Posted on 09/14/2003 12:49:30 PM PDT by sruleoflaw
As printed in today's Tracy Press (no link available as the Press does not post its op-ed pages) September 14, 2003
Among the three leading candidates to replace Gray Davis in the gubernatorial recall, only one – State Sen. Tom McClintock – seems to have the interests of California taxpayers at heart.
McClintock is one of those exceedingly rare politicians who has never voted for a tax increase. He is the only gubernatorial contender who has promised not to raise Californians’ taxes under any circumstances.
And heaven knows that Californians, who are paying their highest taxes in the Golden State’s 153-year history, could use a break.
Citizens here are weighed down by the third-highest federal/state tax burden in the nation, trailing only Connecticut and Massachusetts.
“Statistically speaking, every aspect of California’s tax system is antagonistic to business development and economic growth,” conclude analysts at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
Except for property taxes, almost all the other taxes – income taxes, sales taxes, and corporate taxes – paid by Californians are among the highest in the nation. So is the amount of state debt financed by taxpayers.
The problem is massive overspending, as Davis and the Democrat-controlled State Legislature increased spending by 40 percent between 1998 and 2002.
Among the three top replacement candidates, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante is a proven foe of taxpayers and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a Trojan horse candidate who will probably raise taxes. Only McClintock is a tried-and-tested friend of taxpayers and he has one of the best grasps of California’s finances of anyone.
While Schwarzenegger was making movies and Bustamante was supporting tax increases, McClintock was looking out for the interests of Californians, warning in June 2000 of the state’s impeding budget disaster.
“It is said the state’s riches make this the easiest budget in a decade. Yet if lawmakers don’t take a strong stand now to control spending, they are setting California up for very hard choices and hard times just around the corner.” He was spot on.
Already, McClintock is putting out the alert that this year’s state budget deficit will exceed last year’s state deficit of $38 billion.
Some of McClintock’s plans to balance the state’s budget include: using Arizona’s worker’s compensation laws to save $2.5 billion for state and local governments, abolishing duplicative state agencies to save $6 billion, and working to end the $42 billion of excessively priced electricity contracts.
“Tom McClintock is a 100 percent legislator on taxes,” said Lew Uhler of the Sacramento-area National Tax Limitation Committee. “He’s an A+. He has always opposed expansion of government and higher taxes. The McClintock name is synonymous with lowering the car tax.”
In the 1990’s, McClintock led the fight against the car tax and he prevailed in the Democrat-controlled Legislature in 1998 as California drivers saw their car taxes reduced by 66 percent. In 1987, McClintock was the co-author of a $1.1 billion tax rebate act.
Bustamante’s answer to the state’s burgeoning deficit caused by overspending is to sock taxpayers with a mountainous $8 billion tax hike – even though the state’s last major tax hike, pushed by GOP Gov. Pete Wilson made conditions worse in similar circumstances.
The Bustamante tax plan, to boost commercial property taxes by $2.9 billion and require more health insurance by employers at a cost of $2 billion, will probably lead to the loss of at least 200,000 jobs.
Bustamante doesn’t only like to tax, he also likes to spend. After each legislative session, the National Tax Limitation Committee rates the spending habits of state legislators. During his three terms in the Assembly, from 1993 to 1999, Bustamante received the same grade for all three sessions – an “F”, for supporting the expenditure of huge amounts of taxpayer dollars.
Despite some taxpayer-friendly rhetoric, no Californian should be surprised if the strongly social liberal Schwarzenegger also proves to be no fiscal conservative and raises taxes.
Like his mentor, former Gov. Wilson, Schwarzenegger has refused to promise he won’t raise taxes. It was Wilson, who in 1990, called Democrat gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein a tax hiker – and then cooperated with Democrats a year later on a $7.3 billion tax increase, one of the largest tax hikes of any state in U.S. history. That tax increase spawned all kinds of negative effects on the state and its citizens.
The 1991 tax increase produced less than half of the revenue projected, the state’s general revenue fund slumped by $1 billion and retail sales went into a nosedive. During the next three years, while rest of the nation prospered with an economic recovery, personal incomes in California fell by more than 5 percent.
If Schwarzenegger is elected and hikes taxes, as his campaign leader Wilson did, the results for California will probably be even more disastrous as California’s economy is in even worse shape now than in the early ‘90’s.
Schwarzenegger, who has absolutely no experience in government, has other tax hike advocates for advisers, including billionaire Warren Buffett and ex-Los Angeles Mayor Dick Riordan, who both think California’s property taxes need to be increased. In addition, a top campaign spokesman stated – and then retracted – that Schwarzenegger would raise taxes if the state’s credit rating worsened.
Out on the campaign trail, Schwarzenegger has claimed, “You know, I don’t believe in spending.” Apparently, the actor’s memory is slightly flawed.
Only 10 months ago, Schwarzenegger crusaded for a ballot proposition that will require the dedicated expenditure every year of $550 million on before- and after-school programs once the non-education budget grows. In other words, as quickly as the state deficit situation improves, the state can start back down the road to new fiscal woes.
Apparently on a tight lease from his advisers, Schwarzenegger won’t discuss any issue in detail, won’t publicly debate other candidates without the questions in advance, engages in “forums” with handpicked audiences, and will not even name one program he would cut. California deserves better.
A McClintock victory on Oct. 7 would rock the Democrat-controlled Legislature, the state capitol spending lobby and even the GOP country club establishment. It’s up to California taxpayers to decide if they want a foe, a Trojan horse or a friend in the governor’s office – before the state goes off the fiscal cliff. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Wampler, a Tracy resident, hosts a radio talk show heard Sunday nights at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 3 p.m. on KCBC (770 AM). (His guest tonight will be Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Tracy), the chairman of the House Resources Committee.) He holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.
The grassroots movement will move underground just to get away from those damn clipboards.
If you tell that lie too times you'll get warts.
Many of them will. The licensing initiative is but one he would have to undertake.
To stop driver licenses for illegal aliens, we need 375,000 signatures. The move has 67% support.
Doesn't matter what the SUPPORT is. You still have to get the signatures by the end of the year, and that costs money. Lots of money.
It is too bad Arnold the actor is opposing the referendum.
You mistake "having enough class not to take credit for McClintock's initiative" for "not supporting it." But if he DID support it, you'd bitch and moan about Arnold "stealing McClintock's ideas."
Mr. Wampler, you have done more on this board than anyone else to give the Tombots the reputation for being complete jerks. So I really don't give a hoot what you think. You can go ahead and support McClintock at all costs. I will vote for him if he's leading in RELIABLE (i.e., not from the Los Angeles Times--or, as I call it, "The Aztlan Daily Worker") polls on October 7th. However, I see little chance of that happening, as McClintock has flat-out refused to go anywhere beyond the faithful pure conservatives for votes, and I don't see him stepping into attack on Bustamante. Indeed, he takes money from people who've endorsed Bustamante.
Nobody has shown up to answer the question? Let me ask who would be the most likely to have suitcases of cash to fund such things? And why would they be involved with McClintock?
Tom says that the Indian tribes are sovereign nations and they should not be taxed on their gaming income. Think those Indian Nations would be willing to fund a few McClintock initiatives as "foreign aide" to Tom's floundering state? McClintock claims, with a straight face, that Indian gaming is NOT a special interest.
If McClintock did undertake an initiative prone administration, the need for outside funds would be ongoing. And rich with opportunities for impropriety.
Then he shouldn't be accepting campaign contributions from them.
Think those Indian Nations would be willing to fund a few McClintock initiatives as "foreign aide" to Tom's floundering state? McClintock claims, with a straight face, that Indian gaming is NOT a special interest.
That is particularly scary. Either (a) he can lie through his teeth without blinking, or (b) he does not have a solid grasp of ethics.
If McClintock did undertake an initiative prone administration, the need for outside funds would be ongoing. And rich with opportunities for impropriety.
What's Tom's stance on the bill that would allow Indian tribes to make ANY land they purchase part of their reservation and allow casino gambling? I really do NOT want casinos right in my neighborhood.
But I suppose he'll say he's doing it "for the children."
I count four new warts.
It is mutual, rest assured of that.
Never? Me? You probably ignore my posts on the issues. The referendum issue has been discussed in excess.
We were, once upon a time, before y'al
I am sorry if I have been rude to you or others.
Typical, smarmy, conditional "apology" of the sort profferred by professional politicians.
I have interviewed State Sen. McClintock five times on my radio show.
Whoop-de-do.
Through those experiences, I have found him to be one of the most gracious, principled and courageous people I have ever seen in politics.
Uh-huh. And you no doubt throw softballs at him, right?
From the moment I came on the website for the recall, I have seen venomous, toxic and poisonous comments about Tom.
Which were inspired by the venomous comments made about Arnold's supporters on this site.
Has that been the case or not?
Your side started this fight. Now you're whining about getting a fat lip.
Now, we'll see if you are an honest person?
More honest than you are, from what I've seen.
I will not stand by and let an honorable person be libeled and slandered and insulted.
McClintock takes money from tribal gaming interests that have endorsed Bustamante, and he's unwilling to attack Bustamante.
I don't find this to be a coincidence.
Maybe that's "principled" to you, and to Mr. McClintock. But I view it as a conflict of interest.
From the start, it seems to me that Mr. Schwarzenegger has run a campaign designed to drive people out of the race, take as few positions as possible, decline to debate and act like he deserved a coronation rather than a campaign.
Rule One: Front-runners decline debates.
Rule Two: Reagan's Eleventh Commandment ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican in a general election") is important. Schwarzenegger has kept that commandment; McClintock has not.
With or without your vote, the momentum is shifting...
Only in polls conducted by an extremely partisan left-wing newspaper. Since when was ANYTHING printed in the LA Times (aka "The Aztlan Daily Worker") taken as gospel fact by true conservatives? Anyone who takes the LA Times as gospel has no business whatso-frickin'-ever calling ANYONE else a frickin' RINO.
and again for any rudeness, I am sorry.
Try issuing a real, unconditional apology.
I have seen little in the way of apologies or responsibility for disgusting actions -- like calling a horse's behind for McClintock.
As long as you keep issuing the smarmy phony apologies, you're not going to get any real ones.
And then there's your repeated tale about his allegedly groping Linda Hamilton that you enjoy repeating. Never mind that Ms. Hamilton has stated flat-out that it never happened--you just keep repeating the story over and over.
So I'm not in an apologizing mood--you haven't earned one.
You've gone out of your way to leave scorched earth behind you, you scorn 80% of the California GOP as "RINOs" and worse, and then you demand their absolute fealty to your position.
Let's put it this way: after all of those insults, pray tell why we should bother supporting your guy if Arnold does drop out?
But we will. You won't reciprocate the courtesy, however.
We'll cheerfully vote for the leading Republican candidate, whoever that is, but you won't unless it's YOUR chosen one.
And y'all pull this crap EVERY DAMN ELECTION...
...and then you have the utter gall to call US the "RINOs" and blame US for your inability to win.
I have fought for what I believe to right and I make no apology for that.
Mr. Wampler, you have a habit of saying on FR things that I would advise folks not to say in person unless they're holding a gun on the guy they're talking to.
I truly hope Arnold doesn't win... for the sake of California.
It's either Arnold or Cruz. Which one of the two is better for California?
Really? LOL! At least you haven't lost you sense of humor.
Some issues I tried to discuss with you
Who pays for the initiatives and why won't YOU defend your own article?
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