The studio audience loved Mr Schwarzenegger, who is married to Maria Shriver, John F.?Kennedy’s niece. Making his 25th appearance on the show, he was in his element sparring with Mr Leno, who poked fun at the California governor’s Austrian accent reports the Financial Times.
But he has had little to laugh about away from the television studio. In the past two weeks the former movie star has had to deal with the biggest crisis of his short political career after voters in a “special election” spurned revenue raising measures he hoped would avert financial disaster.
Hailed as the state’s saviour when he replaced Gray Davis, who was ousted in 2003, Mr Schwarzenegger’s poll ratings have reached their lowest ever. Amid a 29 per cent fall in tax revenues since last September, the state faces a budget deficit this year of $24bn (£15bn, €17bn) and the Republican governor is threatening to take a Conan the Barbarian-style sword to spending on health, education and other vital public services. “The people have spoken,” he says in a Financial Times interview. “We have to live within our means.”
With its beaches and laid-back lifestyle, California epitomises the delights and rewards of the American dream. Yet that dream appears to have soured. The state would be the eighth largest economy in the world if it were a separate country, but for the more than 36m people who live there, fiscal meltdown is threatening its very fabric.
No area of public expenditure is being spared in the effort to cut the deficit. At least 200,000 public workers are being asked to take a 5 per cent pay cut and thousands of firefighters, nurses and teachers are expected to lose their jobs. CalWorks, the programme that provides help to the poor and out of work, is to be dismantled. Grants to poor and low-income students are likely to be axed and thousands of jobs will go in the prison system. The early release of some prisoners has been mooted to save money.
Most worryingly, large cuts in Medi-Cal, the state-funded health programme, are being proposed, which would leave an estimated 2m people without adequate health insurance. Money to treat people with Aids and other serious diseases is also at risk.
“Quite frankly, people are going to die,” says Bonnie Castillo of the California Nurses Association. “The vulnerable, the sick, children, the elderly, are all going to have the rug pulled out from under them.” This picture of the poor and dying being denied help is far from the usual one of the Golden State, where a waitress can become a film star and a technology entrepreneur can create a company worth billions of dollars from a garage or basement.
One cause of the problem is the state’s dysfunctional political system. California is one of only three in the US that requires a two-thirds majority in its legislature to approve a budget. With the state’s upper and lower houses evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, securing a two-thirds majority on all but mundane matters is practically impossible. A two-thirds majority is also required to raise taxes, which limits the ability of the governor to balance the books.
California’s system of direct democracy, while laudable in aim, is another headache. “Ballot initiatives” were introduced in 1911 by Hiram Johnson, then governor, who wanted to curtail the influence of the mighty Southern Pacific Railroad and return power to the people. Since then, any issue can be put to a state-wide vote, provided half a million or so signatures are gathered to support a change in the law.
Read more here: California: A failing state