Joe the Plumber and Jerry Brown
If you listen at about the two-minute mark of the video embedded in the N.Y. Post article
of Senator Barack Obama discussing taxes with Joe Wurzelbacher, probably now known forever as Joe the Plumber, you’ll hear Joe suggest a flat tax to the candidate.
Senator Obama replies that he is open to the flat tax idea but thought it would take too high of a tax rate to get the needed revenue.
A decade and a half ago, another Democratic presidential candidate rode the flat tax idea a long way in the nominating process, much further than most pundits thought he would go. That candidate was Jerry Brown, California’s current attorney general.
And, perhaps the once and future governor?
Is the flat tax still an idea Brown would promote in a gubernatorial campaign?
Bake Sale Boogie Man
Sometimes government can’t help itself. We pay some of the highest taxes in the nation and receive some of the worst in government service. So it should come as no surprise when government works overtime to prevent you from helping yourself.
At Davis Senior High School in Davis, California, the students have been doing what students throughout our country have done to raise money. They hold fundraisers. Many of these fundraisers are in the form of bake sales, pizza sales etc…The proceeds go to sponsor the myriad of students clubs and activities on campus. But no more.
The Sacramento Bee reports that the school district has prohibited food sales that weren’t prepared by a commercial enterprise. Commercially prepared food also has to be paid for with a check. As one student points out, “Who pays for a slice of pizza with a check?” She’s right. How many students are running around with checkbooks?
Don’t Get Depressed By All The Gloomy Predictions–The ‘Experts’ are Not Always Right!
It is very hard to get away from the media message of the moment that the world’s economy truly is going to Hell in a Handbasket. It screams from the TV, the Internet, newspapers (if you still read those!), magazines, and anywhere else you look- like those TV monitors in high-rise office building elevators and ads whizzing by on the sides of buses . . .
It is easy, so easy to get carried away by ‘experts’ ability to predict things that will happen in the future. So easy, in fact, that it is a pleasant, if not, often hilarious, diversion to occasionally look back on some predictions, taken quite seriously in their time, that history has proven to be absolutely, flat, dead-in-the-water, wrong. It may also help distract you from those unopened envelopes showing that your 401k has now shrunk down to a 101k!
Arrogance Breeds Contempt
Public officials at all levels of government like to go oversees to promote international trade in California. Cynic’s call them “junkets”. Policy makers call them “trade missions.” Economists have found that the logistics industry fostered by international trade has replaced California’s long lost manufacturing base in terms of providing good paying jobs.
Unfortunately, because of regulatory infighting and competing political agendas, California is unable to develop port projects or the supporting inland infrastructure needed to meet the future growth trends of international trade and the modernization that will improve efficiency and environmental protection.
The international trade community is finding willing partners and moving ahead with development projects in states like Virginia, the Carolina’s, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Texas. We have seen the development of projects and expansion of facilities in Canada and Mexico – all in an effort to provide alternative gateways to California. The investments in these other locations are being made now.
Endorsement Grid Updates
The Fox&Hounds Ballot Endorsement Grid was updated this morning to include ballot positions sent in by the California Libertarian Party and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Ballot positions published by several major California newspapers have also been added.
UPDATE: We were informed yesterday evening that some positions we had listed as being taken by Lt. Governor Garamendi were in error. The Endorsement Grid has been updated to reflect the correct positions with our apologies to the Lt. Governor.