Whitman Ups the Ante in GOP Primary
When Meg Whitman dropped her check for $15 million into her campaign for governor Monday, the former eBay CEO instantly raised the ante for the GOP governor’s primary.
Whitman, who’s in her first try for public office, said she was making the three-for-one match of the first $5 million in outside contributions she’s received to show her commitment to her run for governor.
But while there are plenty of candidates committed to their campaigns, not many have a spare $15 million or so lying around to put a price tag on that commitment.
That $15 million is on top of the $4 million she already has shoveled in to stoke the “Meg for Governor” campaign boiler. Last March, Whitman suggested to Fortune magazine that she could end up spending $50 million of her own money.
The Strange Logic Behind Prop 13 and Prop 98
Last week, Prop 98 author John Mockler and state Supt. of
Public Instruction Jack O’Connell conducted a press conference on the threat to
the state posed by another suspension of the education funding guarantee. And
it got sort of kinky. Mockler described Prop 98 as having been "bended,"
"folded," "mutilated" (and a few other adjectives) by the Schwarzenegger
administration.
O’Connell
and Mockler talked about how California ranks low in state support for education.
They argued persuasively that our schools need better funding. I agree. But, in the next breath, they
talked about the need to protect Prop 98. That’s where they lost me.
The
logical problem with the argument for protecting Prop 98 is a mirror image of
the logical problem with the argument for protecting the 2/3 vote for tax
increases that was part of Prop 13. To review: conservatives tell us that
California is a mess of over-taxation and over-spending. Then they tell us that
without the 2/3 vote and Prop 13, California would be a mess of over-taxation
and over-spending. Which is it, guys? Prop 13 has been in place for 30 years,
so if you believe that the states taxes and spends too much, it seems safe to
conclude that the 2/3 vote doesn’t really prevent higher taxes and high
spending. It’d be far more logical to assume that the 2/3 vote is part of the
problem.
Less is More
You do not need to be a political scientist to know that our government in California is broken. Our state is perpetually plagued with mountains of debt and the government gridlock is worse than the traffic on our overcrowded highways.
There are many theories about what should be done to change the system and to end this gridlock. Part of that conversation must include the idea of returning to a part-time, citizen legislature in California.
Our experiment with a full-time legislature has failed.
No longer do we have citizen legislators who work in Sacramento and return home where they hold jobs and spend most of their time in their districts living under the rules they make. We have instead created a system dominated by career politicians who have lost touch with everyday life in California.
The time has come to shift the balance of power in California back to the people; to return to a part-time legislature.
It’s Not Over Yet . . .
Incredibly, GM announced that it is
emerging from its Bankruptcy a mere 40 days after filing. 40 days! We are told that some have spotted Green Shoots emerging
from the blackened soot where our economy used to grow. By this Fall, all should again be right
with the economic world and it will be safe to go into the deep end of the Wall
Street shark tank again. Don’t
believe it.
For one thing, and I expect no
agreement on this at all, we have not spent nearly enough to jumpstart our
economy from out of the comatose state that it has been slumbering in since the
end of 2007. We looked like we
were going to, but then we got cold feet and we didn’t. For another, unemployment – the
‘lagging indicator,’ to be sure – is still on its dizzying climb, each
increment assuring that another group of Americans will not shop till they
drop, or anything close.