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.
Sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can start to climb back up.
Allen, since you’ve only been here since ‘72 you’re part of the very problem that you decry. You’re part of the rot. By 72 I’d already walked and mapped much of the part of this state that you’ve not even driven. What do you think makes you such an expert?
Now he lectures us on "boxoffice" and tries to marginalize conservatism while he installes Old European Socialistic Statism!!! If we keep our chins up during this, we'll git hit square in the snot-locker with still more leftist crappola from supposedly one of our own!!! (NOT!!!)
I understand. I’m a native Californian (Lodi, CA), so I am saddened by the changes that have occurred over the years there.
My pep talk was to encourage FReepers who are still willing to stay and fight for what they believe, against what must surely appear to insurmountable odds.
So, chin up, or down, or whatever works, I still think Conservatives will bring back CA. And as someone has already pointed out, the leftist enclaves are not all there is to CA.
I will continue to look out for posts on the situation there.
“Don’t blame me, I voted for McClintock.”
Course in 4 dead in OHIO, you have those rock-ribbed conservatives like Voinob!tch.
Yes Colonel, we still have good friends in Lodi who are still "stuck in Lodi" and living in blissful ignorance of the politickle spectrum. Too many fermented grapes to even give a care, I guess! Me? I'm wound WAY TOO TIGHT!!! (grrrr!)
I remember all those Sambo's resturants we used to have out here in CA till they got their striped butts sued off by militants that took offense at the name Sambo's!!! Hoooo Boy! What a whirled we live in with alla these lilly livered litigators these days... Oh! Whatever happened to Exxon's tiger in yer tank? Or for that matter... Tony the tiger???
Now what the heck was this thread about, again???
Me too Pelham!
The greed of governors for other people’s money seems to have no bounds. The communist governor in my state is calling for bigger income taxes. taxes on services and even higher taxes (fees, yeh, right) on the fish I catch.
We’re fighting a read guard action to prevent the looting of our wallets, but productive citizens and businesses are leaving this socialist utopia by the tens of thousands.
Hope you have better luck in righting your sinking ship than we’re having.
The one lesson I can teach people is this: Never, never elect a woman just because she’s a woman. And don’t listen to the bogus canard that “It’s time a woman had a chance.”
You might get a communist or a hillary.
‘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.’
I thought it was ‘typical’ politics to be honest.
‘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.’
Saw a lot of that at Yale a few years back, one of my nephews was considering attending there. Even he said afterwards ‘no thanks’.
‘Well, no wonder you have such a warped view of such a large state. Yes, California has been dominated, politically, by leftist nutjobs for a while now, but they mostly reside in exactly the areas you seem to like to visit.’
‘Like to visit’?
Hardly, its always required business trips for the past two decades.
I do have some great memories of riding a motorcyle up the coast out of SD a few times, back when you could rent them downtown. And had a interesting Christmas in San Luis Obispo in the winter of 77/78.
Custer had better odds than conservatives in California from what I’m seeing. Perhaps its the distance....
I know, it was in jest, in return for the description of Ohio people that basically don’t exist.
ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, the first 18 months show otherwise. Just my opinion.
When AwwwwwwwwwwNold says:”Everything Is On The Table”he’s(obviously)referring to the wallets of CA.taxpayers!
Wow, explanation pointis!!!! It! Really! Makes!! Your!!! Point!!!!
(chuckle)
Yes, with all that entails.
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