He used to call it a tax, now it's a fee: Arnold's gross dishonesty

San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | 01-16-2007 | Chris Reed

[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.

[calcowgirl]

Beware of the even greater tolls coming in the future. Yesterday, the Administration put out a press release announcing how the big-bang-bond was just a down payment, and now they'll use those billions in borrowed money to leverage the state into attracting billions in private capital for more Public-Private Partnerships (among other things, this includes toll roads, toll bridges, etc).

These Public-Private Partnerships are NOT a good thing. Soon, all of those tolls will be controlled by foreign controlled entities and we will be at their mercy everywhere we travel. The linked article is well worth the read (the formatting in the original PDF version is much more reader friendly.)

[Carry_Okie]

I didn't vote for anyone for governor.

Why? Noonan (Constitution Party) deserved your vote.

[My2Cents]

The 3rd party candidates were dolts. I may NOT vote in order to show my protest, but I will not vote for some dweeb running on some pathetic third party.

[My2Cents]

Noonan (Constitution Party) deserved your vote.

Why encourage them? I consider third-parties a complete waste of time. I will vote for whom I believe will be the best office holder. I've never seen a third-party type who deserved my vote.

[FairOpinion]

Which part of "ARNOLD VETOED THE GOVERNMENT RUN SOCIALIZED MEDICINE SINGLE PAYER BILL" Don't you understand?

The current healthcare bill may have it's good and bad points, but it's NOT the socilized medicine bill, which Kuehl wants to resurrect, by the way -- there was an article she actually wrote promoting it.