True Lies

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Governor: No school fund pledge
He says education leaders are lying about a budget deal to restore $2 billion this year.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has acknowledged for months that it broke its promise to restore more than $2 billion in base education funding this year, but Schwarzenegger insisted Tuesday he never made the pledge and said education leaders are perpetuating a "right-out lie" by criticizing him over it.

Poor poor Governor. He's being bashed by people who say he's lying. Terrible.

Except that if I go to his own website, the California Governor's office, I find :

Highlights of the agreement include:

*Per pupil funding still increases year over year.
*Funds deferred by the rebasing process will be restored in future years.
*Trigger provisions contained in Prop. 98 that allow the funding level to be rebased in a fiscal emergency. The measure was included in Prop. 98 to relieve the budget burden in a fiscal crisis.
*Increase year-over-year funding for education from the 2003-04 budget act to the 2004-05 proposed budget by $2 billion.

Hmmm. Could this be the 2 billion he promised? Jeez, it's documented on his own damn website.

A few more broken promises:

In the state budget that will be released on Friday, Gov. Schwarzenegger will keep his campaign promise that children are first in line for the state treasury.

He decided to fund transportation instead of education in his last budget remake.

From the SFChronicle

"Education is the key to every future success for our state," Schwarzenegger announced at the time. "Prop. 98 funding will be restored as required by law and our agreement. Today, I am making that promise to our teachers and students."

From the Archive of Campaign Promises:

"I strongly support Proposition 98 and I will protect California's commitment to education funding. And by empowering local communities to make decisions, we can spend that money better."

From here:

Question: Will you have to cut education?

Schwarzenegger: No. We can fix this mess without hurting the schools. For me, children come first. Always have, always will.

The Governor's victim show has no truth to it.

Californians, this is what you can do. Please write our local legislators. Ask them to restore his broken promises and to support funding for public education so that Californians can be proud to authentically say we support great education for all. Children come first. Let's make it so.