The Lure of Marijuana
One question that jumped to mind in reading the latest two major independent polls was why the attention on the November marijuana initiative?
The initiative to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana was tested in both the Public Policy Institute poll and the USC/LA Times poll. PPIC found the marijuana measure near dead even at 49% Yes; 48% No. The USC/LA Times poll had the Yes side slightly ahead, 49% to 41%.
But this is a ballot measure that will be decided months from now. With a June primary staring voters in the face the pollsters found an interest in a measure an election away. The marijuana measure will not be the only initiative on the November ballot. There likely will be a cornucopia of issues for the voters to decide.
Democrats’ Budget Bid: Higher Taxes and Deficit Spending
The
state budget, taxes and massive new debt have emerged at the top of the
Legislature’s agenda this month. Some wonder how the Legislature could
have been working on any issues other than jobs, the economy and the
budget, given the gravity of those problems. But making up for lost
time, legislative leaders have laid on the table billions in new taxes
and mixed in a stunning proposal for new deficit spending.
After two weeks of proposals and counterproposals, the Assembly
Democratic leadership this week doubled down on the deficit, proposing
to borrow more than $9 billion to paper over part of the current
deficit, avoiding the tough decisions needed to balance the budget.
Their proposal finances existing, unfunded programs by borrowing money
and increasing taxes to pay off the new debt over the next 12 to 20
years. This one-year "solution" leaves $9 billion worth of programs in
place without any future source of revenues.
Five Things We’ve Learned About Whitman
Campaigns, by their nature, give incomplete and distorted pictures of candidates. That’s true of the very, very long contest for the GOP nomination for governor (a race that’s already more than a year old and will end, mercifully, next week).
That said, there are a few key bits of information that the campaign has revealed about the likely winner (if the polls may be believed), Meg Whitman. Here are the five things I’ve learned:
1. She does not think there is such a thing as overkill.
If you think California unemployment is bad now, imagine how bad things might have been without all the hiring Whitman did. The campaign is over-staffed, as Whitman gobbled up some people just to keep them away from Poizner. Her spending broke every existing record, propping up TV stations all over California. Whether the dollars could be justified by any metric seemed beyond the point. She had it, so she spent it.
Licking the Knife Blade
Like
the proverbial wolf that continues to lick the knife blade because it
enjoys the taste of its own blood, the Democrats are back with another
huge tax increase.
At a time when the state’s economy and taxpayers are still staggering
under the burden of last year’s $12.6 billion tax increase, Democrats
are pushing a plan to raise taxes by yet another $5 billion and to
borrow an additional $8.7 billion.
Among the proposals are extensions of the increases in the sales,
income and car tax that were approved last year by the usual suspects,
but were due to expire after two years. This goes to prove the adage
that there is nothing so permanent as the temporary. In a recent
column, Joel Fox, the president of the Small Business Action
Committee, provided a number of excellent examples of "temporary"
taxes that seem never to disappear. Among those is the federal
telephone tax established to pay for the Spanish American War, which
remained in place for 108 years after the war ended.