Healthcare Reform
As the Supreme Court begins debate on the Healthcare Reform law, I wanted to take a moment to once again declare my strong support for it. This support is very personal for me. My sister, Linda Bloom, might be alive today if this law was in place in 1990. Linda was unable to get health […]
Healthcare Reform: Up Close and Personal
This week, President Obama raised my taxes for healthcare, and I’m just fine with it.
A small increase in taxes won’t change my lifestyle. It won’t stop me from hiring any new employees. It won’t change my family’s plans for our vacation or buying a new car. It won’t do all of the negative things that the Insurance Companies and their acolytes in Congress have been threatening, just as it won’t do all the great things that President Obama and the Democratic leadership are championing. But it is the right start for a new direction.
Throughout Sunday, as my son Joshua (who works on Capitol Hill for Rep. Bob Filner) was texting me with regular updates about the behind the scenes maneuvering in the Halls of Congress, my thoughts could not help but go back to my sister Linda.
I loved my sister. She was 10 years older than me and despite having faced great obstacles in her life, she had a great outlook and she was loved by everyone who met her. Linda died almost 20 years ago because she had to wait too long for what could have been a simple surgery – but her lack of health insurance and her pride in not coming to our family sooner to help her pay her medical bills delayed the surgery. And what should have been simple became complicated – and it caused a catastrophic incident from which she never recovered.
Voters Should Hire a Governor Who Can Do the Job!
Simple solutions to complex problems of public policy are the stock in trade of political wannabees who think they can lead and manage because they did something else well. Like US Senator George Murphy, who was a song and dance man in the movies; or, Al Checchi, who ran a pretty good airline but couldn’t get himself off the ground.
Arnold, of course, is the essence of the issue. He’s really a wonderful person, a successful businessman, accomplished actor and terrific father. Whatever made him think he would be a good governor? With all due respect, the only thing that Arnold has ever created is himself. Arnold is proud of the fact that he has never compromised anything in his life – but isn’t successful governing based upon the ability to compromise? Arnold has been a celluloid leader since he first starred as “Conan.” It was like electing Batman governor.
Ronald Reagan is an exception to this rule. Reagan spent many years giving speeches around the country and writing op-ed pieces across the entire spectrum of issues affecting Americans. And when he became Governor, and then President, he reached across the aisle and created solid legislative victories by getting Republicans and Democrats to agree. He didn’t get 100% of what he wanted, but he got a lot…and he made sure that his loyal opposition had input into the process and reaped some victories for their constituencies.
The Second Oldest Profession
Were William Shakespeare alive today, I’m certain that, based on the headlines screaming across the front pages of California newspapers over the weekend, his famous line from Henry IV would have been, “The first thing we do, is kill all the lobbyists.”
I can remember the days in the 1970s when there were no more than 300 lobbyists in Washington, DC. Today there are over 35,000. A comparatively similar growth in the profession of persuasion has occurred simultaneously in River City, aka Sacramento.
What is it about the media that causes them to scream “Lobbyists!”, as if we were an attacking horde of blood-thirsty Visigoths, whenever there is contention among competing interests over matters of public policy? Democracy does not evolve in and of itself from some magical source to bless us. We have to work for it, fight for it, and win, lose or draw for it.
OMG IOU 2?
On Tuesday, the California Franchise Tax Board pulled one of the best sleight-of-hand tricks I’ve seen in years. From now on, if the state has sent you an IOU for your tax refund, or your vendor services, you can send them back an IOU in payment for their IOU to you. Get it? No real money actually changes hands. It’s kind of like a board game where everyone keeps rolling the dice until they get to “Pass Go. Collect $25.6 Billion.”
Back in April I put up a satirical post, “Let’s Print Our Own Money,” about services being exchanged in other states through the use of locally printed “currency,” but this is different. This means we should all start walking around with little note pads upon which we can write “IOU $13.67 for lunch.” I can just see them taking that at Nate & Al’s.
I’m no Larry King regular at the deli to the stars in Beverly Hills, but I know my way around their pastrami sandwiches and they’ve known me for years. I can just see myself leaning over the cash register and asking the cashier for a paper napkin upon which I would write, “I.O.U. $13.67. ” She’d look up at me somewhat confused and ask, “What’s this?
Kamala’s Pimple Politics
Kudos to the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Finnegan for skunking the Chron on the Kamala Harris story. It was a rather revealing piece of journalism that may make Kamala Harris the candidate to be Attorney General of California with the worst credentials ever.
Finnegan’s story reported on Harris’ “Back on Track” program to rehabilitate convicted first time criminals, some of whom wound up allegedly killing, intending to kill, and at the very least, robbing innocent citizens of San Francisco. Many were illegals, and several were definitely out of control repeat offenders who should have been behind bars instead of in back of the classroom.
Harris, the San Francisco District Attorney, attempted to soften the blow to her image and credibility by blaming the illegal immigration issue in general for the specifics of her lack of judgment. Referring to an allegedly vicious attack by one of the convicted criminal illegals in her program, she said, “The immigration issue, as it relates to the Izaguirre case, obviously is a huge kind of pimple on the face of this program.”
Antonio Agonistes Redux
Back in mid-March I posted a piece on this page (Antonio Agonistes) suggesting that no one should underestimate the ability of Antonio Villaraigosa to revert to form, whether it’s in his taste for women, or his unerring grace in bouncing back from adversity. What Gavin, Jerry, Steve, Meg, and certainly, Tom Campbell, fail to realize, is that the Mayor of Los Angeles grew up looking down at the poverty from which he fought his way out. His world is upside-down by most perspectives in that he transcends the thin moralities and hypocrisies of standard politics. He’s a street kid with an attitude and an asphalt eye-view of the California political landscape. He’s a survivor.
Trumped up Los Angeles Magazine covers notwithstanding, Antonio hardly sees himself as a failure, quite the contrary. In the wake of specious journalism, he’s gone right ahead and done what he likes, whether we like it or not, to borrow a phrase from the current mayor of San Francisco.
Meet Me in the Lobby
Excuse me while I light up a big, fat cigar and slip on my pinkie ring so I can call my politician pals and tell them what they need to do to make me happy. Yeah, right. First of all, I don’t smoke, and I got the pinkie ring for my bar mitzvah except it wasn’t meant for my pinkie then.
But, that’s my job. I’m a lobbyist. And, I love it!
For as much as I admire President Obama, I take exception to his exemption of all lobbyists from serving in his administration. After all, who really knows this stuff? And, I mean there’s a lot of “stuff,” including every issue known to humankind in which somebody has a stake. Who tells their story? Who fights for their cause? Who gets results? It’s usually not the average citizen who is subsumed by the bureaucratic anarchy of government at every level.
Lobbyists are like lawyers in that they represent a client. Whether we’re representing workers or bosses, shareholders or public employees, it’s all about knowing how the system works and how to make it work for your client. Somebody’s got to do it. That’s how democracy works.
Anti-Tax Anti-Semites
There’s always some nut jobs out there who need to hang onto the good intentions of others to make their case. Witness California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring’s blast Monday against anti-Semitic graphics being displayed on-line in support of an anti-tax TEA bag event in San Mateo last week
It seems to me that you don’t have to be a Republican to be offended by the crude, if effectively designed graphic:
“The image pictured a bucket of money being poured into a funnel with a Star of David on it, which in turn drips blood into a bottle where a person holding a Palestinian flag is seen drowning in blood. The text reads “Uncle Sam Reminds You: KEEP PAYING TAXES. The ongoing extermination of Palestinian Children Can’t be Done Without Your Help.” (Contra Costa Times, 4/20/09)
Parched Politics
Money used to be the “mother’s milk of politics,” today it’s water. Understanding the labyrinth of water systems feeding the desert that is southern California requires a divining rod with GPS. The politics, however, are a lot simpler.
An interlocking directory of competing interests continuously moves the water game around the map like a rugby scrum. The feds, the state, individual water agencies, agriculture, enviros, business, developers, NIMBY’s, et. al., notwithstanding, Nature is still the ultimate ref in this do-or-die struggle for the life-blood of our future.
The politics of water in our state is pretty much a reflection of the politics in our legislature, everybody gets just enough to keep on going while the loudest complainers compete over marginal shifts in the distribution of valuable resources. But standby, the water whiners are about to grow in both size and volume.