Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used the finger Thursday for his latest attack on the Legislature.
The governor said he can't understand why the Democrat-controlled Legislature opposes his budget-related proposal to require fingerprinting of recipients of in-home support services, which help elderly, blind and disabled Californians live independently.
"That's why I don't understand the Legislature," he said in a Los Angeles press conference.
Schwarzenegger's fingerprinting proposal, part of a package of governmental changes he seeks in budget negotiations, is meant to help detect fraud committed by people receiving aid under numerous identities.
"(Legislators) say this is an insult," Schwarzenegger said. "I say why is it an insult when you get fingerprinted?"
"I've just been fingerprinted, with my notary public coming to me with a book and saying, 'Governor, let me take your thumb,' and then fingerprinted me, put it next to the signature. I didn't feel insulted. I'm the governor of the state of California, I didn't feel insulted.
"When you get a teaching job, you get fingerprinted. When you get a loan for your house, you get fingerprinted. You get fingerprinted for a lot of things. Why is it all of a sudden an insult when you go to an in-home patient and ask them to be fingerprinted to make sure we get rid of the fraud and abuse?"
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg dismissed the governor's comments, countering that some IHSS clients are severely disabled.
"I think there is a distinction between fingerprinting workers and fingerprinting someone who may be a quadriplegic -- and I'm not sure that that particular reform is necessary," Steinberg said. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is that we come to a reasonable compromise around IHSS reform. And we will do so."
Schwarzenegger said lawmakers oppose his proposed crackdown because it "steps on the turf" of special interests.
"Who are they protecting," Schwarzenegger said, "the people that get the service or the people that provide the service?"
"The union business, all of that, its not worth responding to," Steinberg said. "I know what we're fighting for. I don't want to engage in a rhetorical war with the governor anymore. We had a pretty good one over the last couple days and it's time to get (a deal) done."
Schwarzenegger and the Legislature are locked in a tense fight over a $26.3 billion shortfall that led the governor to declare a fiscal emergency Wednesday and is expected to prompt the state to issue IOUs later today to pay some of its bills.
Democratic lawmakers have criticized Schwarzenegger for rejecting the budget-balancing plan they crafted, which they claim would close the gaping fiscal hole while making about $4 billion less in cuts to key programs -- such as college financial aid -- and to the state's safety net for vulnerable Californians.
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