Clinton is Newsom’s Big Hope
Gavin Newsom’s day in the sun with former President Bill Clinton today in Los Angeles needs to be a turning point in the San Francisco mayor’s run for governor.
Sure, the June Democratic primary is still eight months away and about the only people paying any attention at all to the 2010 race are either running in it or writing about it.
But Attorney General Jerry Brown is working to build a look of inevitability around his purposeful non-campaign and Newsom has to do something quick to convince the opinion-makers inside and outside the party that he’s the real deal, a guy who realistically could be California’s next governor.
What he needs is an event, something that can grab public attention, swing his dismal poll numbers and convince Brown that he actually has to come out and play if he wants to win next June.
Enter Bill Clinton.
Soda Tax: It’s About the Revenue
The push is on for a soda tax. Supporters say it’s a way to improve health problems, and oh, by the way, you could close those messy government budget gaps. Well, which is it? If raising taxes on sugary drinks is supposed to cut down on the use of those products why expect a declining revenue source to deal with a budget problem?
This is the same argument often made to support tobacco tax increases. While raising taxes would cut consumption that means that any tax revenue attached to a product would likely fall over time. Such taxes will not be the answer to solving the budget crisis.
Yet, according to a Los Angeles Times article, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said billions of dollars can be raised to offset budget problems with a soda tax increase. Yale University has a calculator on a website to determine how much a state or city could raise with a tax on sugary drinks.
Serious Issue, Dubious Report
An official state report on the cost of regulations on small businesses in California was released last week, and it sure had some eye-popping numbers. The total cost of regulation was $134,122.48 per small business in California in 2007, the report said, and indirect business taxes not generated or lost were $57,260.15 per small business.
My first reaction: Wow! My second reaction: Wait a minute.
Those numbers – the ones that ended with 48 cents, etc. – stopped me. After all, this is the kind of report based on all manner of broad assumptions and multipliers, so to somberly report figures so exact, so down-to-the-cent picky, implies a precision that simply doesn’t exist and shouldn’t be pretended. It’s an immediate red flag.
And if you read the report, what stands out is that it relies on data that Forbes magazine gathers to make its many lists, the ones that compare cities and states in terms of their business friendliness.
A scholarly report based on Forbes’ rankings? There’s another red flag.
Stormy Friday
In Chicago on business this week
where the City has just been stunned by the announcement from the Olympic Committee
a minute ago – the 2016 Games will not
be here in Chicago. And the wind
blows and the rain falls . . .
This mid-morning news has crowded
out Media coverage of the bad employment statistics announced earlier this
morning – US National Unemployment now stands at a scary 9.8%, above estimates,
further clouding this stormy Friday here.
By the time you read this, it will
be next week. Media Talking Heads
& Wagging Tongues will have chattered endlessly over this past weekend
(which you can still, faintly, remember) and beyond: