Stephanopoulos Questions Schwarzenegger from the Left, Asks if Gray Davis is Owed an Apology

Fresh from ramrodding at least $12 Billion in new taxes down the throats of Californians, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made an appearance on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" to congratulate himself for what he seems to believe was a job well done. During the interview, Stephanopoulos played clips showing Schwarzenegger promising never to raise taxes. Perhaps predictably, Stephanopoulos implied that the Governor should be apologetic…not for breaking his pledge not to raise taxes, but for making the pledge in the first place. Stephanopoulos proceeded to exhibit an ignorance borne of ideological bias and/or Beltway provincialism when he asked California’s Chief Executive if he owed his predecessor, Gray Davis, an apology.

For his part, Schwarzenegger maintained his position in the alternate universe by suggesting that opposition from both Democrats and Republicans to the new budget was proof that he had done the right thing.

Stephanopoulos introduced the segment by highlighting the fact that a petition denouncing Schwarzenegger had been circulated at California’s Republican Convention over the weekend. Having secured reelection as Governor in November 2002, Gray Davis virtually ensured the Recall Election that led to his political demise by signing a bill tripling the State’s annual Vehicle License Fee in 2003. Schwarzenegger exploited Davis’ tax increase to its full potential, and promised to roll the car tax back to previous levels as soon as he took office. Among Schwarzenegger’s very first acts as Governor of California was the repeal of the increase in the car tax. However, in signing this budget, Schwarzenegger reneged on his promise never to increase taxes by, among other things, doubling the car tax. Stephanopoulos seized on that irony with a rather bizarre question:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So do you owe Gray Davis an apology?

Why would Schwarzenegger owe Gray Davis an apology? In agreeing to triple the car tax, Gray Davis tied the hands of the State’s car dealerships. The new car tax essentially devalued existing inventory by adding hundreds of dollars of excess cost to the purchase of each new vehicle. Dealers were forced eat the cost or risk inventory pileups due to decreased consumer demand. And would the revenues generated by the increase in the car tax even offset the corresponding losses in sales tax and income tax revenue? Gray Davis ran up a huge deficit, padding the coffers of his biggest supporters, the state public employee unions. This tax only exacerbated the deficit problem. The premise of Stephanopoulos’ question was entirely bogus. Schwarzenegger doesn’t owe Davis an apology for using the car tax increase to run him out of office. He owes Californians an apology for increasing that and other taxes after promising never to do so.

Beyond misrepresenting the massive tax increase he passed by referring to it as a “revenue increase”, Schwarzenegger answered with his standard dodging cliché about “bringing Democrats and Republicans together”. As an aside, the terms “tax” and “fee” have more than rhetorical significance in this debate. In California, 2/3 of the State Legislature must vote in favor of tax increases in order for them to pass to the Governor. However a fee increase only requires a simple majority of the State Legislature and the Governor’s signature. State Democrats have often misused the word “fee” (as in Vehicle License Fee) to make an end around the 2/3 requirement. A simple majority of the State Assembly and State Senate passed the tripling of the Vehicle License Fee, and Davis signed it into law. When Schwarzenegger reversed the Vehicle License Fee, Democrats in California howled over the loss of “tax revenue” to the State.

Not simply content to admonish Schwarzenegger on Davis’ behalf, Stephanopoulos hinted that Schwarzenegger’s mistake was promising not to raise taxes, not breaking that promise.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But back in 2003, you were unequivocal, "I will not raise taxes." You ran that car tax issue so hard. So -- so as you look back, was it wrong to make the promise?

After Schwarzenegger made the ridiculous claim that it wasn’t wrong to make the false promise because he supposedly “hates” tax increases, Stephanopoulos responded with a whopper of epic proportions…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But so did Gray Davis. And he just felt the budget crisis made it necessary.

Anyone with even a passing interest in California politics knows that far from hating tax increases, Gray Davis saw tax increases as a first resort, not the last one. It was Davis who negotiated the unsustainable contract with the State Prison Guard Union, who expanded the Cal Grant program, who earmarked the hiring of 40,000 new state employees, who signed a bill granting driver licenses to illegal immigrants and who campaigned for increased school and environmental spending. Gray Davis did not hate tax increases. However, with that misrepresentation still dangling out there, Stephanopoulos further pushed Schwarzenegger to reject his Party’s position on tax increases.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So when you -- we're looking at a similar budget crisis in the coming years here in the United States. Does the Republican Party have to re-think its absolute opposition to tax increases of any kind?

In fairness, Stephanopoulos did press the Governor about his splits with his own Party, even asking him why he remained a Republican given those rather significant differences. But he failed to elicit more than the typical self-serving platitudes from Schwarzenegger. He never challenged the Governor on how these taxes will cost the State more private sector jobs, on why Schwarzenegger conspired with the State’s public unions against the interests of California’s citizens, about why he ran away from his responsibilities to the taxpayers and instead embraced the job-killing environmentalist “Global Warming” agenda. Stephanopoulos even let Schwarzenegger get away with using Antonio Villaraigosa, the failed Mayor of Los Angeles, as a prime example of why the open primary provision in the new budget was worth the back breaking tax increase.

Whether Stephanopoulos knows it or not, he passed up a significant opportunity to better inform the public about this budget fight. While scolding Republicans for attempting to hold the line on tax increases, he failed to address all the profligate government spending that led to the crisis in the first place. The public sector unions, the trial lawyers, the unreasonable environmental regulations, the punitive sales taxes and resulting earmarked “public interest” slush funds, the legalized theft of those revenues from the slush funds to the general fund, the wasteful infrastructure and social welfare programs and the freebies doled out to illegal immigrants all caused the financial disaster in California. Schwarzenegger’s budget only makes the crisis worse as businesses, taxpayers and their tax revenues continue to leave the State. In failing to address these symptoms, Stephanopoulos was either masking these concerns because of his ideology or avoiding them due to his regional ignorance. Either way, he committed journalistic malpractice and it’s fair to ask whether a former partisan spokesman has any place moderating an ostensibly objective news program.