I was not a Steve Poizer’s swearing in yesterday, but I am hearing from folks who were there that it felt almost akin to a Schwarzenegger event—Poizer seemed to be dismissive of the GOP and immediately called to make his office non-partisan (after accepting loads of help from the GOP to get elected). Jon Fleishman writes today that he feels like a chump for believing Schwarzenegger’s promise not to raise taxes. The entire GOP, including GOP chair Duf Sundheim, should feel like chumps for pouring our time and money into Schwarzenegger’s and Poizer’s campaigns, only to have them reject our party immediately after gaining office.… Read More

I feel like a chump. This entire past year, Arnold Schwarzenegger had as a central theme to his campaign for re-election the fact that he would oppose any increase in taxes. I think it would be fair to say that this was a central theme to his campaign. As a matter of fact, in a candidacy that often times stressed issues that were not very appealing to core Republican voters, it was his focused contrasting of Phil Angelides’ "The Tax Man" against his own rhetoric of opposing new taxes that helped to mollify, and excite the GOP base to support his candidacy. Yet, the very first business day following his inauguration to a second term, the Governor rolls out a new massive government incursion that is straight from the playbooks of the Democrat Party, with a centerpiece being tax increases. I don’t get it. This Governor understands that what makes this country great is the idea of individual liberty and individual responsibility. Yet, he has thrown out the notion of individual responsibility, trading it in for this new "shared responsibility" rhetoric which is no more than a justification for a massive… Read More

All the commentators have commented on the Governor’s inauguration speech. Most focused on the "dynamic centrism" of which the Governor spoke. The key line was:

"Some said that the Democratic legislature, by working with me to increase the minimum wage or reform prescription drug costs, abandoned the Democratic nominee for governor. This is the kind of partisan thinking that frustrates the voters and diminishes our democracy. The people are disgusted with a mindset that would rather get nothing done than accomplish something through compromise."

The Governor missed the key problem of politics in both his premise and his conclusion. People did not vote for him because he enacted the Democrats’ agenda, they voted for him because he was not Phil Angelides. People, in addition, are not disgusted with a government that does nothing, they are disgusted with rulers who promise to make their lives better if people would just entrust them with power, and then those rulers use that power to line the pockets of their political supporters. People would be happy if they believed that the status quo was… Read More

I feel like a chump. This entire past year, Arnold Schwarzenegger had as a central theme to his campaign for re-election the fact that he would oppose any increase in taxes. I think it would be fair to say that this was a central theme to his campaign. As a matter of fact, in a candidacy that often times stressed issues that were not very appealing to core Republican voters, it was his focused contrasting of Phil Angelides’ "The Tax Man" against his own rhetoric of opposing new taxes that helped to mollify, and excite the GOP base to support his candidacy. Yet, the very first business day following his inauguration to a second term, the Governor rolls out a new massive government incursion that is straight from the playbooks of the Democrat Party, with a centerpiece being tax increases. I don’t get it. This Governor understands that what makes this country great is the idea of individual liberty and individual responsibility. Yet, he has thrown out the notion of individual responsibility, trading it in for this new "shared responsibility" rhetoric which is no more than a justification for a massive… Read More

So, let’s see, increasing insurance costs, a lack ofnew hospital development by the private sector, an inability by the public sector to build or improve health facilities without increased taxes via bonds (as the CEO of a public healthcare district, this is firsthand knowledge), overflowing emergency rooms, what more can I add?

Is government responsible for any of this? Let’s just touch on a couple of mandates…

Government mandates on nurse staffing ratios: Instead of a look at how individual hospitals fare in the provision of quality health care, based on an individual facility’s number of nurses needed for a select number of patients, let’s instead mandate a "one size fits all" ratio of patients per nurses based on the lowest common denominator…the worst providers of service. Oh, we already did that.

Result: Higher costs to provide a mandated number of employees in every unit, on every floor, in every hospital, regardless of the benefit or measurable outcome.

Government mandates for seismic retrofit of facilities: Yes, we all want our hospitals to stand up in an… Read More

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s universal health insurance proposal is a complicated, multi-faceted plan. It is an attempt to address the problem of affordable health insurance and an attempt to spread the pain of any potential solution around to all parties (individual, medical system, government and employers). I know and respect many of the people who worked on the plan and recognize that tackling any change to our health care system is a tough challenge.

That said, while there is MUCH to digest and educate ourselves on this proposal, one of the more troubling aspects of the governor’s plan is his intention to provide health insurance to illegal immigrants. It’s not brain science that it is more costly to pay for emergency room visits than it is to pay for preventative care. But the argument against extending health insurance to a group of people who entered our country illegally is more about the rule of law than it is about whether it costs more to have someone get their pneumonia treated in the ER or in their… Read More

Thanks to the Democrat Speaker for proving my point with his comments on the Governor’s Healthcare proposal:

“This is a plan Assembly Democrats could have written – and in a lot of ways already did. I’m pleased to see so much in common with the plan I introduced last month.”… Read More

Liberalism is based on two precepts – taxes and large social welfare programs. This proposal contains the offensive aspects of both because it combines a new tax to finance a new social welfare program that benefits illegal aliens. When Republican legislators are past the disbelief that this proposal has been made by a Republican Governor, they should rally to oppose it. Like most liberal programs, this one will eventually hurt the most the very people it perports to help.

You can be sure there will be a lot of praise of this proposal by the liberal Democrats in the legislature. Expansion of government is their favorite pasttime.

I’m sure you will hear more from others, but that is my first response. You can read about how the Governor wants to expand a government healthcare bureaucracy at www.gov.ca.gov.… Read More