Read Governor Schwarzenegger’s address to California legislators Tuesday morning

The state’s budget deficit is monstrous and growing. This mess, of course, is due to foolish government overspending, largely at the behest of gluttonous government employee unions. Without drastic action, by this time next year, California state government will be $24 billion in the hole. That’s nearly half of what state government spent to operate 20 years ago.

A chronic addiction to runaway, extravagant spending has tripled the state’s budget from $51.4 billion in 1990 to $144.5 billion in 2008. Remember, all this time, Democrats have been the majority party in the California Legislature, except for one year, 1996, when Republicans briefly controlled the State Assembly.

Despite these uncharted waters, SaveCalifornia.com is seeing the usual kind of political prostitution we’re used to from Democrat legislators. Incredibly, beholden to the government employee unions, Democrat caucus leaders say that more taxes and fee hikes are still on the table for consideration.

Meanwhile, the unions and other entities that depend on taxpayer funds — literally everyone at the government feeding trough — are gearing up for a major war to protect “their funds.” They’ve long forgotten whose money it is.

We haven’t yet seen Schwarzenegger do what he’s never done before — promise to veto tax hikes and borrowing schemes. Will he take a firm stand when he speaks today to a joint session of the California Legislature? The Governor signs or vetoes spending packages. He holds the bulk of the power to change government’s gluttonous appetitite — if he chooses to persevere and do what’s right.

But more than anything, SaveCalifornia.com believes it’s up to principled Californians to tell Sacramento what to do. If you helped to defeat Sacramento’s tax-and-borrow schemes in the last month’s election, you have the right and obligation to speak up now. 

 Take immediate action with our prewritten email message and phone numbers to Sacramento.

On the heels of California voters rejecting higher taxes, more debt, more dysfunction, and false reforms, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders are sitting down all this week to consider what to do now.

California voters’ “no new taxes” message at the ballot box was heard loud and clear. But Schwarzenegger and especially the Democrat legislators need to hear from you again, this time to persuade them to eliminate a mountain of waste and dysfunction, instead of borrowing and caving to pressure from the union bosses who got them elected in the first place.

It’s urgent you tell them that instead of releasing criminals into communities, instead of raiding local government funds, and instead of borrowing billions from the Obama Administration (which would place all Americans into more debt), you want them to eliminate tens of billions of dollars of disgusting government waste each and every year starting right now.

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION: Call and email Governor Schwarzenegger and your California state legislators.

It’s important that you act now to tell them what to do. All this week, Schwarzenegger and the others, making up “The Big Five,” are meeting to decide a right, wrong or muddled direction.

Meanwhile, a Democrat-dominated committee is meeting to come up with their own “solutions.” Unless they receive a flood of challenge and direction from you and your friends, California’s foolish government may try to get billions in loans from President Obama. This will only make the spending and borrowing problem worse!

Also, you might have noticed that the morning after the election, the California Citizens Compensation Committee, which sets salaries for state officers and state legislators, voted to cut the average legislator pay from $116,208 to $95,291. This was good public relations for the Schwarzenegger-stacked committee, but nothing to get excited about.

California families need much more than this. The legislator pay cut won’t take place until December 2010. And the overall savings will be less than $3 million, a drop in the bucket compared to the $21.3 billion deficit hole that our tax-and-spend Legislature has dug for the fiscal year starting next month.

Obviously, the way to get out of debt and even grow a healthy surplus is to eliminate tens of billions of dollars per year in government waste. SaveCalifornia.com has sent our 10 recommendations to the Governor and every state legislator.

Your calls and emails will help them take notice. Please take action right now.