CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 19, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“IMMIGRANT AMNESTY: LITTLE CHANCE THIS YEAR”
Every poll shows there are few things California’s burgeoning Latino community wants more from government this year than immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for persons now in this country illegally, also known as amnesty.
But despite happy talk from President Obama and some other leading Democrats, chances of this happening are very slim.
For Democrats who now possess large but shaky majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House are not nearly as united on this cause as they are on health care – and their brand of unity on that cause has produced nothing close to what Obama promised as a candidate in 2008. There is no publicly-run health insurance option on the table. The proposed requirement that all citizens must have health insurance has all but disappeared, and more.
If Democrats who once appeared united on health care reform can’t even pass a truncated version of that, there’s not much chance they will produce an immigration amnesty no matter what their leaders might say. For there’s nothing even approaching unity on immigration reform. That’s because politicians of all stripes well know that no matter how many requirements and fines they might impose on illegal immigrants seeking permanent legal status, there will be strong opposition back home.
Why would Democrats bother keeping on talking about various combinations of immigration amnesty and tougher border and employment enforcement when they know it won't pass?
Chances are it’s because they’ve been promising reform (amnesty) to Hispanic voters so long and have reaped so many Latino votes in the process that any verbal backing off risks alienating much of this increasingly important voter bloc.
Some call it pandering, but Democrats lack the votes to prevent a Senate filibuster on any immigration reform plan that involves amnesty, even with a different name.
So we see House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco carefully saying her chamber will likely wait until after the Senate acts on immigration before making any moves of its own. The odds of the Senate acting first are somewhere between slim and none; all the prominent immigration proposals of the past few months have emanated from the House.
Meanwhile, many first-term House Democrats elected in the 2008 Obama sweep fear a strong voter backlash if they OK amnesty. They and their frequent Republican jousting partners are alike in one important way: Most care more about their own reelection chances than virtually any other cause.
That why Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, quickly okayed Pelosi’s plan to let the Senate act first and prove it can “get something done.”
Don’t expect Obama to push Congress on this even as hard as he did on health care, where he’s often criticized from the left for not being strong enough. Obama’s top aide, former Illinois Congressman Rahn Emanuel, once called immigration “the third rail of American politics.” So the White House knows this is a toxic issue and will understand when Democrats run from it in an election year.
And they will. Not just members of the House. Senators like Colorado’s appointed Michael Bennet, who faces his first election campaign this year, will be understandably leery of the issue that made Tom Tancredo, a longtime Colorado congressman, into a national figure and a presidential candidate.
Obama, meanwhile, nominally backs a plan written by Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the House Hispanic caucus chairman who knows the President well from their days in Chicago politics. This one calls for much tougher enforcement efforts, criminal background checks for current illegals wanting to stay, a six-year wait for permanent legal status. It’s similar to the plan pursued unsuccessfully several times by Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee for president.
Noting that 10 million Hispanic voters turned out in 2008, the vast majority going for Obama, amnesty advocate Frank Sharry, head of a group called America’s Voice, threatens that “a lot of those voters won’t turn out in the midterm elections,” in swing states like Colorado, Nevada and Florida unless there is an amnesty of some kind.
That vague threat carries less clout with most members of Congress than the letters they get from angry constituents – and two polls late last year found that about 60 percent of U.S. citizens oppose any form of legalization for illegal immigrants.
All of which means Gutierrez and others who insist there will be immigration reform this year are whistling past the graveyard. It won’t happen.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Friday, March 5, 2010
A DOWN-THE-TICKET RACE WITH TWO LIKELY WINNERS”
CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“A DOWN-THE-TICKET RACE WITH TWO LIKELY WINNERS”
No one in California politics gives 33-year-old Republican Damon Dunn much chance of unseating Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen this fall.
Not only is she a well-entrenched political veteran, but even Dunn, a Baptist pastor and former football player turned Orange County-based real estate developer and shopping mall owner, concedes she has a record of accomplishment in her first four years of holding statewide office, especially when it comes to restoring voters’ faith in the state’s voting techniques.
“She gets credit for restoring some integrity to the process,” Dunn said in an interview, referring to Bowen’s review of electronic voting machines and the resulting return to large-scale use of paper ballots. In fact, she gets so much credit that as of early March, Dunn was the only declared Republican candidate running against her. There was still a possibility that another might jump in: Orly Taitz, another Orange County figure who is a leader of the “birther” movement that questions whether President Obama is eligible for his job.
But Dunn, the only Republican now campaigning, enthusiastically and unequivocally says he will win this fall and become California’s first African-American statewide officeholder since Mervyn Dymally was lieutenant governor in the late 1970s.
But he won’t be bitter if he loses. “I’m not in this to win; I’m in this to help,” he declares. “This state made me. My mama had me when she was 16. I was on welfare. Few people have lived poorer than me.”
He describes growing up in a family of 10, but still doing well enough academically and athletically to win a Stanford University football scholarship and later play on four National Football League clubs. He admits never voting until last spring’s special election, saying, “My family didn’t vote – that was a bad habit.”
But he insists his ideas for the office are good and that his not having voted in the past shouldn’t matter as he seeks to be California’s chief election official. “Not voting has nothing to do with the work,” he said.
Part of what he envisions: “Only the secretary of state gets a notice whenever a business in California shuts down or leaves,” Dunn said. “The secretary of state can examine the exact reasons and try to get something done about them. I would assign one of the eight appointees the secretary of state gets to that task alone.”
He also thinks he can reach out to other non-voters better than Bowen. “Who can reach non-voters better than a recovering non-voter?” he asks.
Bowen says she’ll gladly debate Dunn sometime after the June primary election, but says his ideas are naïve, if idealistic.
“Most businesses that close down are not leaving the state,” she said. “Even in good times, only one in eight businesses that starts up will survive the first year. A lot of closures are due to bankruptcy, too, and the economy. Businesses are closing at about the same rate in every part of the country. So if you followed up on every closure, you’d be wasting a lot of time.”
And when it comes to new voter outreach, she said, “You discover that this is a huge state and there’s a limit to how many places you can actually go. So we accomplish a lot of outreach through partnerships with businesses and unions and chambers of commerce and schools. You have to create relationships and then leverage them.”
One thing Bowen doesn’t buy is the notion that Dunn’s candidacy is the product of a plot devised by Republican strategist Karl Rove, long the chief political adviser to former President George W. Bush, for the GOP to take control of the national election process at the state level.
Some Democrats claim there is such a Rove-led conspiracy, an extension of the belief that former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris threw the 2000 election to Bush and former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell did the same for him in 2004.
The belief that Dunn might be part of such a plan was furthered by a newspaper report that Rove now advises Dunn. In fact, says Dunn, he has met Rove only once, fleetingly. “He wouldn’t remember my name. I wasn’t even a candidate when I met him,” Dunn said. “Nobody recruited me. I wish they did because it would be great to get some donations.”
Bowen scoffs at the idea of a Rovian plot. “I’m not much for conspiracy theories,” she said. “Besides, I don’t think Karl Rove would exactly be an asset in California.”
Even if he were, it would still be difficult to unseat an incumbent widely credited with restoring electoral confidence to California. Where does that leave Dunn? Probably with a promising future, especially since he’s shown a willingness to serve a campaign apprenticeship that will give him a leg up in future elections.
Which is why this contest might be the rare one that produces two winners.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“A DOWN-THE-TICKET RACE WITH TWO LIKELY WINNERS”
No one in California politics gives 33-year-old Republican Damon Dunn much chance of unseating Democratic Secretary of State Debra Bowen this fall.
Not only is she a well-entrenched political veteran, but even Dunn, a Baptist pastor and former football player turned Orange County-based real estate developer and shopping mall owner, concedes she has a record of accomplishment in her first four years of holding statewide office, especially when it comes to restoring voters’ faith in the state’s voting techniques.
“She gets credit for restoring some integrity to the process,” Dunn said in an interview, referring to Bowen’s review of electronic voting machines and the resulting return to large-scale use of paper ballots. In fact, she gets so much credit that as of early March, Dunn was the only declared Republican candidate running against her. There was still a possibility that another might jump in: Orly Taitz, another Orange County figure who is a leader of the “birther” movement that questions whether President Obama is eligible for his job.
But Dunn, the only Republican now campaigning, enthusiastically and unequivocally says he will win this fall and become California’s first African-American statewide officeholder since Mervyn Dymally was lieutenant governor in the late 1970s.
But he won’t be bitter if he loses. “I’m not in this to win; I’m in this to help,” he declares. “This state made me. My mama had me when she was 16. I was on welfare. Few people have lived poorer than me.”
He describes growing up in a family of 10, but still doing well enough academically and athletically to win a Stanford University football scholarship and later play on four National Football League clubs. He admits never voting until last spring’s special election, saying, “My family didn’t vote – that was a bad habit.”
But he insists his ideas for the office are good and that his not having voted in the past shouldn’t matter as he seeks to be California’s chief election official. “Not voting has nothing to do with the work,” he said.
Part of what he envisions: “Only the secretary of state gets a notice whenever a business in California shuts down or leaves,” Dunn said. “The secretary of state can examine the exact reasons and try to get something done about them. I would assign one of the eight appointees the secretary of state gets to that task alone.”
He also thinks he can reach out to other non-voters better than Bowen. “Who can reach non-voters better than a recovering non-voter?” he asks.
Bowen says she’ll gladly debate Dunn sometime after the June primary election, but says his ideas are naïve, if idealistic.
“Most businesses that close down are not leaving the state,” she said. “Even in good times, only one in eight businesses that starts up will survive the first year. A lot of closures are due to bankruptcy, too, and the economy. Businesses are closing at about the same rate in every part of the country. So if you followed up on every closure, you’d be wasting a lot of time.”
And when it comes to new voter outreach, she said, “You discover that this is a huge state and there’s a limit to how many places you can actually go. So we accomplish a lot of outreach through partnerships with businesses and unions and chambers of commerce and schools. You have to create relationships and then leverage them.”
One thing Bowen doesn’t buy is the notion that Dunn’s candidacy is the product of a plot devised by Republican strategist Karl Rove, long the chief political adviser to former President George W. Bush, for the GOP to take control of the national election process at the state level.
Some Democrats claim there is such a Rove-led conspiracy, an extension of the belief that former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris threw the 2000 election to Bush and former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell did the same for him in 2004.
The belief that Dunn might be part of such a plan was furthered by a newspaper report that Rove now advises Dunn. In fact, says Dunn, he has met Rove only once, fleetingly. “He wouldn’t remember my name. I wasn’t even a candidate when I met him,” Dunn said. “Nobody recruited me. I wish they did because it would be great to get some donations.”
Bowen scoffs at the idea of a Rovian plot. “I’m not much for conspiracy theories,” she said. “Besides, I don’t think Karl Rove would exactly be an asset in California.”
Even if he were, it would still be difficult to unseat an incumbent widely credited with restoring electoral confidence to California. Where does that leave Dunn? Probably with a promising future, especially since he’s shown a willingness to serve a campaign apprenticeship that will give him a leg up in future elections.
Which is why this contest might be the rare one that produces two winners.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Friday, February 26, 2010
STATE BUILDING SALE LOOKING WORSE AS IT DRAWS CLOSER
CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“STATE BUILDING SALE LOOKING WORSE AS IT DRAWS CLOSER”
The closer it gets, the worse California’s pending sale of state buildings looks, at least for the long-term interests of taxpayers.
Here are the basics of the sale, which aims to produce a modicum of cash to help resolve a budget crisis that seems to grow worse every year:
State officials planned to go into the real estate marketplace in late February with as many as 17 state buildings that are expected to fetch about $2 billion even in today’s depressed climate for sales of commercial buildings. Bids will probably begin arriving in early April.
One reason these buildings will likely draw strong interest is that the state will guarantee continued occupancy for at least 20 years and in some cases as much as 30 years. Not many commercial buildings come with that kind of guaranteed rental income.
Receipts from the sale will be used to pay off about $1.35 billion in bonds issued to finance construction of the buildings. Another $665 million would go toward commissions for the real estate broker managing the deal and to the state’s general fund, where it would be applied toward this year’s expected deficit of about $20 billion.
The commission will likely come to about $16 million for the firm of Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. CBRE executives have contributed just over $79,000 to various campaign committees controlled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a strong advocate of the sale. If the buildings bring the expected amount and the commission is $16 million, or 0.8 percent of the purchase price as spelled out in the CBRE’s bid for the listings, the state budget would benefit by almost exactly $600 million this year, a drop in the deficit bucket.
Meanwhile, future rents California government would be forced to pay would come to at least $5 billion and might reach $6 billion. Yes, retiring the construction bonds would save the state around $120 million in yearly payments. But many of the bonds have less than 10 years to run, so the prospective benefits of paying them off early don’t even approach the costs of future rent payments.
Doug Button, the state Division of Real Estate official supervising the sale, contends savings in ongoing repair and maintenance expenses would also benefit the state. Much of those savings would come from eliminating between 600 and 1,000 state employees who now help operate the buildings. No one knows if those workers would be hired by new owners or draw unemployment and welfare payments, thus reducing any financial benefits of firing them.
Put all the putative savings together and they don’t even approach the rent the state would be committed to pay.
That’s why Bill Leonard, a former Republican state legislator now serving on the tax-collecting state Board of Equalization, says the deal would simply engender “another form of state debt, leaseback contracts instead of bonds.”
Then there’s the question of which buildings are being sold. Rather than try to sell off vacant state properties like a former CalTrans building near San Diego’s Maritime Museum, this sale will offer the Ronald Reagan state office building in downtown Los Angeles, a pink granite tower whose construction bonds were paid off last December. Choice buildings in the San Francisco Civic Center are also on the block.
So instead of the state enjoying free rent in prime locations for many years to come, it will be making rent payments for decades if this sale proceeds.
Then there’s the matter of patrimony. California voters approved the bonds that built all the properties involved in the putative sale. But those same voters have been given no voice in the decision to sell off the buildings they paid for. Does this make sense? How is it different than if the state were to auction off state parks, also bought with voter-approved funds?
But rest easy, say Button and other officials running the sale. “We will only sell if it makes economic sense, and we won’t know about that until the bids come in,” Button said. “We won’t obligate the state unless it makes economic sense.”
But what will seem economically sensible to the bureaucrats and politicians trying to convince Californians that reduced maintenance expenses will somehow make up for paying 20 to 30 years of rent at levels yet to be determined?
It all adds up to a highly questionable deal that offers many years of costs in exchange for a one-time payment that won’t even come close to solving the deficit.
Which is why the closer this deal gets, the worse it looks.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“STATE BUILDING SALE LOOKING WORSE AS IT DRAWS CLOSER”
The closer it gets, the worse California’s pending sale of state buildings looks, at least for the long-term interests of taxpayers.
Here are the basics of the sale, which aims to produce a modicum of cash to help resolve a budget crisis that seems to grow worse every year:
State officials planned to go into the real estate marketplace in late February with as many as 17 state buildings that are expected to fetch about $2 billion even in today’s depressed climate for sales of commercial buildings. Bids will probably begin arriving in early April.
One reason these buildings will likely draw strong interest is that the state will guarantee continued occupancy for at least 20 years and in some cases as much as 30 years. Not many commercial buildings come with that kind of guaranteed rental income.
Receipts from the sale will be used to pay off about $1.35 billion in bonds issued to finance construction of the buildings. Another $665 million would go toward commissions for the real estate broker managing the deal and to the state’s general fund, where it would be applied toward this year’s expected deficit of about $20 billion.
The commission will likely come to about $16 million for the firm of Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. CBRE executives have contributed just over $79,000 to various campaign committees controlled by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a strong advocate of the sale. If the buildings bring the expected amount and the commission is $16 million, or 0.8 percent of the purchase price as spelled out in the CBRE’s bid for the listings, the state budget would benefit by almost exactly $600 million this year, a drop in the deficit bucket.
Meanwhile, future rents California government would be forced to pay would come to at least $5 billion and might reach $6 billion. Yes, retiring the construction bonds would save the state around $120 million in yearly payments. But many of the bonds have less than 10 years to run, so the prospective benefits of paying them off early don’t even approach the costs of future rent payments.
Doug Button, the state Division of Real Estate official supervising the sale, contends savings in ongoing repair and maintenance expenses would also benefit the state. Much of those savings would come from eliminating between 600 and 1,000 state employees who now help operate the buildings. No one knows if those workers would be hired by new owners or draw unemployment and welfare payments, thus reducing any financial benefits of firing them.
Put all the putative savings together and they don’t even approach the rent the state would be committed to pay.
That’s why Bill Leonard, a former Republican state legislator now serving on the tax-collecting state Board of Equalization, says the deal would simply engender “another form of state debt, leaseback contracts instead of bonds.”
Then there’s the question of which buildings are being sold. Rather than try to sell off vacant state properties like a former CalTrans building near San Diego’s Maritime Museum, this sale will offer the Ronald Reagan state office building in downtown Los Angeles, a pink granite tower whose construction bonds were paid off last December. Choice buildings in the San Francisco Civic Center are also on the block.
So instead of the state enjoying free rent in prime locations for many years to come, it will be making rent payments for decades if this sale proceeds.
Then there’s the matter of patrimony. California voters approved the bonds that built all the properties involved in the putative sale. But those same voters have been given no voice in the decision to sell off the buildings they paid for. Does this make sense? How is it different than if the state were to auction off state parks, also bought with voter-approved funds?
But rest easy, say Button and other officials running the sale. “We will only sell if it makes economic sense, and we won’t know about that until the bids come in,” Button said. “We won’t obligate the state unless it makes economic sense.”
But what will seem economically sensible to the bureaucrats and politicians trying to convince Californians that reduced maintenance expenses will somehow make up for paying 20 to 30 years of rent at levels yet to be determined?
It all adds up to a highly questionable deal that offers many years of costs in exchange for a one-time payment that won’t even come close to solving the deficit.
Which is why the closer this deal gets, the worse it looks.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
POIZNER SOUNDS LIKE HE'S CHANNELING JOHN PAUL JONES
CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“POIZNER SOUNDS LIKE HE'S CHANNELING JOHN PAUL JONES”
Listen to Steve Poizner talk about his underdog run for the Republican nomination for governor, and it’s almost as if he’s channeling John Paul Jones, the naval hero of the Revolutionary War.
Poizner’s campaign, now mired more than 30 points behind former eBay chief Meg Whitman in every poll, is listing and might be taking on water, just as Jones’ frigate, the USS Bon Homme Richard, did during its sea battle against the British warship Serapis in the summer of 1779.
Like the captain of Serapis, Whitman’s chief consultant Mike Murphy feels his opponent might as well admit defeat. He offered in a now-infamous email to “clear the field” for Poizner in the 2012 Senate race if Poizner would surrender to Whitman. And former Gov. Pete Wilson, Whitman’s campaign chair, a few days later allowed that the general election campaign has begun, implying the primary election is over three months before the vote.
Poizner’s response to Whitman’s call for him to drop out amounts to precisely the same defiant thing Jones told the British captain: “I have not yet begun to fight.”
“I know a lot of people want the battle to start,” said Poizner, who is sitting on an $18.5 million war chest made up primarily of his own cash. The current state insurance commissioner, Poizner made a fortune estimated at as much as $1 billion by founding and later selling two Silicon Valley high tech companies.
“Meg clearly doesn’t want to be in a Republican primary,” Poizner said in an interview. Offered an opportunity to speak about her own campaign during an encounter after one of her recent stump speeches, Whitman declined and scurried away. Poizner, by contrast, was eager to talk.
“She wants to be in a general election because in a primary, she will have to answer for the money she gave to (Democratic Sen.) Barbara Boxer and to extremist environmental organizations,” Poizner said. He noted that Whitman, who has called for suspension of court orders limiting pumping of water from the Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in order to save endangered minnow-like delta smelt, contributed $300,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which aggressively sought those court orders. Farmers and cities in the San Francisco Bay area and south of the Delta cite the orders as a cause of unemployment and “man-made” drought.
“Essentially, she helped an organization that helped cut off water to cities and agriculture,” Poizner said.
He has yet to point out any of this to the great mass of Republican voters, but Poizner insists he will.
“I will run a very aggressive campaign,” he insisted, acknowledging that fellow billionaire Whitman, who has so far invested 39 million of her own dollars in her effort, has outspent him dramatically and bought herself that big poll lead via a months-long onslaught of radio and TV commercials.
“Just because she spends a fortune does not mean she has spent it wisely,” Poizner asserted. “Her ads are so vague that people know almost nothing about her. We will start our own ads at the right time, when people are ready to pay attention. Our polling shows that 50 percent of Republican voters are not even close to having an opinion yet. By the time this campaign is over, they will know who is the real conservative. They will also know she has consistently refused to debate me and that she would like to run her campaign from her living room. The fact is that people who might be supporting her now are responding only to her commercials, and that’s a very shallow base.”
Poizner admits his campaigning as a self-described “true conservative” represents some change from when he ran unsuccessfully in 2004 for the state Assembly from a liberal-leaning district on the San Francisco Peninsula. But he insists he’s completely consistent on many key issues.
“I was pro-choice (on abortion) then and I’m pro-choice now,” he said. “I was against gay marriage then, too, but for domestic partners. But as I’ve worked in Sacramento, I’ve become more passionately against tax increases and for cutting government spending. I’ve seen state government in action and that has shaped my thinking.”
Poizner insists he will beat Whitman in June because “There will be a small turnout and conservative Republicans will vote for a conservative with a track record. That’s me.”
But if he does win, will his campaign suffer the same fate as Jones’ ship, the Bon Homme Richard, which sank not long after Serapis surrendered? Will Poizner be easy pickings for Democrat Jerry Brown?
No, he insists. “About 90 percent of the voters think we are on the wrong track in California and being a career politician will make it difficult for him to win against someone who has a strong record and can solve problems.”
Stay tuned.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“POIZNER SOUNDS LIKE HE'S CHANNELING JOHN PAUL JONES”
Listen to Steve Poizner talk about his underdog run for the Republican nomination for governor, and it’s almost as if he’s channeling John Paul Jones, the naval hero of the Revolutionary War.
Poizner’s campaign, now mired more than 30 points behind former eBay chief Meg Whitman in every poll, is listing and might be taking on water, just as Jones’ frigate, the USS Bon Homme Richard, did during its sea battle against the British warship Serapis in the summer of 1779.
Like the captain of Serapis, Whitman’s chief consultant Mike Murphy feels his opponent might as well admit defeat. He offered in a now-infamous email to “clear the field” for Poizner in the 2012 Senate race if Poizner would surrender to Whitman. And former Gov. Pete Wilson, Whitman’s campaign chair, a few days later allowed that the general election campaign has begun, implying the primary election is over three months before the vote.
Poizner’s response to Whitman’s call for him to drop out amounts to precisely the same defiant thing Jones told the British captain: “I have not yet begun to fight.”
“I know a lot of people want the battle to start,” said Poizner, who is sitting on an $18.5 million war chest made up primarily of his own cash. The current state insurance commissioner, Poizner made a fortune estimated at as much as $1 billion by founding and later selling two Silicon Valley high tech companies.
“Meg clearly doesn’t want to be in a Republican primary,” Poizner said in an interview. Offered an opportunity to speak about her own campaign during an encounter after one of her recent stump speeches, Whitman declined and scurried away. Poizner, by contrast, was eager to talk.
“She wants to be in a general election because in a primary, she will have to answer for the money she gave to (Democratic Sen.) Barbara Boxer and to extremist environmental organizations,” Poizner said. He noted that Whitman, who has called for suspension of court orders limiting pumping of water from the Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in order to save endangered minnow-like delta smelt, contributed $300,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund, which aggressively sought those court orders. Farmers and cities in the San Francisco Bay area and south of the Delta cite the orders as a cause of unemployment and “man-made” drought.
“Essentially, she helped an organization that helped cut off water to cities and agriculture,” Poizner said.
He has yet to point out any of this to the great mass of Republican voters, but Poizner insists he will.
“I will run a very aggressive campaign,” he insisted, acknowledging that fellow billionaire Whitman, who has so far invested 39 million of her own dollars in her effort, has outspent him dramatically and bought herself that big poll lead via a months-long onslaught of radio and TV commercials.
“Just because she spends a fortune does not mean she has spent it wisely,” Poizner asserted. “Her ads are so vague that people know almost nothing about her. We will start our own ads at the right time, when people are ready to pay attention. Our polling shows that 50 percent of Republican voters are not even close to having an opinion yet. By the time this campaign is over, they will know who is the real conservative. They will also know she has consistently refused to debate me and that she would like to run her campaign from her living room. The fact is that people who might be supporting her now are responding only to her commercials, and that’s a very shallow base.”
Poizner admits his campaigning as a self-described “true conservative” represents some change from when he ran unsuccessfully in 2004 for the state Assembly from a liberal-leaning district on the San Francisco Peninsula. But he insists he’s completely consistent on many key issues.
“I was pro-choice (on abortion) then and I’m pro-choice now,” he said. “I was against gay marriage then, too, but for domestic partners. But as I’ve worked in Sacramento, I’ve become more passionately against tax increases and for cutting government spending. I’ve seen state government in action and that has shaped my thinking.”
Poizner insists he will beat Whitman in June because “There will be a small turnout and conservative Republicans will vote for a conservative with a track record. That’s me.”
But if he does win, will his campaign suffer the same fate as Jones’ ship, the Bon Homme Richard, which sank not long after Serapis surrendered? Will Poizner be easy pickings for Democrat Jerry Brown?
No, he insists. “About 90 percent of the voters think we are on the wrong track in California and being a career politician will make it difficult for him to win against someone who has a strong record and can solve problems.”
Stay tuned.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Monday, February 22, 2010
FOUR-YEAR DEGREES AT COMMUNITY COLLEGES? WHY NOT?
CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2010 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“FOUR-YEAR DEGREES AT COMMUNITY COLLEGES? WHY NOT?”
At long last, there are signs Californians might become a little inventive in the face of financial crisis.
The best example so far of an idea for making lemonade when life has dispensed lemons comes in the higher education field, where state colleges and universities have absorbed large budget cuts, begun charging higher tuition and fees than ever – and will still turn away about 100,000 qualified students next fall.
That situation amounts to a wholesale abandonment of California’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which guarantees a place at either the University of California or a California State University campus for every student who has done enough to qualify.
With some campuses reserving significant numbers of spaces for local residents and others turning away even those students, public universities for the first time are plainly not keeping their 50-year-old promise.
Enter the state’s community colleges. This 110-school system charges far lower tuition and fees than the four-year schools, offers basic classes that are good enough so that UC and CSU schools let transfer students enjoy full credit for them and features a host of faculty members at least as qualified as many at the more prestigious campuses.
But community colleges award only associate of arts or science degrees, which can be obtained in as little as two years. Among public campuses, only the universities now can give bachelor’s degrees and more.
But things ought to change, now that they’ve begun to refuse admission to many thousands of students who deserve it, based on their high school performance and test scores. That’s mostly because of lean times, which see increased class sizes and decreased course offerings at every level of education.
It’s a lemon of a situation if ever there was one.
Which has led some inventive, if obscure, lawmakers to take a hard look at community colleges and wonder if they can’t fill some of the gap created by the hard times.
For students who can’t afford the 32 percent increase in Cal State tuition and fees scheduled for next fall, the current $26 per unit community college tab looks pretty good. Especially when the two-year campuses are often far closer to home than their big brothers. And when the portion of community college students transferring to the larger schools is gradually falling, now standing at only about 40 percent.
The idea of letting California community colleges do more than they ever have was first voiced late last year by Democratic Assemblyman Marty Block, a former dean at San Diego State University and ex-president of the San Diego Community College District board.
“We have a lot of well-respected community colleges in San Diego,” Block told a hearing on the master plan. He noted that SDSU has closed fall admissions even to local applicants. “(The community colleges) think they could do a fine job offering those next two years to students, at least in certain disciplines. I think moving in that direction is a good plan.
And why not, when four-year schools often employ part-time “adjunct” faculty who sometimes possess fewer academic credentials than many community college teachers?
A similar idea arose last year in a failed bill by another Democratic assemblyman, Jerry Hill of San Mateo, who sought to allow a bachelor’s degree program in the San Mateo Community College District.
This sort of plan is already in effect in Florida, another state where fiscal crisis has crimped four-year campuses, leaving that state short on college-educated residents to fill future job openings. The non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California reports that this state faces a similar shortage, to be worsened if four-year college enrollment problems persist.
But pushing such a major change won’t be easy, even if it does seem like an obvious solution to a problem that’s starting off big and promises to get bigger.
Turf battles are inevitable, with faculty members at the more prestigious four-year schools not wanting to see their status spread around. There’s the question of whether community colleges could offer small seminars and advanced laboratory facilities without increasing their tuition and fees. And there’s space: The community colleges are already overflowing, with nearly 3 million students.
Solutions for these kinds of issues seem far easier to find than for California’s overall budget problems. If four-year schools can’t educate all the qualified prospects, it will become obvious that someone else must do it. The issue of higher expenses for higher-level students can be resolved with fee hikes that would still leave community college classes priced well below the big universities. And space issues are more easily resolved at the community college level than statewide, as local voters are usually willing to approve construction funds for schools in their own areas.
So this change is doable, and probably in pretty short order. And it’s something that needs to happen soon – or California risks depriving many thousands of its best and brightest young people of opportunities long promised to them.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2010 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“FOUR-YEAR DEGREES AT COMMUNITY COLLEGES? WHY NOT?”
At long last, there are signs Californians might become a little inventive in the face of financial crisis.
The best example so far of an idea for making lemonade when life has dispensed lemons comes in the higher education field, where state colleges and universities have absorbed large budget cuts, begun charging higher tuition and fees than ever – and will still turn away about 100,000 qualified students next fall.
That situation amounts to a wholesale abandonment of California’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which guarantees a place at either the University of California or a California State University campus for every student who has done enough to qualify.
With some campuses reserving significant numbers of spaces for local residents and others turning away even those students, public universities for the first time are plainly not keeping their 50-year-old promise.
Enter the state’s community colleges. This 110-school system charges far lower tuition and fees than the four-year schools, offers basic classes that are good enough so that UC and CSU schools let transfer students enjoy full credit for them and features a host of faculty members at least as qualified as many at the more prestigious campuses.
But community colleges award only associate of arts or science degrees, which can be obtained in as little as two years. Among public campuses, only the universities now can give bachelor’s degrees and more.
But things ought to change, now that they’ve begun to refuse admission to many thousands of students who deserve it, based on their high school performance and test scores. That’s mostly because of lean times, which see increased class sizes and decreased course offerings at every level of education.
It’s a lemon of a situation if ever there was one.
Which has led some inventive, if obscure, lawmakers to take a hard look at community colleges and wonder if they can’t fill some of the gap created by the hard times.
For students who can’t afford the 32 percent increase in Cal State tuition and fees scheduled for next fall, the current $26 per unit community college tab looks pretty good. Especially when the two-year campuses are often far closer to home than their big brothers. And when the portion of community college students transferring to the larger schools is gradually falling, now standing at only about 40 percent.
The idea of letting California community colleges do more than they ever have was first voiced late last year by Democratic Assemblyman Marty Block, a former dean at San Diego State University and ex-president of the San Diego Community College District board.
“We have a lot of well-respected community colleges in San Diego,” Block told a hearing on the master plan. He noted that SDSU has closed fall admissions even to local applicants. “(The community colleges) think they could do a fine job offering those next two years to students, at least in certain disciplines. I think moving in that direction is a good plan.
And why not, when four-year schools often employ part-time “adjunct” faculty who sometimes possess fewer academic credentials than many community college teachers?
A similar idea arose last year in a failed bill by another Democratic assemblyman, Jerry Hill of San Mateo, who sought to allow a bachelor’s degree program in the San Mateo Community College District.
This sort of plan is already in effect in Florida, another state where fiscal crisis has crimped four-year campuses, leaving that state short on college-educated residents to fill future job openings. The non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California reports that this state faces a similar shortage, to be worsened if four-year college enrollment problems persist.
But pushing such a major change won’t be easy, even if it does seem like an obvious solution to a problem that’s starting off big and promises to get bigger.
Turf battles are inevitable, with faculty members at the more prestigious four-year schools not wanting to see their status spread around. There’s the question of whether community colleges could offer small seminars and advanced laboratory facilities without increasing their tuition and fees. And there’s space: The community colleges are already overflowing, with nearly 3 million students.
Solutions for these kinds of issues seem far easier to find than for California’s overall budget problems. If four-year schools can’t educate all the qualified prospects, it will become obvious that someone else must do it. The issue of higher expenses for higher-level students can be resolved with fee hikes that would still leave community college classes priced well below the big universities. And space issues are more easily resolved at the community college level than statewide, as local voters are usually willing to approve construction funds for schools in their own areas.
So this change is doable, and probably in pretty short order. And it’s something that needs to happen soon – or California risks depriving many thousands of its best and brightest young people of opportunities long promised to them.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
KEEP INITIATIVE PETITION SIGNATURES PRIVATE
CALIFORNIA FOCUS\
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
THOMAS D. ELIAS
“KEEP INITIATIVE PETITION SIGNATURES PRIVATE”
Openness in government is almost always a good thing. That’s why there are few more popular laws in California than the 1950s-era Ralph M. Brown Act, which requires almost all meetings of city councils, public district boards, county supervisors and the Legislature to be open to the public, even when they are only casual get-togethers of a few members.
A strong argument can even be made for opening up sessions where boards and city councils discuss legal or personnel matters, meetings that are now closed in virtually every corner of the state. After all, these meetings can involve spending taxpayer dollars as much as any public session about a zoning ordinance or a legislative bill.
But nothing in the Brown Act ever suggested eliminating the secret ballot. Even in a time when huge numbers of voters cast absentee ballots, great pains are taken to keep each voter’s preferences private.
Into this arena last fall came the opponents of the 2008 Proposition 8, which ended the brief practice of allowing same-sex marriage in California.
It wasn’t enough for many gay-rights advocates to have access to lists of every donor of $100 or more to the Proposition 8 campaign – posted on the Web site of the secretary of state’s office. They demanded lists of everyone who signed the petitions that qualified the measure for the ballot.
So far, they have not gotten those names, and it’s probably a good thing.
For signing an initiative petition is not like contributing money toward passage of the same measure. It’s a far more casual act, often done in the rush of a shopping expedition where citizens are likely to be confronted by paid petition circulators who all but demand signatures. These folks often carry multiple petitions, and a voter might not have any idea what he or she has just signed.
The companies hired by initiative advocates to get the petition signatures needed to put a measure on the ballot know this. So, very likely, did the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court when they refused last fall to require Washington state authorities to open lists of petition signers.
The argument is sometimes made that if lists of registered voters are public records, so too should be the names of petition signers. But those are very different matters and comparing them is like comparing apples and bananas. Even if a voter is a registered member of a particular political party, no one can be sure how he or she voted. So there can’t be retaliation targeted at voters just because they’re registered.
Not so for petition signers. Once those lists are made public, the signers would be on record forever as favoring a particular cause. People who donate significantly to political candidates and ballot measures know their names will be made public; petition signers do not.
And make no mistake, there can be significant consequences when activists know which side of an issue a person has taken. When gay marriage advocates learned last year that the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival had contributed $1,500 – a relatively small sum in politics – toward passage of Proposition 8, he was forced to resign. A boycott followed release of the information that the manager of one restaurant had contributed $100 to the same cause.
It can be fairly argued that those two and other donors were fair game, because they knew – or should have known – there would be a public record of their donations.
But there is no such notice when signing a petition. If there were, chances are petition circulators would have a much harder time getting signatures.
Advocates of making petition signer names and addresses public deny any intent to intimidate anyone. But who knows how such information might be used? The potential for misuse is at least as great as with names of campaign donors.
“Citizens approach petitions more thoughtfully once they realize they are signing public documents,” says the co-head of KnowThyNeighbor.org, the national anti-gay marriage group seeking to make petition signatures public.
His statement may be true, but it also implies the possibility of intimidation, suggesting that signatures might not be so forthcoming if voters knew they might be fired or picketed just for scrawling their names.
Plainly, this could lead to fewer ballot propositions going before the voters, something a lot of so-called good-government groups and academics already say they want.
But it would limit both the ideas voters are allowed to consider and the freedom they now feel to back causes they like. Those are both bad possibilities, which makes keeping petition signatures private once they’re submitted almost as important as ensuring the privacy of actual ballots.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
THOMAS D. ELIAS
“KEEP INITIATIVE PETITION SIGNATURES PRIVATE”
Openness in government is almost always a good thing. That’s why there are few more popular laws in California than the 1950s-era Ralph M. Brown Act, which requires almost all meetings of city councils, public district boards, county supervisors and the Legislature to be open to the public, even when they are only casual get-togethers of a few members.
A strong argument can even be made for opening up sessions where boards and city councils discuss legal or personnel matters, meetings that are now closed in virtually every corner of the state. After all, these meetings can involve spending taxpayer dollars as much as any public session about a zoning ordinance or a legislative bill.
But nothing in the Brown Act ever suggested eliminating the secret ballot. Even in a time when huge numbers of voters cast absentee ballots, great pains are taken to keep each voter’s preferences private.
Into this arena last fall came the opponents of the 2008 Proposition 8, which ended the brief practice of allowing same-sex marriage in California.
It wasn’t enough for many gay-rights advocates to have access to lists of every donor of $100 or more to the Proposition 8 campaign – posted on the Web site of the secretary of state’s office. They demanded lists of everyone who signed the petitions that qualified the measure for the ballot.
So far, they have not gotten those names, and it’s probably a good thing.
For signing an initiative petition is not like contributing money toward passage of the same measure. It’s a far more casual act, often done in the rush of a shopping expedition where citizens are likely to be confronted by paid petition circulators who all but demand signatures. These folks often carry multiple petitions, and a voter might not have any idea what he or she has just signed.
The companies hired by initiative advocates to get the petition signatures needed to put a measure on the ballot know this. So, very likely, did the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court when they refused last fall to require Washington state authorities to open lists of petition signers.
The argument is sometimes made that if lists of registered voters are public records, so too should be the names of petition signers. But those are very different matters and comparing them is like comparing apples and bananas. Even if a voter is a registered member of a particular political party, no one can be sure how he or she voted. So there can’t be retaliation targeted at voters just because they’re registered.
Not so for petition signers. Once those lists are made public, the signers would be on record forever as favoring a particular cause. People who donate significantly to political candidates and ballot measures know their names will be made public; petition signers do not.
And make no mistake, there can be significant consequences when activists know which side of an issue a person has taken. When gay marriage advocates learned last year that the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival had contributed $1,500 – a relatively small sum in politics – toward passage of Proposition 8, he was forced to resign. A boycott followed release of the information that the manager of one restaurant had contributed $100 to the same cause.
It can be fairly argued that those two and other donors were fair game, because they knew – or should have known – there would be a public record of their donations.
But there is no such notice when signing a petition. If there were, chances are petition circulators would have a much harder time getting signatures.
Advocates of making petition signer names and addresses public deny any intent to intimidate anyone. But who knows how such information might be used? The potential for misuse is at least as great as with names of campaign donors.
“Citizens approach petitions more thoughtfully once they realize they are signing public documents,” says the co-head of KnowThyNeighbor.org, the national anti-gay marriage group seeking to make petition signatures public.
His statement may be true, but it also implies the possibility of intimidation, suggesting that signatures might not be so forthcoming if voters knew they might be fired or picketed just for scrawling their names.
Plainly, this could lead to fewer ballot propositions going before the voters, something a lot of so-called good-government groups and academics already say they want.
But it would limit both the ideas voters are allowed to consider and the freedom they now feel to back causes they like. Those are both bad possibilities, which makes keeping petition signatures private once they’re submitted almost as important as ensuring the privacy of actual ballots.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
Saturday, February 13, 2010
CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THE MISGUIDED OPPOSITION TO AB 32 AND CAP AND TRADE”
Whether or not Congress eventually approves the greenhouse-gas reduction agreements reached late last year in Copenhagen, California will soon have a cap-and-trade system in place.
Unless voters here put a ballot initiative to the contrary on the November ballot and then pass it. Sponsors of this putative proposition call it the “California Jobs Initiative,” contending jobs will be lost in efforts to fight global warming by demanding lower industrial emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.
“With unemployment at 12.5 percent and another looming budget deficit, this is not the time for California to attempt an overhaul of the entire economy at a cost of tens of billions of dollars,” writes Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue of Linda, in Yuba County, one of the initiative’s backers.
The presumption here and among many other opponents of doing much about climate change is simple: Fixing the environment will cost business billions of dollars and eliminate many thousands of jobs.
But they never back that bromide with facts. That’s because it is based on little more than reflexive, knee-jerk guesswork. Still, their campaign is effective. It even has led major polling organizations like Gallup and Harris to run surveys where a slight majority of respondents now favors economic growth over fixing the environment.
It turns out that’s a false choice. For doing something about greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t necessarily mean business will be hurt or jobs lost.
That’s the conclusion of a major report forecasting that cap-and-trade rules like those the “Jobs Initiative” seeks to cancel actually will cost most businesses pennies, if anything. Meanwhile, another study of the existing carbon market in Europe, the first large industrial region to make serious efforts at cutting greenhouse gases, demonstrates that cap-and-trade proved profitable to most businesses and gave them no reason to cut jobs.
Cap-and-trade is a system where companies are assigned limits for permissible emissions. These “caps” drop each year until environmental goals are reached. Companies that emit less than their quota can trade or sell the difference between actual gases they produce and what they’re permitted to others which emit too much. So outfits that do the most to cut the gases they produce stand to make profits. How much depends on the going price of emission credits.
The way this has actually worked runs completely counter to popular presumptions pushed by conservative politicians like Logue; initiative co-author Tom McClintock, the Republican congressman from Placer County, and many vocal talk-show hosts.
So pervasive is the belief that cutting greenhouse gases costs jobs that two current leading Republican candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, both base their campaigns in significant part on a belief that popular support for environmental measures is waning because of high unemployment.
The polls suggest some movement that way. That's because the false environmentalism-kills-jobs line has been pushed so loudly and so often.
The fact is that cap-and-trade has not killed jobs or companies in Europe, where a UC Berkeley Energy Institute study shows that when carbon trading began there in 2005, stock prices rose for companies that produced the most emissions the previous year and therefore got the highest emission quotas. This happened because those firms had to do least to cut their pollution and thus had an easy time acquiring emission credits they could trade or sell.
“Rather than being hurt by imposition of…regulation,” the Berkeley study concluded, “(many) industrial sectors benefited.” Which means that big businesses can make large profits by cleaning up their operations, and the cleaner they become, the more they can make – so long as other companies opt to stay dirty.
At almost the same time, the Union of Concerned Scientists funded a study of its own showing that small business will suffer few impacts from AB32, the landmark 2006 law mandating greenhouse gas cuts in California.
“Most small businesses will not be regulated under AB32 (the law behind the planned cap-and-trade system here),” that report concluded. One of its case studies checked potential effects on the Border Grill, a Los Angeles-area restaurant chosen because eateries are more energy intensive than the average small business, while also creating more jobs than most types of small business.
The analysis found that a cap-and-trade system covering the electricity, natural gas and transportation companies used by the Border Grill would create pass-through costs of less than three cents for every $20 meal served.
Concluded the study, “The likely effects of AB32 will be minor for small businesses.”
All of which means the adamant and vocal opponents of doing anything about global warming have been master propagandists, causing much of the public to believe in a mostly fictitious conflict pitting business and jobs against efforts to fight climate change.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2010, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“THE MISGUIDED OPPOSITION TO AB 32 AND CAP AND TRADE”
Whether or not Congress eventually approves the greenhouse-gas reduction agreements reached late last year in Copenhagen, California will soon have a cap-and-trade system in place.
Unless voters here put a ballot initiative to the contrary on the November ballot and then pass it. Sponsors of this putative proposition call it the “California Jobs Initiative,” contending jobs will be lost in efforts to fight global warming by demanding lower industrial emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.
“With unemployment at 12.5 percent and another looming budget deficit, this is not the time for California to attempt an overhaul of the entire economy at a cost of tens of billions of dollars,” writes Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue of Linda, in Yuba County, one of the initiative’s backers.
The presumption here and among many other opponents of doing much about climate change is simple: Fixing the environment will cost business billions of dollars and eliminate many thousands of jobs.
But they never back that bromide with facts. That’s because it is based on little more than reflexive, knee-jerk guesswork. Still, their campaign is effective. It even has led major polling organizations like Gallup and Harris to run surveys where a slight majority of respondents now favors economic growth over fixing the environment.
It turns out that’s a false choice. For doing something about greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t necessarily mean business will be hurt or jobs lost.
That’s the conclusion of a major report forecasting that cap-and-trade rules like those the “Jobs Initiative” seeks to cancel actually will cost most businesses pennies, if anything. Meanwhile, another study of the existing carbon market in Europe, the first large industrial region to make serious efforts at cutting greenhouse gases, demonstrates that cap-and-trade proved profitable to most businesses and gave them no reason to cut jobs.
Cap-and-trade is a system where companies are assigned limits for permissible emissions. These “caps” drop each year until environmental goals are reached. Companies that emit less than their quota can trade or sell the difference between actual gases they produce and what they’re permitted to others which emit too much. So outfits that do the most to cut the gases they produce stand to make profits. How much depends on the going price of emission credits.
The way this has actually worked runs completely counter to popular presumptions pushed by conservative politicians like Logue; initiative co-author Tom McClintock, the Republican congressman from Placer County, and many vocal talk-show hosts.
So pervasive is the belief that cutting greenhouse gases costs jobs that two current leading Republican candidates for governor and the U.S. Senate, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, both base their campaigns in significant part on a belief that popular support for environmental measures is waning because of high unemployment.
The polls suggest some movement that way. That's because the false environmentalism-kills-jobs line has been pushed so loudly and so often.
The fact is that cap-and-trade has not killed jobs or companies in Europe, where a UC Berkeley Energy Institute study shows that when carbon trading began there in 2005, stock prices rose for companies that produced the most emissions the previous year and therefore got the highest emission quotas. This happened because those firms had to do least to cut their pollution and thus had an easy time acquiring emission credits they could trade or sell.
“Rather than being hurt by imposition of…regulation,” the Berkeley study concluded, “(many) industrial sectors benefited.” Which means that big businesses can make large profits by cleaning up their operations, and the cleaner they become, the more they can make – so long as other companies opt to stay dirty.
At almost the same time, the Union of Concerned Scientists funded a study of its own showing that small business will suffer few impacts from AB32, the landmark 2006 law mandating greenhouse gas cuts in California.
“Most small businesses will not be regulated under AB32 (the law behind the planned cap-and-trade system here),” that report concluded. One of its case studies checked potential effects on the Border Grill, a Los Angeles-area restaurant chosen because eateries are more energy intensive than the average small business, while also creating more jobs than most types of small business.
The analysis found that a cap-and-trade system covering the electricity, natural gas and transportation companies used by the Border Grill would create pass-through costs of less than three cents for every $20 meal served.
Concluded the study, “The likely effects of AB32 will be minor for small businesses.”
All of which means the adamant and vocal opponents of doing anything about global warming have been master propagandists, causing much of the public to believe in a mostly fictitious conflict pitting business and jobs against efforts to fight climate change.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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