Is the Election about Meg or about $40 BILLION in New Taxes?
The labor unions continued the all out assault on Meg Whitman’s candidacy for governor with yesterday’s announcement that they are launching another campaign to attack Whitman’s record. This is on top of the already announced independent expenditure efforts backed by the public employee unions to attack Whitman and the childish histrionics of the Queen Meg campaign.
But the unions have an agenda of their own for California. That agenda’s bottom line is at least $40 billion in new taxes. The unions have been pushing a catalog of tax increases for some time now. The recent revelation of their "tax everything" plan was promoted at the end of a long march to the state capitol that ended last week.
Among the list of union tax demands are the following tax increase proposals listed in a Capitol Alert report:
Physical Fitness: It’s All About The Kids
Tomorrow I will be at Kentwood Elementary School in Los Angeles with
Governor Schwarzenegger and some of California’s finest educators to
discuss the work I have done for the Governor’s Council on Physical
Fitness & Sports. We will announce that in 2010 we’ve already
signed up a record 1 million more Californians to take the Governor’s
Physical Fitness Challenge, and that thanks to Coca-Cola, eight new
schools are being awarded fitness centers.
This is not about politics, it is about children. Over the past five
years, I have seen what is possible when parents, educators,
officeholders, and community members join together and support our kids.
We launched the Governor’s Fitness Challenge in 2006, and encouraged
California’s kids to get off the couch or computer chair and get some
exercise: 30-60 minutes, every other day for a month. Those of us who
exercise know that even 30 minutes can do wonders to refresh the mind
and body, prevent obesity, or just give us the chance to clear our
heads.
Flunking History
Spring seems to have brought with it an outbreak of a new type of allergy: allergic historicus . Unlike allergic rhinitis or hay fever, allergic historicus is not characterized by sinus problems or itchy eyes. The symptoms, rather, are using historical examples that illustrate one’s ignorance and thus exposing the victim to easy ridicule. An interesting pathology of the condition is that some people in proximity of an allergic historicus suffer may develop a related condition, historicus fatuus, or even worse historicus dementis.
For example, Dick Armey recently proclaimed the Jamestown Colony as "socialist venture" that left "everybody dead and dying in the snow." Let’s see: Jamestown was founded as a for-profit venture by the London Company, a joint stock company in 1607, or about two hundred years before French thinker Saint-Simon first wrote about socialism. Perhaps Armey confused Capitan John Smith, soldier of fortune and tireless promoter of North America as a place to get rich, with Karl Marx. After all, both men had beards.
Holding On To The Recovery
If you’ve been to a lunch meeting, a cocktail reception or most any
gathering of business people in Los Angeles in the last few weeks,
you’ve probably talked about the economy.
Suddenly, it seems, everybody’s asking: Is the economy really recovering? Do you see a turnaround in your business?
The picture is jumbled partly because economic forecasts now are highly
politicized. Liberal organizations and individuals are trumpeting a
Great Recovery, while conservative ones are dismissing any alleged
comeback as too meek or as a temporary bounce. Those divergent stances
are understandable since the economy may play a big role in the
critical elections this fall.