It's been interesting to watch the career of Arnold. Once the Great Republican Hope, (though never the social conservative's hope), is it just me or has he been humbled by governance, which is to say he's recognized that he can either stick to his conservative principles or keep his job? Or is that to frame it the wrong way - has he grown in office by which is meant he sees reality and lives with reality?
So he's kept his job. He's learned that the customer (the voter) is always right. In customer service it isn't true, but it's the lie they tell themselves in order to give good customer service.
A couple of striking things in yesterday's interview with George Stephanapolis that are perhaps even contradictory. One is that he does not believe Republicans should attempt to placate Latino or African-American voters. No shake-down, no payment of protection money (figuratively of course, although with Jesse it was literal). He says, rightly, we are all Americans and if we concentrate on making the country better everyone, including Latinos and African-Americans, will benefit.
But he also says that he represents California and that his job is to do whatever is best for California. This seems a defense attorney form of government in which the goal is not to get to the truth - that which is best for everyone, i.e. America - but to represent your client even if it turns out to be at the expense of society at large. And so Arnold brings up the stat that California only gets 80 cents on the dollar it contributes to the federal purse. First off, if everyone got a dollar for a dollar then who is going to pay the overhead? Because, you know, even the most efficient charities have overhead. So I'm thinking if every state got 80 cents on the dollar that's pretty darn good.
Now I'm not saying CA shouldn't get more aid. But Arnold's focus on the amount CA gets back from the Feds doesn't cut it.
My impression is that our large budget deficits are mostly caused by national programs, i.e. the military, Social Security, and Medicare. But this defense attorney form of government is at least partially the mindset that gives us budget deficits since every state wants at least, if not more, than what it put in. (Speaking of states, West Virginia benefited from tremendous federal largess via the auspices of Sen. Byrd. Has it really benefited that much though? Aren't the poverty and unemployment rates about the same now that they were back pre-Byrd?)
Anyway, as Christopher Buckley says in his novel "Supreme Courtship":
Members understand that their main job, their highest calling, their truest democratic function, is to take money from other states and funnel it to their own. What greater homage to the Founding Fathers and the men who froze at Valley Forge could there be than a civic center in Tulsa paid for by the taxpayers of Massachusetts?
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