Jerry Brown pointed out that Meg would get $15 million a year from her economic proposal to eliminate the state tax on capital gains. Whitman mockingly responded that personal gain of millions a year from her tax plan for California is no biggy because it would not begin to pay her back for the over $140 million she is spending to buy our Governor's office. Meg's attempt to trivialize Jerry's criticism shows her insensitivity to the many jobless, middle class and poor struggling to make ends meet. Megs says it is "ridiculous" to think that she "would run for governor to enrich" herself – as if billionaires are beyond reproach for power and money. But Meg's piece of our economic American pie is not just what she pockets herself, but also how she helps her corporate buddies to avoid having to pay any monies that would come from their greedy profits.
Meg argues that elimination of our state tax on capital gains would "make California more competitive with other states" and "spur job creation." She wants to give tax breaks to the rich to encourage them to create more jobs. Meg's plan would add to our budget deficit and create a jobs deficit when she cuts 33,000 state jobs.
Jerry disagrees: He says "such a move would cost the state billions and that it would largely benefit millionaires and billionaires such as Whitman, the former head of EBay." Meg whips out the "class warfare" accusation when Jerry says he is tired of seeing "the share of the economic American pie" going to the top 1%.
Jerry says California needs the money.
Over the last decade, California has collected between $2.6 billion and $10.8 billion a year in capital gains taxes when people sold stocks, real estate investments and other assets, according to the state Franchise Tax Board.
In 2008, 92% of the capital gains tax was "paid by individuals who reported more than $200,000 in taxable income."
Moreover, Jerry stated that "Whitman's tax proposal would benefit the wealthy and lead to cuts in public schools and universities, which together get about 55 percent of the state's general fund spending, according to the state Department of Finance."
Meg says don't worry, she will streamline the system to protect public schools by whipping out her ax:
Whitman said Tuesday that she would funnel more money into classrooms by trimming what she described as an overfed state education bureaucracy.
The former eBay chief executive says she would consider axing either the state superintendent's office or the state Department of Education.
Another part of that pie is Meg wanting to grease greedy corporate palms by removing a key tool of corporate accountability for external costs of pollution, such as health care impacts.
Meg supports Prop 26, a scheme to overturn a unanimous California Supreme Court decision from 1997 that illustrates the type of expenses that some businesses believe should be paid by taxpayers rather than the responsible corporations. In 1991, the California legislature enacted a Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act that provided "evaluation, screening, and medically necessary follow-up services for children who were deemed potential victims of lead poisoning." This program was paid for entirely by fees assessed on manufacturers and others who contributed to environmental lead contamination. In this case, a paint company had to pay $97,825.26 in fees for 1991 and so it filed a lawsuit to argue that the fees constituted taxes. The Court held that the law imposed valid regulatory fees, not taxes, because the fees were imposed as mitigation for the "actual or anticipated adverse effects" from the operations of the business that was assessed the fee.
The court rejected the paint company's argument that the state does not have authority to "impose industry-wide "remediation fees" to compensate for the adverse societal effects generated by an industry's products."
A reasonable way to achieve Proposition 13's goal of tax relief is to shift the costs of controlling stationary sources of pollution from the tax-paying public to the pollution-causing industries themselves... . In our view, the shifting of costs of providing evaluation, screening, and medically necessary follow-up services for potential child victims of lead poisoning from the public to those persons deemed responsible for that poisoning is likewise a reasonable police power decision.
If the measure passes, taxpayers will have to pay the cost of harm that polluting industries cause because Prop 26 will essentially bar the state from imposing fees on corporations to cover the costs of environmental monitoring and remediation. Citizens living in areas being polluted will thus have to pay for the harm caused them twice - once with their health and once with their wallets. Moreover, if the state is effectively barred from imposing regulatory fees, then the "programs that enforce environmental, food safety and other laws will be scaled back, if not eliminated."
Prop 26 would reclassify mitigation fees imposed by government on business activities that harm public health, public safety or the environment as taxes. Under existing law, the state legislature or local government may create or increase a fee by a simple majority vote. Under Prop 26, the mitigation fees would become taxes subject to a super majority vote of two-thirds. We know how well that has worked in the Senate.
This is one reason why Sara's quilt fundraiser for Jerry Brown is so important.
Here is the exquisite quilt that you could be cuddling with that special someone:
"All Buttoned Up" – photo by Bill Bachhuber
The dark squares are a pattern similar to an afghan that my mom crocheted a few years before she died. I definitely have my eyes on winning it!
This is how you can help Jerry defeat Meg and win a quilt too!
You can donate to Jerry Brown here:
Every day in October brings an opportunity to enter a drawing to benefit Jerry Brown’s campaign for Governor of California. Every donation of $10 or more to the fundraiser’s Act Blue page will count for a chance – one chance per person per day.
OR
You don't need to spend money to enter, however. If you are not donating, you can enter and have an equal chance of winning by writing an essay of 50 words or less on "Why I want Jerry Brown to be California’s next Governor". Send your essay with a subject line, "Jerry Brown Essay", to communityquilts (at) yahoo (dot) com. If we find your essay topical, it will count for a chance. As with donations, one essay per person per day will count as a chance.
Only one form of entry is allowed for a person on a given day.
At the end of the fundraiser period, Sara will assign a ticket number to each chance and ask a neighborhood child to pull just one ticket. The drawing will be the first week in November.
Say YES to JERRY!
Say NO to MEG