Memo to: Arnold
Re: How to Be President
Well Mr. Governor-elect, I hope you are enjoying your honeymoon. They say it is not going to last very long and will end when you confront the kingpins in the state assembly. They say that is when politics as usual will begin again and the gloss will fade from your star.
"They" say many things. But we both know that "they" are often wrong. (Of course, if you cared about conventional opinion, you'd probably be an unknown civil service worker today back home in Graz.)
Take that popular canard about how you can never be president. They say that despite your obvious charisma, optimism, drive, and seemingly unlimited campaign funds, you have risen as far as a foreign-born American can in politics by becoming governor of the most populous state. According to James Madison's silly Constitutional provision, the hated Gray Davis can still make a run for the White House, while the ceiling to your ambitions leave you stuck in Sacramento. The irony!
There are ways around this problem. Some are recommending, apparently with a straight face, an Arnold amendment to the Constitution allowing the foreign born to run for president. The odds of such an amendment happening are extremely low, and even if it did come about, it would likely exempt current officeholders. Such is the straw-grasping of delusional neoconservatives convinced that the inexorable movement of history is to replace the dominance of big government Democrats with that of big government Republicans, and that a pesky little thing like the Constitution should not stand in the way.
A more realistic way around this problem would involve embracing a reform recognized and endorsed by the framers of the Constitution itself, one that has proven to be a legitimate trend in Europe over the last two decades. This solution, of course, is the secession of the state of California from the United States, clearing the way for you to become president of a free and independent republic.
And why not? Such a development would surely reflect the spirit of our times. The states that used to be part of the former Soviet Union are much better off today for splitting from Moscow, while Czechs and Slovaks coexist peacefully. Closer to home, the break of the San Fernando Valley from the city of Los Angeles is progressing without a hitch, very much to the chagrin of the political establishment but also very much in the same fruitful way that other local secessions have progressed in several other localities around the U.S.
You yourself touched upon secession's logic during the recall campaign when you observed that for every dollar the feds take in income tax they give back only 77 cents in the form of federal spending. This means that besides subsidizing special interests in your own state, California taxpayers also subsidize special interests in the rest of the country, especially in the 33 states that pay out less in federal income taxes than they get back (according to data from the Northeast-Midwest Institute).
What a great selling point this would be in those Bush-hating and vote-rich centers of Chico, Berkeley, and Santa Monica. If California seceded, then no longer could its wealth be doled out to important swing states to bolster the Republican takeover of federal politics at home or neocon wars abroad.
What's more, if it is true that Californians prefer large government at all levels, then they could have it if they seceded. The current levels of federal, state, and local spending could be maintained following secession with millions of dollars left over. All those who currently depend on other people's money for their income, whether military officers or California Highway Patrol cops, med school doctors or public school principals, and even social workers or garbage collectors, could continue to benefit from wealth transfers in a California Republic.
Whether they should is another matter entirely. In a truly free California – one that does not mimic the socialist Austria from which you escaped – such people would be set free to ply their trade in the private sector, using capital that flowed to them on a voluntary basis, and not as a result of conscription. The fact that their immediate jobs would be secure makes selling secession much easier.
But once these selling points are made to the net tax consumers, selling secession to the rest of the state – to the net taxpayers – would be much easier. They would easily see the benefits that would result when California became an independent entity, as clearly as residents in the San Fernando Valley saw in independence from the city of Los Angeles. Private property in California is already made insecure by the machinations of both the state Franchise Tax Board and of the federal IRS, and secession would mean that overnight one of these overweening and illegitimate bureaucracies would be out of taxpayers' lives. While secession would often transfer the source of many ill-effects from Washington to Sacramento, it would at least make the agents of government easier to observe.
Being separated from California would clearly benefit the remaining 49 states as well. Fences can make for good neighbors, and secession would effectively fence in California's regulatory burden from the rest of the country. Such a barrier is sorely needed.
Surely you know that the primary opposition to the European Union in Europe lies on the assumption that some regions can benefit in relative terms when they can impose regulations on others. The same reasoning applies within the United States today, where high regulatory states like California weaken the property rights within their borders and face a drain of capital and labor to lower regulatory states such as Nevada and Arizona. To stop this outflow, a state can either repeal onerous regulations or force them on its neighbors.
Regrettably, California's connection to Washington too often causes it to resort to the latter solution. Secession would cut Sacramento's cord with Washington and keep California-style collectivism at bay. The resulting inability to export bad policies would increase the likelihood that such policies are short-lived. Such an outcome would be good for California business that would otherwise exit the state, and good for businesses in the remaining 49 states that would otherwise confront a better-funded and more activist federal Leviathan.
Mr. Governor-elect, let's face it: When you came to the Golden State in the late sixties, you didn't plan on trading one socialist state for another. California doesn't have to be like Austria, Sweden, or Massachusetts. By breaking from the 20th century trend toward centralizing power among large nation-states, it can be a prosperous republic, free of the threats that accompany global empire while a beacon of liberty to an increasingly divided and dangerous world.
And no matter what they say, you could be its president.
October 14, 2003
