Meg Whitman has spent nearly $100 MILLION on her campaign for California governor...

[B_talltpaguy]

What if it was family money or they inherited it (FDR, JFK)?

They're the worst of all dude, because those are the ones with the entitlement complex, whereby they think they are God's gift to the Earth, and quite literally 'deserve' what they were born with.

Go hang around some rich people... You'll see.

 

[B_RedDude]

God, I think you're the only other person I've heard with this accurate take on the 2003 recall. A take, I might add, that was transparently obvious to me. Thanks for reminding everyone.

I know I will get flamed for being elitist, but the fact of the matter is that voters on the whole are often stupid and shortsighted, including when they decline to even vote for lack of "enthusiasm".

The U.S. media likes to treat politics as a sport, but it isn't. The consequences of the outcomes are way more serious.

I can guarantee you that if Gerry Brown is elected, Daryl Issa will have a recall started to remove him and place in another Republican "schill" by the time that Brown takes office. The California Voters fell for this one time. Let's see if they are stupid enough to go down for two!

After all, the few Extremist Republicans in California have learned. "If we don't like it or we get a Democrat, we can take the will away from the people and cancel out an election whenever we want to by a recall." Extremist Tea Party Chapters are going to guarantee that this will at least be tried.

Care to elaborate on how this is the case, Ken?

Fuel and energy costs are one of the things bankrupting Californians.

 

[TomCat84]

Tom, think you might run for office one of these days?

Absolutely not.

1) I have a lot of skeletons in my closet that I have no interest in being brought out for the world to see.

2) I have ZERO patience for people who are willfully ignorant and just don't get it (ie, Teabaggers).

 

[B_RedDude]

Unfortunately, reform of Proposition 13 in California is the third rail of its politics, sort of like the sacrosanctity of Social Security has been in the past on the national level.

But the revisiting of Proposition 13 is absolutely essential to the future of our State.

My partner is still in shock at what Prop 13 did to California's schools. He grew up in the Little Switzerland part of the state (Owens Valley), and even in that remote area they had first-rate teachers and abundant funds for equipment, materials and field trips. The whole state led the nation in education: primary, secondary and post-secondary. Then Prop 13 came along and gutted it, and now they're what, 47th in secondary education rankings? Disgraceful. It should have been thought out much better at the time. I don't think either Whitman or Brown has a plan to address this.

 

[B_RedDude]

Well, in any case, you're a smart and articulate guy. It's a pleasure to read your remarks on this stuff.

Absolutely not.

1) I have a lot of skeletons in my closet that I have no interest in being brought out for the world to see.

2) I have ZERO patience for people who are willfully ignorant and just don't get it (ie, Teabaggers).

 

[TomCat84]

There is a myth that California is hemorrhaging jobs. That's not the case. I've seen study after study showing that the jobs California is losing are blue collar, mediocre jobs. The median income in San Diego alone has gone up substantially in the past 10 years. Yes, California is an expensive state, but we're the state that has spawned Apple, Google, Ebay, etc. We have the Bay Area-technology and financial services-, L.A./Riverside/OC- center of the entertainment industry- and San Diego- one of the largest concentrations of military power in the world. No other state - not even Texas or New York- comes close to the level of cultural influence California exerts on the nation/world.

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

If kept in office, Arnie would push the State towards bankruptcy, so he can abrogate the high cost union contracts, which he abhors, prison guards included. In that regard, he is very Republican. I'm not sure Whitman would not be more of same on this score.

Arnie got elected, based upon on the then obscure recall provision, not so much that Gray Davis was aptly named, but because Arnie would not re-instate the car tax, while Davis had already said he would. Davis was simply going to re-levy the car tax, which had been in place since 1949, but was rescinded in '98. The $6B a year from the car tax, if reinstated in '02, would have closed the budget gap of $24B in '07. Arnie must have known this. So much for Republicans being the party of fiscal responsibility.

Brown, for all his political faults, and Jesuit inspired meanderings in both political and personal deserts, had the state both in the black, employed, and moving in the right direction on energy policy. Today CA would be the world leader in green energy, if Brown's solar, and CARB policies had remained intact. That alone qualifies him for office, what ever else his shortcomings maybe.

Whitman, OTOH, has no political experience whatsoever, recently wrote her campaign another $15M check (are we up to $115M ??), and has now the distinction of spending more of her personal fortune on a $200K job than anyone in history. I know business community would like to see her take office, if only to counterbalance the overspending Dems, but I have not heard a single campaign promise, or take on an issue, that signifies she's ready for one of the largest public office positions in the country, in a very diverse state that has a systemic form of gridlock.

Brown, OTOH, would at least have a Dem majority to work with.

TK, sorry to have gone on a bit of rant in your thread, but to get back to a point you made earlier, yes it is completely absurd that we have to have a 2/3 vote to raise taxes, but only 50%+1 to amend the state governing document.

The initiative process has been totally abused by everyone over the last 30 years. One thing that must change is the 5K signature quorum to put a measure on the ballot. I also think the petition process should really be a recommendation from the electorate to the Assembly on how they want legislative solutions crafted.

We have seen all too many times, that governing from the ballot box by proposition, is a contradictory process, which creates unfunded mandates. The Assembly is paid to legislate, make them do their jobs, and not kick unpopular, or budget busting measures to the petition process, so their records look untarnished by taking accountable stands.

 

[Bbucko]

The initiative process has been totally abused by everyone over the last 30 years. One thing that must change is the 5K signature quorum to put a measure on the ballot. I also think the petition process should really be a recommendation from the electorate to the Assembly on how they want legislative solutions crafted.

We have seen all too many times, that governing from the ballot box by proposition, is a contradictory process, which creates unfunded mandates. The Assembly is paid to legislate, make them do their jobs, and not kick unpopular, or budget busting measures to the petition process, so their records look untarnished by taking accountable stands.

I have long thought that the ballot propositions are rule by mobocracy. It's good to see that someone agrees with me on this.

 

[FuzzyKen]

I am a former Californian having been born in Hollywood, raised in my earliest years in North East Los Angeles, then moving to South Pasadena. I attended College in California and most of my family including most of the past generations of it are buried there. I will always feel a great deal of love for a State that I once called home.

Now, that being said.

I am now heading for 58 years old. Though I was very young at the time I remember the hard fought race between Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Senior and then newcomer to politics Ronald Reagan.

The entire Brown family were part of the "public service" scene for decades including Gerry Brown's Sister, Kathleen Brown Rice. (Yes that was her real name I did not make that one up)

Nobody could have predicted the financial problems that would overtake California.

Tax Crusader the late Howard Jarvis stood behind one of the most interesting property tax measures in history. In the later years of the 1970's constantly escalating property taxes were reaching critical melt-down. Many senior citizens were being literally forced to sell their homes because on fixed incomes they were losing the ability to pay their property tax obligation. For those not familiar with proposition 13 it changed property tax structure to where properties were only re-assessed on re-sale. The concept was that a senior could live out their years and remain in their homes. However, there were some things that happened to it later. Cities and Counties were later able to impose "user fees". Originally the idea was that a person could always know what they were going to pay. If you bought a home for $100,000 right after this passed and became law, you would multiply the sale price of the property by .0125% and that would give you the property tax figure. This meant that a $100,000 home in 1979 would have a $1,250 property tax bill, the first part being due in April and the second in December if my memory serves me correctly. These two statements would be sent to you and there were few other fees. Over time this was eroded by Cities and Counties needing money. They then "piggy backed" their fees on top of the standard property tax bill.

The original form also contained a provision that if a senior citizen moved to another location that they could take their property taxes with them. This meant that Grandma and Grandpa could go buy a condo when the house got to be too much and still be safe. There were a few other safeguards as well originally.

What nobody expected was the absolutely insane skyrocket of California Real Estate Prices.

The home that Grandma and Grandpa lived in before they moved to that condo skyrocketed to where all of a sudden the State of California was collecting $6,300 in taxes not including City fees when the home reached $500,000. This was an artificially inflated price based on economic conditions at that time. As all of these Grandparents began to die off the property tax fees and hence revenue collected skyrocketed along with it.

What this accomplished was to force for example younger people living in the greater Los Angeles area to move way out into the suburbs and to commute incredible distances to their jobs. These were the only homes that they could get into on an "entry" level.
These were home sales that definitely were NOT "sub-prime". These were simply a new generation trying to get into home ownership.

As time progressed in California, the costs on nearly everything began to follow the lead of Real Estate with an unhealthy artificial inflation of prices and this included the price of California Government.

I left California because I simply could never retire if I continued to reside there. I at that time owned a 2002 Ford Crew Cab diesel pickup. My license tags on that pickup truck in the year 2005 were $985.00 for a single year. This high cost is because California has what is called a V.A.T. on vehicle license tags. That is a "Value Added Tax" meaning that you are taxed on what the State of California thinks your vehicle is worth in addition to the actual cost of the license tags themselves. When I moved to New Mexico my license plates dropped from $985 to $115 for the same truck. I have friends that are paying nearly $500 for a Solara Convertible in California.

California Sales Taxes are charged on nearly everything with few exceptions and currently Californians are paying sales tax rates that are among the highest in the Nation.

California in spite of having a great deal of refining capacity is currently paying fuel prices that are relatively close to those charged in the State of Hawaii. Interesting considering that major refineries and oil is handled in Wilmington near the Los Angeles Harbor for Chevron and Exxon Mobil. This same fuel is shipped from those refineries to Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and other markets. Many of these markets are being charged far less per gallon than are those living in California.

What California needs is not political rhetoric by candidates that will without doubt be forced to raise taxes no matter what their party affiliation. What California needs are Federal Auditors to come in and find out where the hell all the money being collected is going.

The economic power of the State of California is larger than many foreign countries.

There is little doubt that because of the power of the once prestigious king of States that any person serving in California's highest office is going to find ways to turn that position into a meal ticket if they can stick out two terms.

While revenue was escalating based on the escalating taxes, service fees, and prices of merchandise to California residents, Services were being cut at an astounding rate. The call was always we need to cut the budget.

California DMV Offices designed for a staff of 60 people in some locations were being operated on absolute skeleton crews. The last time I had to appear to renew a Driver's License in Palm Springs, California I took a number from a roll and then proceeded to wait most of the day before that number was called.

I agree with a poster who stated that California Schools once among the best now fail to attract new or the best teachers. Government paperwork in California now requires a bank loan with fees for duplicate Birth Certificates and Death Certificates having been escalated into staggering amounts. In spite of this we hear the continued cry "we're broke". I can tell you from experience that many of the friends I have who retired from civil service positions had their salaries frozen a number of years ago and they worked like "sweat mules" because as people left positions the positions were never filled to cut budgets and save money. These positions in addition included people from AQMD and other things protecting your health and safety.

If you think that something is not wrong and that I am speaking in jest, here is a reference point for you yourself to start doing your homework.

Go to the website http:Real Estate Listings, Homes for Sale and Rental Property Listings The site is relatively complete as far as information for you to operate your calculator.

Take a given area and take the sale prices of the homes offered and multiply that sale price by .0125%. This will give you a base tax rate for that propery. If you want you can really go to town on this one. Considering the total number of properties in California that are tax eligible, you are going to find numbers that are interesting. What you will not hear is the total revenue collected in California in a political campaign commercial. One candidate will yell! I can fix this without raising taxes! Another candidate will talk about how their opponent is a continuation of the policies of George W. Bush. Another will yell....Tax and Spend...Tax and Spend! All are of course ignoring that budgets have already been cut to the point of bleeding and there is not that much left to cut.

In all the rhetoric you hear the one thing you are definitely not going to hear is an honest and open discussion of the issues at hand. They can't do it because in all honesty none of these people has a clue what they can do. No matter what they say, the ONLY thing that they can do in the short term is to raise taxes. None of the candidates have the courage to request a Federal Audit. If the FEDS come in and find that the problem was caused by either of the political parties the firestorm will damage their own party as well as the other guy.

This California Election is quite possibly one of the most important in the history of that State. At the same time Californians are faced with the a number of candidates for this office that are simply not going to be able to do anything except more of the same.

I hang my head looking at the choices I have seen on the news. Whitman is to be certain experienced, but would she be working for the betterment of the people of the State of California or the betterment of Meg Whitman. Gerry Brown is now an old man and will he have the clout to fight opposition to everything he wants to do just simply because of who or whom he is and the ideals he represents to those opposing him.

In closing, I often do not write in a ton of references because you can take virtually everything I say and simply type the cues into Google just as I do to find out information. I subscribe to Hughes Net and my news sources tend to be the middle of the road. If I personally find something interesting I never click on "links" I go at it via Google. I do this because I want to see what various sources have to say, I do not want to read a single source on anything. I tend to take a consensus of multiple things rather than any single source on anything. When I author a posting I feel that anyone who reads my postings would also have the intelligence and common sense to look for multiple sources. I don't eat "fast food" because it often has little healthy nutritional value. I feel the same about news. It is easy to link to a single news source who presents something heavily laden with the opinion of the media outlet ownership.

Never trust what any once source says, this is why I don't provide links. I want you to think and research yourself. You are the one making the decisions and you are the one casting a ballot if you live in California. My theory is to give you food for thought and hope that you will follow up and learn more.

 

[ColonialBoy]

Thats an odd system off assessing property taxes.

The Australian system is:
Property Tax amount = Your property price/ (sum of property prices in your area ) * constant.

That way, if all properties increase by 50%, nobody pays more tax.

All modern western democracies have a Value Added Tax. If somebody proposed to drop all sales taxes & replace them with a federal VAT, what would be the response?
(This is what happened in Australia. To be honest a lot of what you describe we got rid of 30 years ago, its anacronistic)

 

[cruztbone]

Megabucks meg now is tied 41-41 with Jerry Brown , with 18% undecided, according to the respected Field poll as of this week (Sept. 23). help us help turn the 18% in Brown voters; go to jerry brown for governor CA website and sign up. California's future, being the largest state in the US, is too important to trust to a woman who made a fortune from selling other people's stuff and then claiming to be a great businessman. She isnt; and CA is NOT a business, nor should it be run as one. considering how Wall street ran its businesses in recent years, the LAST example we need in government is another Wall street wannabe in the governor's chair.

 

[lurker37160]

I really wish there were strict state & federal limits made on campaign spending. More and more it seems as if the ones who have the money and spread the most propaganda get the prize.

Unless of course, the democrat had the cash.

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

All modern western democracies have a Value Added Tax. If somebody proposed to drop all sales taxes & replace them with a federal VAT, what would be the response?
(This is what happened in Australia. To be honest a lot of what you describe we got rid of 30 years ago, its anacronistic)

Our institutions are old and anachronistic. Problem is the states have no other way to raise revenue beyond property tax, and sales tax. As Ken duly noted above, the amount of Property Tax raised in CA is astronomical, but is less than it would have been had Prop. 13 not been put into place. For instance I pay X for my place purchased within the last decade, whereas my neighbor, who has owned his place since the '70s pays X-70%. The other distortion is that commercial properties are sold as shares of stock, rather than retitled, which means, according to Prop. 13, they are not reassessed, so huge commercial office buildings can be assessed at lower values than private homes.

Thanks for the note CTB. I'll sign up. Jerry may be imperfect, but I will take his known imperfections, and known good points, over a complete unknown who made her fortune from selling people's garage junk online.

She did make an assertion today in one of her radio ads, that CA has 30% of all US welfare recipients with only 12% of the US population. It is probably utter Republican propaganda, but I'd like to know more about it.

One thing that will have to change regardless of who wins, is the public pension system. Don't know if anyone has followed the arrest of the town officials of Bell, CA, where the City Manager paid himself $1M per year, with no contract review, but they are emblematic of public servants cum venture capitalists, except they took no risk, nor had any capital. If Calpers, and Calstrs, do not have their houses cleaned, and are not fortified, not only will municipalities like Vallejo go bankrupt, but the state will be imperiled as well.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Unless of course, the democrat had the cash.

And herein, lies your problem. Still thinking in political binary after all this time.
Just because you can only think in two directions doesn't mean that others must have the same limited and narrow views of the world. Come back when you have a more mature political mindset. You're certainly not ready for any serious discussion with the mass majority of people around here.

 

[Penis Aficionado]

Well, I live in Texas and don't know much about what's going on in California. But I volunteered for Jerry Brown's 1992 presidential campaign (the only case of political activism to ever afflict me). I hung out with him briefly and while I found him a bit imperious, for a politician he really did seem inquisitive, openminded and curious. He had an artist's perspective when it came to politics, if that makes sense. In a weird way he reminded me of Dr. Timothy Leary. I thought of him as a great but flawed man.

I've never met Meg Whitman but I did know many low-level internet entrepreneurs during the mid-90s tech boom, and I cannot imagine worse people to run the country or a state. Mainly because they considered the very idea of our country an obsolete nuisance -- they thought of themselves as citizens of the world and eagerly awaited the day when digital communication and commerce would render governments powerless. They rarely knew anyone from the middle class, let alone the working class. Consequently they believed that almost everyone in the future could make a living by either investing in the inevitably ever-rising tech stock market or becoming online entrepreneurs themselves.

So I'm rooting for Brown, from a distance, although it's hard to see how he could win given 1) the current political climate; 2) the huge number of people who may associate Whitman with cash in their pockets via ebay; and 3) his evisceration at the hands of Jello Biafra -- the first thing most people I know associate with him.

 

[ColonialBoy]

Our institutions are old and anachronistic. Problem is the states have no other way to raise revenue beyond property tax, and sales tax. As Ken duly noted above, the amount of Property Tax raised in CA is astronomical, but is less than it would have been had Prop. 13 not been put into place. For instance I pay X for my place purchased within the last decade, whereas my neighbor, who has owned his place since the '70s pays X-70%. The other distortion is that commercial properties are sold as shares of stock, rather than retitled, which means, according to Prop. 13, they are not reassessed, so huge commercial office buildings can be assessed at lower values than private homes.

The only way things will change is when you have a currency crisis like Greece and the whole country is effectively in "Chapter 11." . See how the right wingers & conspiracy nuts behave when when the IMF & world bank intervene!

And it will happen, you cant have trillion dollar deficits forever. I saw some 30 year projections and the way you are going, the US will be broke.

One thing you probably dont notice is how the US dollar is being slowly devalued. Your comparative standard of living is going down, I can buy a house in Huntingtn Beach for less than the rural Australian town where I live.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

One thing you probably dont notice is how the US dollar is being slowly devalued. Your comparative standard of living is going down, I can buy a house in Huntingtn Beach for less than the rural Australian town where I live.

Trust me, we've all noticed or at least some of us.
At one point the American dollar was stronger than the Canadian dollar by 30 cents. Now, their dollar has appeared stronger than ours by almost a dime. This shift had happened within the last 10 years. However, even though our dollar is losing value against certain currencies the standard of living in this country hasn't reflected it. Many costs for everyday items & services have continued to rise while the average yearly income for families have dropped. Major corporations still have the business model of turning in a profit bigger than the last one even during a recession. That's probably one of the big reasons why our country has such major unemployment right now, but now I'm getting sidetracked. :redface:

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

Trust me, we've all noticed or at least some of us.
At one point the American dollar was stronger than the Canadian dollar by 30 cents. Now, their dollar has appeared stronger than ours by almost a dime. This shift had happened within the last 10 years. However, even though our dollar is losing value against certain currencies the standard of living in this country hasn't reflected it. Many costs for everyday items & services have continued to rise while the average yearly income for families have dropped. Major corporations still have the business model of turning in a profit bigger than the last one even during a recession. That's probably one of the big reasons why our country has such major unemployment right now, but now I'm getting sidetracked. :redface:

Oh yes, many of us have noticed! And it's not a sidetrack, it's at the heart of the US economic dilemma, as we can't devalue ourselves to the bottom. We have exported many of our jobs and services in the name of 'cheaper' prices all while we throw trilions at the defense dept., and consume as much as possible. Utterly clueless economics. However, we may turn it around again. I recall when the Aussie dollar was also worth about .75 on the US dollar, about 20 years ago, and now, it's at parity.

 

[FuzzyKen]

I was voting when Proposition 13 became Law and I voted for it. What I now realize was that while the proposition was both necessary and good in intention it was flawed in that it made no provision for the insane artificial inflation of property values to come later. I blame no one because nobody could have predicted this.

- - - - - - - -

Though I am no longer a California Resident I have many friends and I do care greatly as has been previously stated about the State of California and the friends I left behind.

As much as I want to cut out my tongue with a dull knife for saying this, as much as I dislike Gerry Brown, given the choices and the experiences of his opponent and the fantasy world of business she indeed did create, she would be entering the office of Governor with little if any meaningful political experience and a mistaken concept that a State Government is or could be run as a profit making business.

I am going to have to root for Gerry Brown from a distance, but for the sake of the State of California, I hope that he is elected.

The next question will be how long before a recall is undertaken by the losing party.

 

[B_talltpaguy]

I was voting when Proposition 13 became Law and I voted for it. What I now realize was that while the proposition was both necessary and good in intention it was flawed in that it made no provision for the insane artificial inflation of property values to come later. I blame no one because nobody could have predicted this.

It is utter folly to assert that nobody could have predicted the outcome of that law... Its inevitable outcome was accurately predicted by numerous experts... Who were all summarily ignored by people with an ideological agenda that they were putting into action, come hell or high water.

And frankly, if you didn't know what the outcome would be, then why in the hell were you voting for it? Talk about dumb!!!