Freezing California, Presidential Advice and Gubernatorial Politics
President Barack Obama proposes to freeze spending on discretionary budget items. Does California fall into that category as a “discretionary item”? No sooner had Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders returned from a Washington fundraising trip hoping to convince the president and congress to send more money our way than the president says there is no more.
This freeze idea is one that has been suggested to deal with California’s budget crisis in the past. Freeze the budget to the dollars that come in and reduce spending across the board accordingly. Perhaps, with the president’s example this approach will resurface in the Golden State as the governor and legislature try to figure out how to handle the current $20-billion deficit.
The clock is ticking on the special session called for closing the deficit hole and nary a word of how it will be accomplished.
Gray Davis Not Looking So Bad to Voters
It says something about the gloomy mood of the state when California voters are looking back wistfully to those good old days when Gray Davis was in office.
A Field Poll released Sunday showed that 59 percent of the state’s voters – including more than half the Republicans – are convinced that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will leave the state in worse condition than it was when he took office.
Consider that breathtaking statistic for a minute. Schwarzenegger was elected in October 2003, after 55 percent of the state’s voters decided Davis was doing such a lousy job that he should be the first governor in the history of California to be ousted from office.
Heck, Davis was the first governor anywhere in the country to be recalled since North Dakota voters bounced their governor in 1921.
I’m Scott Brown
I’m Scott Brown too.
OK. I’m not really Scott Brown. Though I am married to a journalist, drive a populist sort of car, and am a mealy-mouthed moderate at heart. Oh, yes, and I too have great hair.
It’s just that everyone all of a sudden says they are Scott Brown.
Well, at least every Republican or independent running for office.
Even in California.
Carly Fiorina has been comparing herself to Scott Brown and suggesting that Barbara Boxer is about as invincible as Martha Coakley.
Tom Campbell has been name-checking Scott Brown, perhaps because he thinks that candidates without any money can eventually come up with big dollars, just like Scott Brown.
They the Corporation
The US Supreme Court decision which affirmed that campaign contribution limits infringe upon a corporation’s constitutional right of free speech is unprecedented and marks one of the greatest threats to the cornerstone of democracy in America.
For those who believe that corporations are equal to persons and support today’s historic court decision, I simply ask: how does one justify that the corporation now has more of a voice than the average US citizen when determining the outcomes of future local, state, federal, and judiciary elections? Are we to believe that corporation rights were infringed, because they weren’t already allowed to spend billions of dollars to taint politicians, shape legislation, and further influence the outcomes of our elections?
The American founders never believed or intended for the concept of “corporate personhood” to exist in America, because they foresaw the dangers associated in allowing corporations to have the same legal status as persons. Corporations are not equal to individuals, because their billions of dollars speak louder than any citizen that our nation was created to protect.