Republicans are stupid

Pub date December 19, 2008
SectionPolitics Blog

By Steven T. Jones

Forgive the blunt headline, but it seems to me an inescapable conclusion based on the ridiculousness going on right now in Sacramento. Since writing about Republican legislators’ illogically doctrinaire opposition to taxes in this week’s paper, I’ve now watched the Democrats come up with a dishonest yet effective way around the blockade.

Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed with the legally dubious tax gambit, noting that desperate times require desperate measures. But then he vetoed the bill, criticizing Democrats for not making deep enough spending cuts in social services that people need most during hard times. This is the guy who keeps saying we face “fiscal Armageddon” if we don’t act immediately (and his best shot doesn’t take effect for another month and a half). And then, he has the balls to summon back the legislators, who had already stretched in barely legal ways to work around the Republican temper tantrum.

Let me say it again: Republicans are stupid, and California is about to start paying a heavy price for that stupidity.