IBD: Palin vs. Arnold: Terminating California

Over the past few days, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been in Copenhagen making the bizarre claim to anyone who will listen that his job destroying environmental regulations are somehow good for the economy. He also made the even more off the wall assertion that America's economy would be stronger if only the entire country followed California's lead in this area, and that Governor Palin's common sense skepticism to the man-made global warming religion was somehow wrong. All of these musings by the Governator were forthcoming despite the fact that foisting his regulations on California's economy have chased businesses and the jobs they create out of the Golden State like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

This environmental extremism has transformed California into an economic basket case whose government, headed by Schwarzenegger for the past 6 years, is bankrupt. We covered this silliness extensively here and Governor Palin's personal response here. Today Investor's Business Daily has an editorial in which they take another look at the one-sided debate between Governor Palin and the Governator:

Alaska's ex-governor asks a question we'd like answered: Why is California's current governor pushing the same policies in Copenhagen that helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment?

[...]

"There is a statue of the Little Mermaid in the harbor based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale," Schwarzenegger said at the conference based on another fairy tale. "But when I was a boy in Austria, my favorite tale was the Ugly Duckling because it was a tale of transformation that spoke to me inside." We're not making this up.

Acting on that inspiration, Schwarzenegger said: "The desire and hope and desperate need for planetary transformation is what brought me here. Is it a dream, a fairy tale, a false hope? If not, how can we make it real?"

Well, if we close our eyes, click our heels and follow Schwarzenegger's lead, we just might find ourselves back in a preindustrial Kansas. Just pay no attention to the climate research hoaxers behind the curtain at the University of East Anglia.

Along the yellow brick road from Hollywood to Copenhagen, Schwarzenegger took time to question Palin's stance on global warming — that it is happening, but to a beneficial and not disastrous degree, with the Little Mermaid or polar bears not in any danger of drowning. Palin opposes cap-and-trade, as do we, as an unnecessary and ineffective solution to a non-problem that will transfer our wealth to the Hugo Chavezes and Robert Mugabes of the world

One of Schwarzenegger's self-proclaimed triumphs was Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), a radical environmental measure, modeled after the Kyoto Protocol, which he signed in 2006 during his re-election campaign. Next IBD discusses the effect of this misguided gift to the most extreme elements in the anti-capitalist environmental movement:

A recent study by the California Business Roundtable shows that Assembly Bill 32, modeled on the failed Kyoto Protocol and signed by Schwarzenegger in 2006, has helped contribute to California's precipitous economic decline.

The study estimates that AB 32, when fully implemented, will cost the state some $71.46 billion annually. The cost to consumers will be $149.2 billion, and small businesses will pay $182.64 billion. The once-golden state will lose more than 1.1 million jobs — over 3% of the state's population.

The San Diego Union-Tribune recently called for a suspension of AB 32, given that state unemployment is at 12.5% and it's the state's business climate that needs saving. It noted a report observing that while "green jobs" had grown 36% statewide since 1995, they constituted only 1% of all state jobs. Imagine the economy of the entire United States shackled by such legislation. We won't have the luxury of saying it's only a movie.

This is apparently what Schwarzenegger has in mind for all of us when he says the rest of the country should follow California's example. Read IBD's entire editorial here. It's good.