"Putting the foot on the other shoe", Meg Whitman's
interview yesterday on KFI640 with John and Ken exemplified the bob and weave that politicians go through when asked direct questions. Listening to the interview was one thing, watching the video is something else. John and Ken put her through the wringer. It showed as she was unable to answer anything without the word "So..." prefacing her reply. It was as if she needed to reset her brain in order to select the pseudoapplicable talking point. John and Ken really earned their paychecks as they attempted to pry answers out of her. Yesterdays answers. Who knows what the answers will be in the future? Today is another day, and tomorrow is too. What this interview highlighted is that, as with the presidential race, we are have been given 2 unacceptable candidates to choose from, a
Sophie's Choice.
Posts
"Unacceptable choices."
ReplyDeleteTo you, perhaps. To me, the choice is clear: Jerry Brown. I'm more liberal than conservative in my thinking, and Brown brings two critical elements missing from the resume of Whitman (or Arnold Schwarzenegger, for the matter): vision and experience.
What turns off people who know Whitman is without wits, and know they should not vote for her, is Brown's left-leaning philosophy. We'll, I'm picking someone who studied under Mother Teresa, and didn't approve bombing Iraq. I'm for someone who has experience with government, not for someone who didn't bother voting most (or all?) of her adult life.
I'm for someone who proved himself, frankly, to be conservative with the state's treasures, and not for someone who tosses off a comment like, "I'm going to fire 40,000 state employees."
Vision and experience: that's what California needs, someone who has the vision to know what to do, and the experience to get it done. Whitman isn't just witless, as she proved on her talk show outing, she's clueless.
Dave,
ReplyDeleteI take it that you are a state employee. California is paying the price today for Jerry Brown's terrible decision decades ago of allowing public employees to unionize. These unions back candidates who will do their bidding. These candidates then turn into legislative whores who continue raising taxes to pay for increased salaries, benefits, and pensions of the public employees. Those of us in the private sector, whose taxes go to these public employees, get no raises let alone cost of living adjustments in this economy, but the public employees keep getting increases.
Nancy wrote:
ReplyDelete"I take it that you are a state employee."
Hardly. I have owned his own business since 1992, and worked in private industry in a management position before that for almost 14 years. I've never had a union card and never worked for the state.
A simple search of google will demonstrate that:
- in 1975 Brown proposed capping raises for state employees at 10%.
- After Proposition 13 passed, Brown asked for a wage freeze for state employees
-Brown demanded and got a reduction of 3,000 jobs, including layoffs, at Cal Trans.
Etc., etc.
Brown did allow for collective bargaining for state employees.
HOWEVER, that law was amended - in 1999 - and it was not until after that year - 1999 - that pension costs began to rise significantly. That would be Senate Bill 400 (SB400), passed overwhelmingly by both Republicans and Democrats in both houses of the state legislature, long after Brown was gone from the scene.
Undue influence over our politicians is wrong, period. Under our system of government, though, that is just how it works. I prefer that those with a more liberal viewpoint prevail, you prefer those with a more conservative bent prevail.
When you say "Those of us in the private sector...get no raises" you obviously aren't referring to bankers who garnered and still garner outrageous "bonuses," despite taking down the economy.
When you say public employees keep getting increases, are you referring to the 200,000 state employed FURLOUGHED by the governor?
Are you referring to Carly Fiorina, running for the Senate, who received a $21.4 million payout, after runnning Hewlett-Packard into the ground?
To recap:
- Brown did not, as Governor, serve at the beck and call of unions.
- He did not sign into law any bills that caused pension benefits to soar.
- Yet he is supported by unions, because he's still more pro-union and liberal than his opponent.
Nancy, you have a biased viewpoint, one leaning toward the right side of the political spectrum. Which is fine. I think you simply repeat the viewpoints you hear from the right, though.
And I, whom am not a state employee and/or union member, have a biased viewpoint, too, one leaning toward the left side of the political spectrum. Which is fine. However, I don't repeat viewpoint I hear from the left, because I'm willing to spend time researching claims from both sides of political spectrum.
Nancy wrote: "I take it that you are a state employee."
ReplyDeleteI have owned muu own business since 1992, and worked in private industry in a management position before that for almost 14 years. I've never had a union card.
A simple search of google will demonstrate that:
- in 1975 Brown proposed capping raises for state employees at 10%.
- After Proposition 13 passed, Brown asked for a wage freeze for state employees
-Brown demanded and got a reduction of 3,000 jobs, including layoffs, at Cal Trans.
Brown did allow for collective bargaining for state employees. HOWEVER, that law was amended - in 1999 - and it was not until after that yea that pension costs began to rise significantly, long after Brown was gone from the scene.
Undue influence over our politicians is wrong, period. Under our system of government, though, that is just how it works. I prefer that those with a more liberal viewpoint prevail, you prefer those with a more conservative bent prevail.
When you say "Those of us in the private sector...get no raises" you obviously aren't referring to bankers who garnered and still garner outrageous "bonuses," despite taking down the economy.
When you say public employees keep getting increases, are you referring to the 200,000 state employed FURLOUGHED by the governor?
Nancy, you have a biased viewpoint, one leaning toward the right side of the political spectrum. Which is fine. I think you simply repeat the viewpoints you hear from the right, though.
And I, whom am not a state employee and/or union member, have a biased viewpoint, too, one leaning toward the left side of the political spectrum. Which is fine. However, I don't repeat viewpoints I hear from the left, because I'm willing to spend time researching claims from both sides of political spectrum.
Well,Dave,I took your advice and did a simple Google search. Came up with a SacBee article http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/25/2913047/as-governor-brown-had-complex.html from today that mentions your points. What it also mentions is a quote from William M. Bennett, then president of the state Board of Equalization, who told state workers, "We have the right to demand that this governor remember who elected him." Where would they get that idea, Dave?
ReplyDeletePension costs may not have begun to rise until after Brown was gone, but the measure taken by Brown improved public employee unions ability to negotiate and strengthened the stature of employee unions in state politics. Had he not allowed collective bargaining, they would not have this power today. He let the genie out of the bottle.
And no, I am not referring to bankers when I talk about not getting raises. I'm talking about people like me, a college graduate who makes less than a janitor for the City of L.A.(See my post on 8/9/10)