Good Reasons for Capital Gains Tax Cuts and Other Thoughts on the Debate
Jerry Brown pounded Meg Whitman on her capital gains tax cut plan in their first debate last night. Whitman didn’t defend or explain her reasons for the tax, as she should. There are good reasons to cut the capital gains tax.
The tax cuts are not simply a giveaway to the rich, as Brown contended. The capital gains tax cuts are part of her targeted tax plan to bring back jobs. Capital gains tax cuts can quickly bring money into the treasury by freeing up money that taxpayers are holding and are more likely to spend because of the cuts. Capital gains tax cuts provide the revenue necessary for entrepreneurs to succeed. Small businesses and entrepreneurs need resources to create jobs and spark the California economy, which these cuts can provide. Whitman has good reasons for supporting the capital gains tax cut and she should have explained her reasons to the voters.
Whitman offered more solutions for the state’s problems. She put Brown on the defensive about his close ties to public employee unions.
The Debate: Who Would You Prefer to Manage Your Decline?
"Who would you rather have a beer with?" might have been the deciding question in previous political races. The California governor’s race is different. The state is a mess, and getting messier. Neither of the two leading contenders has a real plan – or any intention – of doing much more than managing the state’s decline.
So the question in this race might be: Which candidate would you prefer to drive your ship on a one-way trip to the bottom of the ocean?
That’s probably the best way to judge Tuesday night’s debate. Neither Jerry Brown nor Meg Whitman offered a clear vision of the future. And both were self-aware enough that they didn’t bother to inspire us. These two aren’t inspirational. They each know they are enaged in a classic lesser-of-two-evils contest.
One Man’s Tale Of Beating The Odds To Improve Green Tech In California
The treatment of José Radzinsky
by California’s unions is conflicting to the foundation of America, but
his success story of triumphing through adversity is proof that the
country’s ideals are still valued.
Radzinsky moved from
Uruguay to California in 1981 in pursuit of a free market economy.
Instead, he’s been stuck battling organized labor, which has stifled
his innovation, dedication and hard work.
Here’s the abridged version of his story:
Restoring Trust in the Highway Trust Fund
Federal surface transportation policy is at a fateful crossroads. Since the completion of the Interstate system, the federal program has lost its focus and its sense of purpose. And the users-pay/users-benefit funding mechanism which built that system (dedicated fuel taxes) has gradually been transformed into a public works tax for Congress to spend on its own-rather than highway users’-priorities. Most proposals to reformulate the federal transportation program would further break faith with highway customers.
While appearing to advocate simplification and program consolidation, they would add costly new non-highway programs, increasing highway use taxes but diverting much of the proceeds to still more non-highway programs, from passenger trains to energy subsidies to federalized land-use planning. Yet it is thanks to these very trends that American taxpayers no longer have trust in the Highway Trust Fund. Instead of welcoming an expanded federal program, most oppose increases in fuel taxes as unlikely to improve their own transportation situations.
The federal transportation program needs to be rethought. It is notoriously politicized, failing to make the best use of existing funds and failing to focus on the most important national transportation goals. Every serious study in recent years has concluded that America is under-investing in highway infrastructure; major improvements to the system are few and far between. But rather than simply putting larger sums of money into a seriously flawed process, the better course is to rethink and refocus the federal role, in order to spend more on core federal purposes and less on peripheral concerns. Some reauthorizations have brought big changes to the federal transportation program. This one should as well, not by moving further away from a user-fee funded system designed to improve mobility, but by moving back toward it.