Arnie The Nazi Signs Bill Which Will Kill Children, Lights Victory Cigar!

In a final act of murderous accounting, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed an additional $489 million from the state budget, using his power of line item veto. While advocates for the poor, the elderly and disabled accused him of being “heartless” and “cruel,” Arnie mugged for the cameras, bragging that he is ready for more cuts, if needed, as revenues continue to fall behind projections.

The anti-government nuts, who make up a significant part of his activist base, were deliriously happy, their response typified by Jon Fleischman, a blogger and official of the republican Party, who said, “From the get-go, the governor was very tough in negotiations, and as a result we have a budget that substantially shrinks government.” In an interview in 2005 with the editors of the {Sacramento Bee}, Schwarzenegger declared government to be the “Beast,” and said his goal was to slay the Beast. He has now followed through in that pledge, with increased “collateral damage” to follow.

Among the cuts Schwarzenegger unilaterally imposed on Tuesday was to eliminate $80 million allocated to counties to pay for programs that investigate and remediate cases of child abuse and child neglect. He took another $50 million from Healthy Families, a program that provides low-cost medical insurance to low-income families that don't qualify for Medi-Cal. Added to cuts of $128.6 million already removed from the budget, this program, which provides care to more than 900,000 children, has been significantly reduced. (It should be noted that the Obama health care reform bill in the Senate would eliminate the Child Health Insurance Program, CHIP – apparently, for these Nazis, children are expendable.) He also slashed $52.1 million from the Office of AIDS Prevention and Treatment, which eliminates most services the office provides. The additional $6.2 million cut from state parks means that 100 or more of the 279 state parks will be closed after Labor Day.

With the state's economy continuing to implode, it is no idle threat from Schwarzenegger that he is prepared to call the legislature back in, to make more cuts, within six months. When asked by the New York Times magazine recently whether he is wracked by guilt over the effects of the cuts he is implementing, he let his inner Nazi out. “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,” he said, adding, “I'm going to lay back with a stogie.”

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