Brown Eases Into the Race
Attorney General Jerry Brown has quietly moved into the governor’s race, but don’t expect him to be opening any storefront campaign offices or hanging up the “Jerry for Governor” banners anytime soon.
While Brown hasn’t made any official announcement yet, the secretary of state’s office now lists him as a candidate for governor, which means he can start collecting money in governor’s-race-sized chunks.
The move comes on the heels of a new poll showing Brown with solid leads over all three Republican candidates for governor, former San Jose Rep. Tom Campbell, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. The same Rasmussen Poll, taken last week, showed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, so far the lone announced Democratic candidate, trailing all three Republicans in head-to-head match-ups.
For more than a year, the only question about Brown’s plans has been when he’d announce for governor, not if he was going to. At the state Democratic convention in March 2008, Brown already was dropping broad hints that he was planning to run for governor, the same office he held from 1975 to 1983 as the boy wonder of the political world.
Political Trends Shift to Republicans
The political landscape is changing rapidly as the public rejects the most extreme elements of the governing agenda Democrats continue to pursue. Several leading political indicators have moved decidedly in favor of the Republican Party, and no significant indicator shows any substantial movement in favor of the Democrats.
News reports covering the current political environment rarely draw a distinction between leading indicators showing where we are going, versus lagging indicators pointing to where we have been. To understand current political trends, it’s important to understand which indicators demonstrate change is taking place, and in which direction.
In reviewing the current political landscape, three indicators provide a picture of where the American electorate is going: party self-identification, generic ballot strength and presidential approval. I discussed each of these in my report to the state party convention on Sunday.
Gifts to Lawmakers Are a Slap at Taxpayers
Two years ago, when then Assemblywoman Sally Lieber introduced a
bill to prohibit the spanking of children, she was ridiculed for
what many Californians considered to be frivolous legislation. In
light of recent revelations of the “S & M” tinged escapades of a
married, middle-aged lawmaker and one or more lobbyists, some
capitol observers are wondering if Lieber should have targeted an
older demographic.
Although the just-resigned legislator, who described his conduct to
a colleague unaware that he was also sitting before an open
microphone, now says he made it up, it calls into question just what
services and gifts are provided by lobbyists in an effort to
influence legislation. After all, the lobbyist with whom the
official claimed to have this special relationship had business
before a committee on which he served as vice-chair.
The Sacramento Bee recently completed an analysis of gifts, over and
above campaign contributions, that are provided to California
lawmakers. The Bee found that between January 2008 and June 2009
lobbyists gave legislators, their staffs and relatives about
$610,000 in gifts.
The Tax Commission: Making Strange Bedfellows
Can a discussion about taxes lead to widespread agreement?
It turns out that sometimes it can, at least when it comes to the proposals put forth by the Commission on the 21st Century Economy (COTCE), the 14-member panel charged with restructuring the state’s tax system.
It seems no one – from the state’s business community to self-described advocates for tax equity, such the California Budget Project – finds much to like in the plan. And though our reasons may differ, they boil down to a similar concern: relying on an untested, new tax used by almost no one else in the world is too risky – both for California and the state’s economic competitiveness.
The Commission’s proposals, which will be detailed in a report that will soon and belatedly be delivered to the Governor and Legislature, would substantially reduce the personal income taxes paid by Californians at the high-end of the income distribution; eliminate the corporate income tax and the state’s share of the sales and use tax; and replace the revenues lost through a new business net receipts tax (BNRT.)
Keep America Meeting
Although anti-corporate travel rhetoric is starting
to subside in Washington, months of negative press have taken their toll on an
industry that employs 2.4 million Americans and generates $240 billion in
spending and $39 billion in tax revenue.
As
the chair of the U.S. Travel Association, I would like to set the record
straight about why business travel is still vital to our country’s bottom line,
and encourage you to take action to keep America meeting. A new Oxford
Economics USA study shows that for every dollar spent on business travel,
companies realize $12.50 in incremental value and $3.80 in profits. Just a 10 percent increase in business travel
spending will increase our gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.5 and 2.8
percent.
Unfortunately,
too many CEOs these days see business travel as frivolous spending, when the opposite
is true. The data shows that companies would have to pay employees 8 percent
more to achieve the same level of motivation that business travel achieves for
less. And, although profits are driven by many factors, nothing enhances
business relationships better than face-to-face meetings.