Large headlines in many California newspapers greeted the word
early this year that the state’s congressional delegation now
boasts six major committee chairmen.
Large headlines in many California newspapers greeted the word early this year that the state’s congressional delegation now boasts six major committee chairmen.
The newest is Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, the former mayor of Santa Clarita in northern Los Angeles County who took over the House Committee on Education and the Workforce when its former chairman, Ohio’s John Boehner, moved up to become majority leader of the lower house.
Any other state with six of its congressmen running major committees would have huge clout in Washington. Especially with an equal number of Democrats serving as the ranking minority members on significant committees.
But if you measure their clout by what they bring home to their state or their influence over the federal budget, then these guys (all are male) don’t amount to much at all. The same for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vowed while running for office to become a “Collectinator,” finally getting the state its fair share of the federal pie. As it stands, this state gets back less than 86 cents for every dollar its citizens pay in federal taxes, while states like Alaska and Mississippi get well over $1.25 for every dollar they kick in. Whose politicians are doing a better job?
Just how bad are things? When Congress passed a bill trimming growth of federal benefit programs, it cost California $1.7 billion. All but one California Republican in the House voted for the bill, whose regulations might end up costing the state $2.4 billion. Only Gary Miller of Diamond Bar, who was absent, did not support this blow to state finances.
When President Bush just days later submitted his proposed fiscal 2007 budget, California was also hard-hit. Yes, there will be a bit of an increase in funding for flood control and levee construction, but not enough to resolve the ominous threat of flooding in the Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers.
At the same time, Bush plans to eliminate all of the $405 million in federal money now subsidizing state prison systems that hold illegal immigrant criminals. California has gotten about 40 percent of those dollars. And he wants to halt production of C-17 cargo planes for the Air Force, a cutback that could shut down Boeing’s Long Beach aircraft factory, once the birthplace of commercial planes like the DC-8, DC-9, DC-10 and the military KC-10 tanker.
“This will blow a multibillion dollar hole in the state budget, making a bad situation worse,” said Fabian Nunez, Democratic speaker of the state Assembly. “This budget is President Bush saying to California, ‘Drop dead.’ The cuts are harsh and unfair.”
And what did Schwarzenegger do to fight off all this? He complained about a loss of child-support enforcement money, he objected to new rules that might cost the state some of its federal welfare funding and he got some token increases in levee repair funds.
But he did not go to Washington either to fight the benefit program cuts or so much as pick up his phone and call Bush prior to release of the budget and lobby on behalf of continued funding for keeping criminal aliens in prison.
Levee repair is about the only thing he’s lobbied strongly for, inducing Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to visit the Sacramento area. But when Schwarzenegger mentioned money on their tour, Chertoff clammed up.
It’s not certain that Congress will let Bush make all the cuts he seeks to programs that help California. Example: The cuts in prison funding for holding illegal immigrants are unpopular in some other large states, too, especially Texas and Illinois, which also get major chunks of that support.
But after virtually all California Republicans in Congress rubber stamped a bill costing their state at least $1.7 billion, why should anyone believe they might be willing to buck Bush on the overall budget? Which puts the ball in “It looks like Governor Schwarzenegger is just too weak … to deliver the fair share of federal funds he promised to California,” complained Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of San Jose.
It’s now up to Schwarzenegger to prove her wrong, to redeem his past failures at collecting for California both by rallying the state’s congressional delegation and convincing Bush to retreat on some of his cuts. That could do a lot more for the state he says he loves than showboat visits to coffee shops and helicopter flights along the Mexican border.
Thomas Elias is a syndicated columnist and the author of several books.
