Posted on 01/18/2007 8:23:17 AM PST by Amerigomag
During the governor's race, Schwarzenegger relentlessly accused Phil Angelides of wanting to raise taxes. The largest share of that total was an Angelides backed mandate businesses to provide health care for their workers. Angelides complanied that the mandate wasn't a tax; the governor's aides insisted it was.
That's from a story in today's Mercury-News. Of course, Schwarzenegger now insists that his push to pay for his health-insurance plan by having companies with 10 or more employees who do not provide health insurance pay a "fee"' of 4 percent of their payrolls, hospitals pay a "fee" of 4 percent of revenues and doctors pay a "fee" of 2 percent of revenues doesn't amount to raising taxes.
This is gross dishonesty. No amount of semantic spin about "shared responsibilities" can change the fact that Arnold is going back on his no-new-taxes pledge of the 2006 gubernatorial campaign.
I talked to Kim Belshe, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, this afternoon. I said I found it amazing that anyone could say with a straight face that adding a direct cost to businesses amounted to a fee instead of tax. She said she could do it.
Mark David (Schwarzenegger's campaign spokesman) is now working for the McCain for president campaign. I look forward to trying to put him on the spot and ask what he thinks about the new Schwarzenegger definition of tax. I bet the last thing McCain wants is for an aide to defend, however indirectly, using semantic evasions to make it possible to raise taxes. (Arnold's plan surely dies if it has to win two-thirds support in the Legislature, as is required for tax hikes.) If anyone has David's e-mail address, please share it.
(Excerpt) Read more at weblog.signonsandiego.com ...
Fee = Voluntary
Tax = Mandatory
I didn't vote for him and I was also telling every one I knew not to vote for him or Angleides either. This guy is no better than a Dem, he started out ok, or at least talked a good game, but when he found out people would actually oppose him on some things he switched sides so fast he was just a blur.
Here in Washington state we have to pay a fee to pay our taxes ... go figure that one out .....
Arnold contracted an STD from Maria Shriver....liberalism!
And Social Security is a Contribution...
Except on my W2, where it's a Tax.
Or on my 1040, where it's not a Tax.
And it ain't hardly voluntary.
I think the real distinction is that you can deduct taxes at the end of the year; fees are just a cost...so, in a sense, they won't be taxes.
Fee = charge for a service
Tax = broadbased funnel leading to government coffers
Targetting users of a service to pay for it rather than coming out of general funds makes sense to me. Tragedy of the Commons comes into play when people who don't need the service avail themselves of it anyway because their taxes paid for it.
That is an old tactic used here in New York for years. He brought it with him out west.
The popular tactic by politicians here in New York has been to reduce taxes, pat themselves on the back, then raise user fees even higher. Now New York has a dwindling population.
Gee I wonder why.
So, AGAIN, an oldie, but a goodie!
FO, you are going to get this post every time one of these articles comes up until you explain your support for the higher taxes this dishonest fascist you so adore is inflicting on this State.
Angelides then launched into a impassioned description of his own plan, which includes expanding health care to all children, cutting the profit margin for HMOs, requiring large companies to provide insurance for employees and then bringing "business leaders, consumers and health experts together to move California toward universal health care." Source
But note the large difference between Arnold and Angelides.
This socialized medicine bill could destroy CA on its own. Source
Oh please FareOpinion, explain for us this "large difference between Arnold and Angelides."
We know you can do it.
You failed to mention my personal favorite of: Revenue Enhancement.
My disgust with him at this point knows no bounds. Just pathetic, absolutely pathetic! He has become just a pandering hack and publicity hound with zero scruples, going back on so much of the lying blather he served up during campaign mode.
Fair enough, but it would be fairer still simply to say that Arnold has veered far to the left since his campaigning on "you pay a tax just walking down the street" radio ads. It's nice that you say you weren't fooled, but those (ads and such in 2003) were exactly right. Perhaps you are simply wiser than us fools, or perhaps you simply guessed better.
None of this changes my mind about McClintock's inability to have won in 2003's recall election, but it may make it seem wiser to have kept Gray Davis in office. I'm not sure, but it's looking less bad in comparison to the latest (and by far the most socialist) incarnation of Arnold.
Oh, and please remove me from any and all ping-lists. Thanks.
I told virtually everybody at the time that he was a habitual liar and a closet fascist, based upon my knowledge of his behavior as a bodybuilder and his associations prior to the recall.
None of this changes my mind about McClintock's inability to have won in 2003's recall election, but it may make it seem wiser to have kept Gray Davis in office.
Had Arnold been chased out of the race by the Republican Party, Tom would have won. I voted for McClintock and against the recall.
I don't have or use them.
Let me rephrase, then, since you seem unable to take the hint:
Don't ever ping me again.
Perhaps, but Arnold wasn't chased out by the GOP. We had to make our best guess based on those who were in the race, their principles, our views of how others would vote, etc. But yes, bottom line, it stings to realize how far afield Arnold has gone from his campaign promises and rhetoric, to his socialist utopia nonsense today.
Arnold promised "no tax increases," but apparently increasing fees all over the place, and borrowing billions of dollars that we're going to have to pay off (probably once he's out of office) certainly straps Californians with a huge burden in the future.
For the record, I didn't vote for him in Nov. of last year. I didn't vote for anyone for governor.
Worse of all, he will be labeled as a republican. He has hurt the republican party for a decade or 2. I truly hate this man. As for the Klintoons, we at least knew what & who they were. I want to start a ReCall. I want his sorry a$$ out.
Here was when you had a chance to vote a 3rd party & show your dissatisfaction against this "Two-Party Cartel'. Bad move. The more dissenters against this cartel the sooner they might get the message. Let's get a ReCall going.
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