Coming off Tuesday’s defeat of most of the budget referendums he was pushing, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to make significant budget cuts to try to balance the state’s budget, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Schwarzenegger said the voters on Tuesday sent a message that he should go forward with cuts to education, healthcare and law enforcement.
“We tried to not make those kind of cuts, but now we have to,” Schwarzenegger said in a Washington D.C. press conference. “There’s no other choice. I think the message was clear from the people: Go all out and make those cuts and live within your means.”
It is worth keeping an eye on Schwarzenegger’s next steps and if California can get a handle on its finances. It’ll be interesting to see if any talk of a federal bailout for the Golden State crops up.
The governor met with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Wednesday to ask for a waiver to cut healthcare costs but insisted that he wasn’t seeking a bailout.
“We made it very clear we’re not asking for a bailout,” he said.