Posted on 09/18/2007 11:21:00 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan
"Everything is on the table," said Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday, when asked whether he would support a statewide sales tax, in this case, as part of a massive government intervention into health care in California. The Governor said that he could support placing a tax hike on the ballot on which Californians can vote. Presumably the Republican Governor, after negotiating such a "deal" for California taxpayers, would then advocate its passage as well.
Shame on Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I don't know how to sugar coat this, so I will just say it like it is -- he lied. He lied to me, he lied to his supporters and he lied to all Californians. When he campaigned for re-election last year, he said he was "moderate on social issues, progressive on environmental issues, and conservative on fiscal issues."
I cannot remember a stump speech that the Governor delivered to Republican activists, and I heard quite a few as a grassroots supporter of his campaign, where he did not flat out state his opposition to raising taxes, period. There was no audible "asterisk" qualifying his opposition to new taxes. Schwarzenegger's firm opposition to increasing taxes, in contrast to billions in tax hikes being promoted by Democrat Phil Angelides, helped to keep the Republican base fired up for the Governor while he reached out to Democrat voters with his social and environmental views.
Along with all of my fellow Republicans, we have been trying to practice a terrible balancing act, perched precariously on the Governor's stool while it is has been balanced on just one leg -- solid opposition to new taxes. Well, the Governor has yanked that stool out from under us and we Republicans have now all fallen on the floor. I don't know if it is more embarrassing, frustrating, or upsetting. My Republican Governor has proposed taxes on hospitals, income taxes on medical professionals, and now he is "open" to supporting a statewide sales tax.
The mantra that the Governor has been spewing on healthcare is downright... liberal. He has wrapped himself around the banner of the notion of "hidden taxes" and articulating that there is a cost to all insurance-holding Californians to provide coverage to all of those who do not have health care insurance and that this justifies tax hikes. He is correct about insurance-holding Californians bearing the costs of the uninsured, though the experts at the Hoover Institute have released a study showing that this burden is much lower than has been articulated by the Governor. But the next step that Schwarzenegger takes is to say that we should, in essence, replace the so-called "hidden tax" with actual non-hidden, overt taxes. What the Governor proposes is no fiscally conservative solution. It is not even a moderate one. His proposals on health care "reform" are quite liberal, and are based around this left-wing straw man called "shared responsibility."
Shared responsibility is just another way to say government responsibility, and moves away from a bedrock American principle -- individual responsibility. There is a notion in America, unlike any other place in the world, that here you have freedom. Freedom to succeed, and freedom to fail. You have opportunity that is boundless, but that comes from the notion of a limited government, one that affords liberty to its citizenry. The price for this freedom and liberty is individual responsibility, and the Governor's direction on health care "reform" in California is counter to this philosophical approach towards the proper role of government in our society.
Today in the Wall Street Journal, former Presidential advisor Karl Rove has an outstanding opinion piece in which he articulates a broad number of market-oriented approaches that government can take to increasing the accessibility to and the quality of health care in America -- including leveling the tax playing field through tax deductions or credits, tax-free savings for health costs, increase competition by allowing insurance companies to offer policies across state lines, allow for greater pooling of risk by small companies, increase transparency of medical costs so that American consumers understand what they are paying for, and reigning in junk lawsuits that are driving costs up dramatically. These are just some areas where market principles can be applied to make our health care system in America better -- without attacking the core American principles of freedom and liberty.
Today there is a bold headline in the Los Angeles Times proclaiming "In Clinton Health Plan, Coverage Is Mandatory" -- referring to the latest "HillaryCare" proposal to massively increase the federal government's role in health care. I find it disturbing that both Hillary Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger have at the core of their respective proposals the notion that carrying health care insurance is no longer the responsibility of the individual, but is the role of the government. Both want to move us in the direction of European socialism, and this should be rejected from the outset.
(chuckle)
SD, LA, SF, some of the wine country to the northeast of SF on a few occasions, and a couple of trips to San Luis.
(note I was responding ‘in kind’ to the posters funny comments about Ohio)
I’ve met idiots and deviants from all political parties and in the military in my life.
Never have I met so many of them as I have in California.
Never.
I didn’t and wouldn’t vote for him; but I don’t understand why people are always on taxes,...rather than spending. Cut spending...hell, even I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes if spending is cut in the long-run. It just makes more sense to start with the spending first.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Green man bump!!
Credit where credit’s due.
.
LOL!
“Credit where credit is due”
Good one!
[Good one!]
Lol, sometimes it happens!
Not surprise here. We were warned. Some chose not to listen and to become Arnoldbots - and some Arnoldbots even chose to slime those of us who could see through the Austrian and supported McClintock. So, where are the apologies now? I guess being a “pragmatist” means never having to say you’re sorry.
How many Electoral College votes did that add up to?
L
Isn’t Congressman Murtha from Ohio?
I watched that election cycle and the primaries before it, from here in Ohio, and on another political website (now gone totally kook). And I remember those that desperately wanted McClintock to be the nominee, not Arnold.
I didn’t think McClintock could win a statewide race for Governor, and nothing I’ve seen or heard from him has changed that viewpoint.
It doesn’t matter who the nominee is in California. Its a very unique political enviroment, one where a relative tiny union (prison guards union) has enormous clout statewide, for example.
I just don’t see how you can elect a bonafide conservative in the state the way things stood then, or stand now.
Hey, its the multi site kook!
(chuckle)
Now, call me a newbie...and hope nobody checks your veracity like last time.
You mean like the communists of the 1940s, 50s and 60s? Or the farmworkers and Cesar Chavez? Or Tom Hayden and the 60s anti-war activists? Or the free speech movement? (etc. etc. etc.) Not much has really changed except Republicans seem to have adopted a defeatist attitude.
and many of the decline to state independents are much the same.
Many are also freepers and disaffected Republicans... and decidedly NOT left of center.
Larry Elder & I tried to warn everyone in 2003, you can’t be a social liberal & a fiscal conservative at the same time.
Ya gotta pay for all those social programs some how.
I won’t say “I told you so.”
Too bad everyone who said they were going to vote for Tom McClintock in 2003 didn’t.
As it is, after three more years of RINOld, the CA GOP won’t be able to get a dog catcher elected to statewide office for at least another ten years.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I just think that when the unions run the show, like in California, it doesn’t matter that much who is elected.
The only thing you can do vote initiatives to “starve the beast,” but the union memember will make sure THEY get paid, even while your services are reduced to nil.
Did you watch, as the CA GOP starved McClintock's campaign of support and dollars (allowing ARnold and his liberal machine to take over the GOTV effort)? Did you watch, as Arnold stabbed him in the back publicly, right before the election? Perhaps if we didn't elect LIBERALS to be titular head of the Republican Party in California, under the guise of "the best we can do," the State might have a chance.
You must visit the Boston area soon, especially Cambridge, which will make you feel like you are back in the 60s, except most of these hippies are rich, trust fund kids with alot of time on their hands.
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