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The New York Times reports that Gov. Schwarzenegger has built a new lobbying coalition that assembles the GOP Governors of the four largest states - Arnold, Rick Perry of Texas, Jeb Bush of Florida, and George Pataki of New York. They plan to take on Washington to reclaim a share of the federal funding that gets unfairly siphoned away by smaller states. A "New York official" (big journalism, specific as ever) credits Arnold's administration with the idea for this plan:
"To give credit where credit is due, the California folks were very aggressive about putting this together," said one New York official involved in the efforts to bring the governors together. "This was one of their big things."
We ought to note: big cities tend to be hit the worst by such funding inequities.
It seems that the state's budget crunch has inspired Schwarzenegger and his administration to develop this novel plan. While LAist has been critical of the Governor for the past few days, he deserves full credit for this creative and effective political coalition. This quartet of big-time Govs should be able to exert serious power, and stop some troubling trends in the ways federal funds are disbursed to the states.
