"You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, 'Why would we want to take on that kind of risk?'"California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a news conference near Sacramento.
No, the "enormous disaster" he was talking about wasn't his administration, it's the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But it wasn't a risk in 2008 when the governor signed a $100 million deal between some environmental groups and Plains Exploration & Production Co., known as PXP, that was estimated to bring the state some $100 million a year. Interesting. A hundred million made it a good idea - then. Imagine how he'd feel if he had never turned on the TV.
But like a lot of things, risky endeavors were good ideas when the state needed money. Now that there has been an accident - and it's been on the TV - drilling for oil under the water is suddenly a bad idea, which it probably was all along. Now that we have seen (on TV) that the oil sometimes doesn't go directly from the ground to our automobiles, we figure there might be a few problems with the process.
The governor is going to have to figure out where to come up with the $100 million the state will be missing now that they aren't going to drill for oil. Maybe they can pass that marijuana legislation that's on the ballot in November? That was a bad idea once too. How long will it be before more states are desperate enough to legalize prostitution or marijuana in an effort to raise money? They can only tax us so much and cut services so much - can't they?
No comments:
Post a Comment