Edward C. Noonan for Governor

Ah-nold has this locked up, so why not protest vote for the American Independent candidate? Pick a REAL conservative over a RINO.

I choose Mr. Noonan to “send a message” to Ah-nold: Don’t get complacent, just because your opponent is such a weasel who is easy to defeat. Normally, 3rd parties are a joke, but here, I find use for them.

And yes, Phil Angelides is a weasel. From the beginning of his time in government, Phil Angelides has never met a government program he didn’t like, or tax that he thought was too high. During the budget crisis, his contribution to the spending problem was to renegotiate state bonds to obtain a payment holiday. In other words, for two years we did not pay off any of the principal while interest accrued. That is Phil Angelides way of “saving” the state money. In the end, state taxpayers ended up spending more money, and getting no relief, as Angelides tried to paper over the state’s deficit. You and I are still paying for his ill-considered solution to the deficit.

During his campaign against Steve Westly, he proposed tax increases to close the deficit he worked so hard to create and perpetuate. He claimed that the state could not cut any government programs, and that the only way to solve the state’s continuing fiscal crises was to raise taxes on you and me. Even though state spending was $57 billion just seven years ago, and $79 billion just two years ago, State Treasurer Angelides believes our present $101 billion general fund budget is not adequate enough to deal with the state’s problems.

In 1992, the state spent approximately $6,000 per student in 2006 inflation adjusted dollars to educate our children. This year, we are spending well over $10,000 per student, over 70% increase in spending per student in the last 14 years. Angelides believes that 70% more is not enough.

Angelides said he only wants to tax “the rich” (meaning the high income, regardless of expense overhead or actual asset wealth), not the middle class, but most people are smarter than that. You should know by now that if a politician is eager to raise taxes on one group of people, it is only matter of time your their taxes will go up as well.

Moreover, if the state increases taxes on the high income, they move to Florida or Texas, or some other state where they DON’T tax income. Since these high-income people that Phil wants to tax now pay over 30% of our taxes, government revenue will go down when these high-income folks move to another state. Their employees pay income taxes and they pay thousands in sales taxes that are not directly attributable to them. In addition, most of these people own businesses that have employees who pay income taxes.

If these people start moving out of California, and taking their money and their businesses with them, the state will then tax the rest of us to the max. The Angelides budget will look an awful lot like the Davis budget; lots of red ink and a fiscal crisis of epic proportion.