"Arnold Schwarzenegger, who stormed into office five years ago deriding tax-and-spend Democrats and mocked his re-election opponent in 2006 as a gleeful "taxoholic,"
is singing a different tune these days," reports Mike Zapler in the Merc News.
"Facing the worst fiscal crisis of his political career, the Republican governor in recent months has signaled in increasingly frank language that he would consider new taxes as part of a compromise to close an $8 billion deficit.
"To be sure, he's never declared: 'Let's raise taxes.' But more and more, he's saying he is at least open to discussing it.
"'I made it very clear my proposal' does not call for raising taxes, Schwarzenegger said at one of several appearances around the state last month addressing the budget. 'But I'm not the only one that is running the Capitol. I'm not the only one that is running the state of California.'
"Legislators, he added, are also involved in budgeting. And in the process of finding a compromise with the governor, higher taxes might enter the picture.
"
'I said and I made it very clear that everything is on the table, Schwarzenegger said."
The Modesto Bee's Ben van der Meer
checks in on the status of the water bond.
"Although state Senate Pro Tem
Don Perata, D-Alameda, floated a bond at the beginning of the year, the budget trouble and associated political squabbling persuaded him to largely shelve his proposal.
"But the idea didn't go away.
"Sen.
Mike Machado, D-Linden, is proposing a bond that borrows from Perata's idea, with some extra touches added at the request of Gov. Schwarzenegger.
"Those include money for surface storage, or, in other words, dams.
"That's bound to raise the ire of environmental groups, which almost always oppose new dams because of the effects on wildlife and river systems.
"But Machado said the state has a basic math problem with water: too much demand, not enough supply. If the state is going to even start to address that problem with a bond, he said, all options have to be on the table.
"'That means surface storage. That means groundwater banking. That means desalinization,' he said. 'The challenge is to see what tools we have to begin to address the issue.'"
The Merc News's Edwin Garcia reports on
an Assembly bill that could tax all those iTunes purchases.
"The proposal by Assemblyman
Charles Calderon, D-City of Industry, doesn't seek directly to tax music tracks, but instead would require the Board of Equalization to update a 75-year-old law that authorizes sales-tax collections on tangible personal property.
"Music, books and videos downloaded off the Internet aren't considered tangible goods.
"'The notion of taxing tangible, physical property is really an industrial-era construct when we made widgets and sold widgets,' Calderon said Friday. 'Now it's not about widgets, it's about information, and selling information and moving information.'"
In related news, if anyone wants to buy a widget, please
shoot us an email.
"If Calderon prevails, the 8.25 to 8.75 percent sales-tax rates in effect in most of the Bay Area would raise the cost of that 99-cent download to $1.07 or $1.08.
"But his measure is being soundly criticized by Republicans, who are opposed to any tax increases to solve the deficit problem.
"'One of the growing parts of our economy, tech online and Internet, is something we should encourage without having these types of taxes,' said Assemblyman
Guy Houston, R-Livermore.
"It's unclear how much money the download tax would generate."
By the way, don't forget to pay that Use Tax on all your Amazon.com purchases from last year when you file your taxes next Tuesday...the state needs the dough.
Peter Hecht
writes the Speier story: "Twenty-nine years ago,
Jackie Speier fell short in a bid for Congress as a young, underfunded candidate with a harrowing story and five fresh bullet wounds.
"On Tuesday, the former state lawmaker is expected to dominate a five-candidate field in a special election to fill the Bay Area's 12th Congressional District seat of the late Rep.
Tom Lantos.
"If Speier wins more than 50 percent of the vote, she will complete a poignant journey to Congress that began in 1978 as she was clinging to life on an airport tarmac in Guyana.
"Speier, then a 28-year-old congressional lawyer, was riddled by gunfire that killed her boss, Rep.
Leo Ryan. She overcame the trauma of the Jonestown mass murder-suicide, orchestrated by tyrannical cult leader Jim Jones, that left 900 people dead.
"She ran for Congress in memory of Ryan but finished third in a 12-candidate 1979 special election field. Yet she said recently, 'It was therapy. I didn't want to be a victim the rest of my life.'
"Now Speier is running for Congress on her own record -- as a longtime Sacramento lawmaker who championed protections for consumers and victims of violence. Competing in a redrawn district that heavily overlaps Ryan's former 11th District, Speier said she feels 'a synergy' to a political life coming 'full circle.'"
George Skelton looks at
Bill Lockyer's war on Wall Street rating firms.
"He's trying to stop Wall Streeters from gouging state and local governments.
"That means state and local taxpayers. They're the ones getting fleeced when their governments issue bonds -- borrow -- to build roads, schools, water facilities and other public works.
"It's a highly complicated subject," Skelton writes, which means you should probably click on the link and read the story if you want to try to figure out what he's talking about...
Meanwhile in Washington, looks like DiFi has taken a cue from
Fiona Ma. According to a release sent by Feinstein's office last week,
"U.S. Senator
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has introduced a measure to establish a federal ban on phthalates in children's toys. The bill is modeled after California's landmark ban.
"California recently became the first state in the Nation to ban the use of phthalates in toys and other childcare articles. The European Union has banned phthalates, and Mexico has blocked imports and sales of plastic products made with phthalates for children. Thirteen additional countries have taken steps to ban or restrict the use of phthalates."
Speaking of DC,
looks like our Congressional delegation is going vegetarian. Steve Wiegand reports, "The Congressional Pig Book is out, and it reveals that California's delegation has -- to mix metaphorical clichés -- dropped the ball when it comes to bringing home the bacon.
"The Pig Book is an annual publication of the D.C.-based Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) that tallies the various undebated and rarely scrutinized "earmarks" that congressional members stuff into appropriations bills for their pet projects.
"According to CAGW, the stuffing for the 2008 fiscal year consisted of 11,610 projects costing $17.2 billion, a 30 percent increase over 2007. But California pork fans will be chagrined to learn the Golden State was a woeful 49th when it comes to per-capita earmark money, averaging a paltry $18.23 per Californian."
And finally, AP reports, "Palo Alto police are looking for
a bank robber who favors a decidedly slow-speed getaway vehicle -- an electric wheelchair. Police said a man in his 60s with gray hair and a beard held up the Wachovia Bank branch at the Stanford Shopping Center late this afternoon with a black handgun.
"
After the stickup, he left in his wheelchair and was last seen motoring down a nearby street toward El Camino Real, a major thoroughfare.
"Witnesses say the man's legs were wrapped in bandages and his right leg was sticking straight out while he zoomed away..."
