August 20, 2003

I’m Voting for Arnold.

Arnold just held a brilliant press conference. He was surrounded by a team of advisors – roughly 8 on his left and another 8 on his right. To his immediate left was Warren Buffet; to his right was George Schultz. He said he was going to cut spending rather than raise taxes.

“I will not raise taxes,” Schwarzenegger said in his remarks to reporters after the meeting with his advisors. “Economic recovery depends on reform.”

Buffett said that the difficulties California is facing are fixable—he said California is the wealthiest state in the nation and it can be done.

Arnold said that even the mere presentation by the state of its economic status is a mess:

“No one, not even economic and academic leaders, could figure out and make heads or tails of the state’s budget,” he said.

He said in business you can’t make good decisions based on inaccurate information. He said that when he gets elected he will immediately hire an auditing firm free of political ties which will audit the state’s economic status to figure out where the money is in fact going. He said this will be a 60-day action.

“This problem was not created in two weeks. We’re not going to be able to solve the problem in two weeks, and anyone out there telling the people of California otherwise is just a typical politician,” Schwarzenegger said.

The candidate said that Californians are taxed from the minute they get up in the morning and “flush their toilets.”

“Additional taxes are the last thing we need to put on the books of the citizens and businesses of California,” he said.

Contrast that with Bustamante, who evidently thinks he can fix a $38 billion deficit with $8 billion in new taxes and $5 billion in spending cuts. Give me a break.

“Maria [Shriver] and I teach our children basic principles,” [Schwarzenegger] said. “We teach them, don’t spend more money than they have, and that is what I will teach in Sacramento.”

This is the guy, folks.