Arnold says: Ma & ntilde;ana, baby

Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed to be promising Californians everything when he ran for governor: He would cut the auto license tax, continue to fund important programs such as education and balance the budget.
His first official action after his inauguration was to roll back the car tax. That's one promise kept.
Maintaining services is turning out to be a bit trickier. The new governor complains that all Democrats in the state Legislature want to do is raise taxes and all the Republicans want to do is make draconian cuts. He seems ready to make a pox-on-both-their-houses appeal to his adoring electorate.
As to the third leg of Schwarzenegger's platform, the need to terminate an impending deficit, Arnold has now unveiled his plan. Borrow.
How novel.
Beware of secret plans
Schwarzenegger was careful during the campaign to avoid specificity when promising to solve all of the state's problems. He preferred to feed the public perception that Gray Davis had run the state into the ground and didn't have a clue as to how to dig it out.
We have to wonder, if Schwarzenegger had said then that the cornerstone of his fiscal policy was shifting the cost onto tomorrow's taxpayers -- the children and grandchildren of the people who were demanding a cut in the allegedly onerous auto tax -- would he have won?
It's hard to believe that the $15 billion bond issue Schwarzenegger is proposing now was not part of his plan all along. If it wasn't, what part of the plan didn't work out, forcing him to resort to the bond issue? If it was, why didn't he level with the voters and tell them about it?
Maybe because if he'd said what he wanted to do, every other candidate would have responded, "Well, gee, I could do that."
Lessons to learn
There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. One is to beware of charismatic candidates who are long on promises and short on specific solutions.
Another is for Americans -- not just Californians -- to rethink what constitutes conservative or responsible fiscal policy.
Anyone who balances a family budget knows that some things have to be bought with credit, and the cost of that credit is interest. It's not irresponsible to take out a mortgage to buy a home or a car loan that fits within the family budget. But signing a 20- or 30-year mortgage and incurring interest costs for something you've already used up is reckless. Saving yourself a few dollars today, and shifting the cost, with interest, onto the next generation is despicable.
Finally, there's a lesson that tavern patrons knew more than 100 years ago: There's no such thing as a free lunch.