think that the Republicans are really going to benefit this year from that.  And, you know, they will have then a chance to come up with some good ideas and how to go in the right direction for the country.

MR. GREGORY:  Final question:  What’s ahead for Arnold Schwarzenegger?  Is it politics or is it Hollywood?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  I don’t even think about my next move at all.  I’m thinking about this year.  Because there’s so much, so, so much opportunity this year in tax reform and budget reform, and to really move the state forward in the various different areas that we need to move the state forward and bring in both of the parties together and to get our infrastructure, the water infrastructure passed.  (Loud noise off camera) Pay no attention, it’s just a little earthquake.

MR. GREGORY:  When you speak, things happen.  Yeah.

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  See, see, in California, when there’s a noise, the governor never shakes or worries about it because earthquakes happen all the time.

MR. GREGORY:  Right, right.  I’m an L.A. guy.  You think I would have…

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  You’re an–from L.A., exactly.  That’s right, exactly. But anyway, so that’s the bottom line.  I am not thinking about myself, I’m thinking about the state.  That’s the key thing.  And then when I’m finished, then I can always think about myself.

MR. GREGORY:  All right.  Will you run for political office again?

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Well, you never say never.  But, I mean, you know, right now I have no plans, period.

MR. GREGORY:  Governor Schwarzenegger, thank you very much.

GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER:  Thank you.

MR. GREGORY:  Appreciate it.