Why I’m Supporting Tom Campbell
America’s economy is in serious trouble — and glitz and glitter can’t heal it. To turn things around, we need leaders of substance, people we can trust, and that’s why I’m supporting Tom Campbell for U.S. Senate. These are dangerous economic times, and we need our very best people in public service.
I’ve known Tom Campbell for over 20 years. I’m impressed with the depth of his knowledge and the strength of his opposition to federal spending, taxes and debt. Tom’s experience in government makes him extraordinarily well equipped to make a difference for taxpayers once elected.
Tom Campbell is a true and tested deficit hawk. When he served in Congress, he consistently earned high marks from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, which twice named him “the most frugal” with tax monies.
Brown Embraces the Public Unions
Ignoring reams of material that suggest dangerous taxpayer liabilities have been created by public employee benefit programs, Jerry Brown appealed to the public unions to back his campaign for governor declaring California’s fiscal problems are not the unions’ fault but that of Wall Street and corporations.
As governor his first time around, Brown created the strength of the modern public labor union in the state by signing into law collective bargaining. He did not shy away from that action this past weekend. As reported by Jack Chang in the Sacramento Bee, Brown said, “I’m very proud to have created this system that gave workers a choice.”
That statement is in contrast to the regret Brown has supposedly expressed in private over the years for his previous action. True or not, he made it clear that it’s his intention to escort the public unions to the big election dance this year. Brown needs the political power of the unions to battle his wealthy GOP opponents and he is embracing his deal with the unions dearly.
Assembly Republicans Propose Legislative Package to Put California Jobs First
With our state’s unemployment rate now 12.5 percent – and 2.26 million people out of work – there is no priority more pressing for the Legislature today than putting California Jobs First again.
As a former small business owner myself, I know first hand just how difficult it is to create and retain jobs in our state. According to Forbes magazine, California’s job creators are forced to pay the highest business costs in the country and bear the third-costliest business tax climate nationwide, while enduring the constant threat of junk lawsuits in a state that is ranked the 7th worst for lawsuit abuse.
In recent months, my Assembly Republican colleagues and I have heard from business owners across the state as to the challenges they face in keeping their doors open in California. We even traveled across state lines to Reno, Nevada, to hear why businesses relocated out of our state.
Their answer was the same – expensive mandates, burdensome regulations, high taxes and fees, and downright hostility from state government drove them away.
Regulating Political Communications on the Web: The Case for Restraint
Last week I testified at a hearing of the Fair Political
Practices Commission where I outlined my concerns with the ever-growing
prospect of new regulations on political communications. Over the past several
years we have all witnessed the Internet evolve significantly with the rise of
influential bloggers, the birth of YouTube and the invention of online social
networks. The growth of the Internet has changed nearly every aspect of
peoples’ lives and with that has come the inevitable questions about whether
the government should regulate political activity on the Internet.
The Internet by its very nature is highly democratic,
especially compared to traditional broadcast mediums, and I am deeply concerned
that regulatory actions taken today could have a chilling effect on a vast,
untapped opportunity for civic engagement that the Internet provides. Unlike
advertising on TV and radio which requires a high level of funding available
only to a select few, there are many producers of online content. While it is
possible for political campaigns to "buy" a certain level of presence on the
Internet, anyone with nothing more than a creative message can have an impact
on millions of others in that same medium.