WELCOME TO THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE

One of Schwarzenegger's main campaign promises was to roll back Davis's tripling of the state car tax. The tax increase, worth $4 billion, raised money for local governments. It turns out that roughly 20 percent of the money goes to fire departments.

On the one side are firefighters, leaders of local governments and many Democrats. They're telling Schwarzenegger that localities need the money and that this disaster is precisely the escape hatch he gave himself on his campaign promises about taxes. On the other side are conservative Republicans who will nail the new governor for any backtracking on taxes. In Monday's Los Angeles Times, state Sen. Tom McClintock, a staunch conservative who ran a respectable third in the recall election, denounced "recent attempts to link the state's devastating fires to repeal of the car tax."