Ask the 'Geek Candidate' for California Governor 1109
No, not Arnold Schwarzenegger. We're talking abut Georgy Russell, who studied computer science at UC Berkeley, often wears ThinkGeek clothing, has a blog, reads Slashdot, and knows how to run Linux. Since this California electoral free-for-all has turned into a worldwide spectator sport as bizarre as any other 'Reality TV' show currently airing, Slashdot might as well get in on the media frenzy and interview a candidate, and Georgy is the obvious choice. We'll email Georgy 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and publish her answers (and, yes, the chosen questions in the same post) as soon as she replies.
Re:Do you think the recall is fair? (Score:3, Informative)
Even though some people are whiners and want to blame everthing on others, this dosen't negate the times that somebody/something else is to blame.
I'm always amused that people blame govenors/presidents for things that are frequently more attributable to their legislative bodies.
Re:Do you think the recall is fair? (Score:3, Informative)
Image gallery /.'ed (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Do you think the recall is fair? (Score:5, Informative)
You are definately in a minority if you believe that.
Much of the deficit is Enron's fault (I seem to recall that taking roughly $30 billion to clean up)
I think the upper estimates of the cost of the energy crisis were around $4 billion. That hurts, but that does not bring the deficit from $12 billion (like Davis was claiming during the campaign) to $35 billion. Davis wasn't responsible for creating the energy crisis mess, but he sure didn't handle the situation well when it came up (and signing those overpriced long term contracts in a panic 2 years ago didnt help either).
No, the problem with Davis is deeper than just the energy crisis. In Davis's first years in office, his budgets increased state spending by double digits each year. This was on unsustainable ".com-boom" tax revenue. During this time he also signed anti-business legislation, like the workers compensation act and the paid family leave act. As a result, businesses started leaving California en-masse. In fact, California has lost more jobs so far this year than the rest of the nation combined. As an icing on the cake, Davis went ahead and tripled the vehicle registration taxes a few months ago. In his mind this was going to increase revenue, but in reality it has just killed new car sales and further hurt the economy.
I think the most telling aspect of Davis has been his reaction to this whole thing. After the recall vote was certified, Davis could have gone out and touted his accomplishments to clear his name. After all, if Davis is right and he shouldn't be recalled, then there should be some reasons to keep him in office, right? But no. The first thing he does is huddle in a room with some lawyers for a week to come up with a ridiculous suit against the recall process itself. When that fails, he flies to Chicago to meet with big labor union bosses to negotiate their "support". And instead of campaigning for himself, all he has done so far is belittle his opponents and the recall process in general.
No, I won't miss Davis at all.
Re:questions about the campaign. (Score:1, Informative)
That or you are a stupid, stupid, US Citizen. You obviously are completely ignorant of the financial burdons these "harmless" law breakers inflict upon the entire health care industry. Do you have any idea how many MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars of tax payer money is doled out to hospitals to keep them from going under? All because these criminals don't go for medical help until they are almost dead, and then they never bother to pay for it! They drive wages down so low for certain jobs, no US citizen can afford to do them. So they pay sales tax? Maybe on food and clothing (them mexicans LOVE spendy boots, cowboy hats and belt buckles). Yet you have no clue on how much money they wire OUT of the USA to be spent ELSEWHERE. They bankrupt schools because they have to teach them in Spanish (ESL is a mockery) and pay for their lunches and school supplies. Well behaved? How is breaking laws well behaved? They drive around with no insurance, don't pay their tickets, contribute to the highlest levels of Hit-and-Run accidents, and so on. Their "cheap labor" is very costly. In order for greedy corporations to pay sub-standard wages to an endless stream of mexicans (mainly), we're shelling out tax dollars to pay for the resources used by these line jumping law breakers. I can't believe you got an "insightful" score when you are so completely IGNORANT.
Re:More importantly, is the recall legal (Score:5, Informative)
Davis apparently ran a fraudulent campaign, specifically as regards the expected budget deficit. From other posts in this story, he spent the campaign claiming that the deficit would be $10-12 billion, and claiming that his opponent's claim of $25 billion was wildly exaggerated. There are plausible allegations that he conspired to keep the reports of the actual deficit (which was announced to be $30 billion and is now estimated at $38 billion) unreleased until after the election. In this case, the logic behind the recall is that, had all the facts been known, Davis would not have won.
no confidence votes (Score:3, Informative)
No-confidence votes are also done by members of parliament, not through the collection of signatures on a petition.
Re:Do you think the recall is fair? (Score:5, Informative)
You need to remember, the state's answer to the energy scam was to raise consumer rates to pay the bloated expenses over the next decade or two. This is on top of a nearly 10% state sales tax and over 10% state income tax -- and NOT including the proposed income tax for county and city. How much can a state take away from it's citizins?
This *problem* is more related to the state legislature than Davis alone -- he just SIGNED all the spending bills -- the state house and assembly had to pass them. We need a gov who'll tell them to "get stuffed" -- not someone trying to make EVERYONE happy so he'll have a shot to use california as a spring-board to the whitehouse.
Drugs and Taxes! (Score:3, Informative)
1) You suggest that California should legalize marijuana use. However, federal pre-emption of drug legalization under the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (AKA the Controlled Substances Act) takes precedence over any state decriminalization of drug use. How would you avoid what could be a particularly nasty battle between state and federal control?
2) Although you propose several major spending initiatives, including a "clean elections" law and a health-care system along the lines of Vermont's, you also state that balancing the budget is a priority. Obviously, the only way to reconcile these priorities is to raise taxes, as you acknowledge.
If we conservatively assume that adding new and restoring existing funding for projects only reopens the budget gap to where it was prior to the May Revision, some $38.2 billion must be recovered to balance the state's budget. Almost all of this will have to come out of the three general fund taxes (personal, sales, and corporate).
To give an idea of the numbers we're talking about, if we rolled back the California tax cuts of the mid-1990s, we would recover only around $5 billion (estimated as the revenue loss for FY 1999-2000 due to the tax cuts).
Having said that, what kind of increase in the various tax rates are you contemplating (income rate increases, capital gains, tobacco, etc)? Are there any major program reductions you support? Do you propose to shift burdens onto local governments to help close the gap?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Which distro? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Marijuana (Score:3, Informative)
The current war on marijuana costs the US over 9 billion USD per year plus another 1+ billion in lost tax revenue if it was legal and taxed. Legalizing marijuana would open up over 130,000 prison spaces allowing more room for real criminals. The facts are that marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and acetaminophen (Tylenol).
A great example of the failure on the war on marijuana is 19 year old Webster Alexander. A undercover cop asked him for some pot, Alexander gave him some. The cop asked again and this time offerred him money in exchange. After four "deals" Alexander was arrest, never given a competent lawyer, tried, convicted and sentenced to 26 years in jail for a total of $250 worth of sales. This is more time than a 2nd degree murder, 1st degree manslaughter or a molestation conviction gets you.
Please stop spreading FUD about marijuana because someone just might believe you.
Facts and Myths about Marijuana [drugpolicy.org]
"Marijuana Prohibition Costs Over $7 Billion Annually" [changetheclimate.org]
26 years for $250 worth of marijuana. [mapinc.org]
"Teenager Dies from Acetaminophen Overdose" [about.com]
Re:Do you think the recall is fair? (Score:3, Informative)
The moment a new governor is elected (if one is), I believe a new recall action could begin. How would someone who only got, say, 25-30% of the vote in the recall election win against another recall? The whole process is absurd and needs to be stopped. I'd imagine whoever the new governor is their first order of business will be to get the recall process scrapped.
Re:no confidence votes (Score:3, Informative)
Good. I'm impressed of your knowledge of German constitutional affairs, which most Germans would have problems to explain ;-) ;-)
But your assumption is not 100% correct: If the constructive vote of no confidence fails, a new parliament has to be elected (re-elections).
In 1982, Chancellor Helmut Kohl pulled this trick (his own party voted against him) to get into office and subsequently, the German supreme-court made it clear that you can pull this trick only once
cheers, Rainer
Re:questions about the campaign. (Score:3, Informative)
i live overseas. thanks to geo-targeting ad servers i see all the ads promoting immigration to the states. and a lot of those ads look pretty iffy to me. smuggling people to work low-wage jobs in the us and europe is big business.
maybe you folks can have your tax burden reduced along with the margins of smugglers and employers of illegal immigrants.