Poizner can’t outrun his pro-tax-and-spend past

May 29th, 2009, 12:50 pm · 2 Comments · posted by Steven Greenhut

The California Republican Party should have learned its lesson with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he was running, Schwarzenegger talked about his commitment to the free-market principles of Milton Friedman. He never talked in depth about those ideas, but instead focused on his story of coming from socialist Austria to capitalistic America. That was good enough for conservatives who were desperate to get rid of Gray Davis. Fairly quickly, though, Schwarzenegger became an ally of the state’s Democrats and has embraced bigger government and higher taxes. His principles were wafer thin.

It looks like the state Republican Party might be about to do the same thing again. I just got a press release from the gubernatorial campaign of Steve Poizner: “Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner has solidified his position as the choice of California’s Republican leaders. He has by far the largest number of endorsements of any Republican candidate for Governor. He now has the endorsement of over 70% of Republican state legislators, eight former California Republican Party Chairs, dozens of local elected officials, numerous current and former Republican County Chairs and hundreds of members of the California Republican Party State Central Committee.”

Have they learned nothing?

This is from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association: “A group of Silicon Valley leaders is gearing up to qualify an initiative for the 2006 ballot that would make it much easier to increase property taxes. Calling themselves Taxpayers for School Improvement, the members are many of the same players who spent millions to pass Proposition 39 in 2000. Members of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association will remember that Prop. 39 lowered the two-thirds vote to 55 percent to pass school bonds that only property owners must repay. In just four years, Prop. 39 has cost homeowners billions of dollars.”

Poizner supported both plans to massively increase taxes on Californians. He has been championing himself as a conservative, but this was only three years ago when he was closely aligned with some of the state’s most liberal elements to make it easier to raise taxes over and over again. He supported efforts by taxpayers to spend money on stem cell research (Prop. 71) and was a leading advocate for a bond to increase public-school funding. He also advocated a high-speed rail boondoggle. We’re not talking about a long time ago, but fairly recently. He also was vocal in opposing President Bush’s tax cuts during his 2004 run for the state Assembly. I reported that he has been a fairly close ally of the consumer activists as insurance commissioner.

Is this what California needs? Let’s hope voters look at the record of all the candidates and not just listen to the empty words this time.

More on this later

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Orange Punch bloggers write from a particular libertarian point of view. We’re dedicated to advancing human freedom and believe that the primary role of government is to defend Americans’ liberties. We seek a smaller, more limited government, expanded and freer trade at home and abroad, open markets and secure property rights. We believe in the power and goodwill of the individual; that he or she will aspire to a better tomorrow for themselves, for their family and for the community. We would hope for people to exercise integrity and self-responsibility along the way. The bloggers are Alan Bock, Brian Calle and Mark Landsbaum. The genesis of this particular brand of libertarianism is R.C. Hoiles, founder, Freedom Communications, Inc., parent company of the Orange County Register.

rlh says:

May 29, 2009 at 1:26 pm

Well, let me just comment on one thing: the line from the Jarvis folks that lowering the supermajority standard for school bonds via Prop 39 “has cost homeowners billions of dollars” - as if they hadn’t consented to such costs, wisely or not.

Guys, the majority is supposed to rule, in general at least. Supermajority requuirements are problematic things, as our legislature has demonstrated - they hold the popular will hostage to the sentiments of a minority. If you don’t like a bond, vote against it. If you don’t like a budget, vote against the legislators who passed it.

There are lots of reasons our politics and budget are in a mess, but don’t discount the role that allowing supermajorities to hold the process hostage has played. We need a bunch of structural reforms - the removal of mandatory set asides for various causes that have been passed by initiatives in past years (education and mental health are good examples), tightening of the initiative process itself to remove it as the preferred avenue for enacting laws and making policy and budgetary decisions, and the restoration of majority accountabilioty in the legislature by remocving the supermajority rules. Those are some good places to start. Dumping term limits is another - does anyone doubt that a seasoned legislative leadership (think Willie Brown, while leaving aside his political bent) would have allowed our situation to get to this pojnt without acting?

The Jarvis folks are great at fighting the battles of 1978. But here’s the catch: it’s not 1978 anymore. Marginal tax rates are at their lowest point in generations, busineses have had unparalleled breaks given them over the past generation, and state spending when adjusted for inflation and population growth over the past decade has increased only by about 0.2% per year according to the Legislative Analyst. We need a dose of reality here. I don’t like paying taxes any more than the next guy, but I’m not going to pretend that we can operate without a sound revenue base.

Marc960 says:

May 29, 2009 at 7:03 pm

rlh,
now I understand exactly why you are so critical of the OCR and it’s editorial writers.
All the “solutions” you listed as needing to be “corrected” are the same things that have provided some small degree of protection for the taxpayers from the ravages of the “Tax and Spend” politicians.

Your “I don’t like paying taxes….” line is less than believable as well as the state spending increase of 0.2% each year. If you took that factoid from the LA Times yesterday you might want to check again. The LAT added a correction today bur still has the population numbers wrong.

I’m looking at a state budget that has gone up by what, $40 Billion in the last six years? This year my State income tax will be 10.4%. Californians are taxed at a rate that puts us in the top five most taxed states in the country. We HAD a sound tax base (liberals call it a ‘revenue base’ but it’s still taxes) until our state government outspent ourselves for years in a row.

Businesses are getting such good breaks they are leaving the state. Did you know that more people move out of CA than move in? CA spends billions on illegal alien expenses, possibly up to $13 Billion a year (the highest estimate I’ve seen,admitedly), over 25% of the inmates in the OC Jail are illegals! We need ’seasoned leadership’, like Willie Brown? He made himself the King of California for god’s sake. He was a dictator and puppet master. CA is not searching for another Willie, what we need are representatives impervious to bribery and a good dose of economics in their heads.

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