California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has some good impulses. Also some not-so-good impulses. Schwarzenegger would like to rein in taxes and spending and regulation, rather than letting them run riot. He has made an effort to impose spending caps on the legislature, even if he failed to get the best spending-cap initiative onto the ballot. Maybe he can get a third of a loaf now and half a loaf later.

But the governor must do better, especially when it comes to matters completely within his own control. He must seize the day. Grab the bull by the horns. Terminate, not collectinate. Don’t blame me for that clunky neologism, “collectinator.” Arnold came up with that himself or one of his media guys did. He wants to use his Hollywood charm to extract all the federal dollars that he can for California. He says, “I expect to get a lot of it simply because, you know, I’m very persuasive and I’m like, you know, a tick that hangs on it and will not let go until I get what I want.” A tick, eh? Does he really want to put the “tick” back in politics?

California political reporter Dan Walters recalls that other governors of the state, including Gray Davis, pledged to bring home more federal bacon, and didn’t do so well. Even if Schwarzenegger can do better, shouldn’t he throw his weight behind nobler efforts? He set out to change California’s political landscape. No more politics as usual. Terminate, not collectinate. You can do it, Arnold.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Take away an inch from Congress’s special-interest friends and supporters, and Congress moves heaven and earth to give that inch back, plus a mile more. Sometime back the World Trade Organization ruled that a particular export subsidy was a breach of international trade agreements. The European Union could legally retaliate with tariffs. High ones. So bye-bye subsidy. But wait!

Why not give money to the favored interest another way? Tax credits would get around the WTO, so special tax breaks were devised, just for companies in select industries and states. In a recent column, Bob Novak listed some of the recipients:

• Shopping centers and malls
• Regional and intercity rail service
• Natural gas companies
• Coalbed methane gas production

Most of these are earmarked for congressional districts, so the special bond issue to the tune of 227 million bucks won’t spread too thin among the nation’s malls. Just a few malls get the money. Spending tax money on railroads has become a tradition, so who’s shocked by another billion or so? And we’re all worried about “energy,” so encouraging new technology makes sense, right?

Well, the coalbed gas producers had been getting along fine without subsidies. All these hidden subsidies amount to far more than the one they replaced. And Congress snuck all this into a bill that had nothing to do with energy. It hasn’t passed yet. But, knowing our Congress, it will. What a waste in money, time and . . . energy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Golly, this is like that time Tom Hanks kept getting the Oscar. Well, not quite. This particular honor, the Whole Hog Award, has been awarded to Senator Ted Stevens for the second year in a row, and isn’t so prestigious.

It’s a citation by the Citizens Against Government Waste. They’ve listed him in their “Pig Book” as the guy who has grabbed the most federal moolah per capita for his state. Stevens nabbed for Alaskans a little more than $800 per person $524 million total. That’s 26 times the national average of $31 of pork per person.

One item in the Stevens laundry list is $2 million that goes to recreation in North Pole, Alaska, population 1570. When you divide up $2 million amongst them that’s more than 1200 bucks apiece. I don’t suppose it will be divided up evenly. And no, this is not a subsidy for Santa’s elves. Stevens is unfazed by the criticism. His main response is denial. He’s says there’s no pork in the money he’s obtained for “Alaska’s future.”

But I say: if it looks like pork, smells like pork, and oinks like pork, it’s pork. Don’t doubt: Stevens has eye, nose, and ear trained for pork. But to him his spending probably does seem pulchritudinous, aromatic, and music to soothe his savaged breast. That’s the real training that life-time politicians get, year after year, handling other people’s money. That’s why their terms must be limited, before pigs appear as angels and oinks sound as symphonies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” It is exhilarating just to repeat one of President Reagan’s most famous lines. It is arguably his most important. Remember, virtually everyone around President Reagan at the time urged him not to say those words at the Berlin Wall that horrible wall that had separated the city between east and west, free and unfree.

Career diplomats and political handlers focused on the dangers of such a statement. It was thought to be a slap at the Soviets and thus, for many, harmful to keeping the peace with the Soviet Union. Reagan was criticized in the press for exacerbating tensions. It goes to show just how wed to the status quo our own status quo government can get.

However, Reagan wasn’t a career diplomat or a political handler and, thankfully, he didn’t follow their advice. Instead, he had faith in the people. Not only Americans, but also people throughout the world. He knew that to overcome the evils of communism folks around the world needed to be reminded of its evil. Today, the Soviet Union is no more. Ronald Reagan’s words at the Berlin Wall didn’t end the Soviet Union or bring the wall down instantaneously. But they helped illuminate the stark difference between “the evil empire” and the free world. That made quite a difference.

Telling the truth, even when some do not wish to hear it, is what real leaders do. And I have it on good authority that the truth shall make us free.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The men who rule us and protect us are just that: men, not supermen. Even persons with the most urgent life-and-death tasks before them, and who therefore may have been chosen for their special abilities and commitment, and trained with special skills, are just human.

They are fallible. They can make mistakes. So they should be checked. Double-checked. Monitored. Evaluated. That includes the folks who run the nation’s intelligence community. Maybe this just seem like common sense to you, in which case, hey, you’ve tuned into the right show.

Recent depressing news from overseas reminds us of how important the monitoring can be. But there was also an item from last April about a hoax that made it to the top of the government’s threat matrix. Somebody tipped off the FBI about a terrorist organization that was purportedly planning chemical attacks in DC and London. The group was said to be founded by an evil millionaire named Don Emilio Fulci. Even FBI director Robert Mueller was briefed about this dire threat.

Well, if you’re a gamester, you’re ahead of me. Fulci turns out to be crime boss of a video game called Headhunter. Somebody at the White House discovered this fact after doing a web search. A revised order went out: Stand down. Thank goodness for Google, eh? But we should not be too quick to chuckle or chastise. After all, the intelligence is well aware of how much “noise” is out there along with solid leads. It’s a struggle to separate the wheat from the chaff. They’re only human.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.