2008 California Election Forum

The free market is resilient. Despite government overspending and excessive regulations, the tax cuts and deregulation have helped create economic growth. There have been 2.54 million new jobs in the last 12 months and unemployment is 4.7%, less than in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The Dow is up about 55% since the tax cuts of 2003, and NASDAQ is up more than 80%. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is 3.7%. So this is my question—How does the media represent the economy? If you watch the news, it's falling apart. They echo the liberal politicians calling for repealing the tax cuts, more government spending and more regulations—which would kill the economy.

The trend is not good. According to the Tax Foundation, California dropped from the 42nd to the 45th worst state in its business tax climate rating. This is yet another reason why we must vote wisely and oppose more taxes and bonds.

There are 86 taxes being charged to renters for convention centers, stadiums and art centers. These taxes can add up to 25% of the full charge. Hidden taxes keep growing as the politicians keep increasing the size of their bureaucracies.

Total tax receipts for the quarterly deadline reached $85.8 billion, a new record high, and $14 billion more than last year’s take.

Included in that total were corporate tax receipts that added up to $71.8 billion, up from $63 billion this time last year. This higher revenue is the result of more productivity and wealth, and it’s more proof positive that, contrary to what liberals would have us believe, the Bush tax cuts have worked.

Despite record California state revenues, the state budget deficit is growing out of control. Beware of irresponsible state spending. The 2006–2007 budget is projected to be $21 billion—far worse than in the last days of Gray Davis. The losers: taxpayers. The winners: politicians and special interest groups.

What happens when a city has too many regulations, fees and high taxes? A loss of jobs and opportunity.

In antibusiness Los Angeles, there were 605,000 jobs downtown in 1995. Today there are only 418,000. This is a loss of 187,000 jobs in Los Angeles in just 12 years.

The Internet has made many incredible improvements to our culture. It’s been a benefit to business growth, has provided better competition and made it possible for the gospel to be spread in powerful, innovative ways like never before.

One of the reasons for this is because the government has not regulated the Internet.

However, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other liberals are now pushing for “net neutrality” legislation.

Net neutrality is essentially corporate welfare on behalf of powerful companies such as Google and Amazon.com that want to dictate price controls on companies offering Internet access.

They claim to be helping the consumer, but the result of the Internet regulation will be more bureaucracy, more cost and weaker incentives to launch next-generation broadband servers and build newer networks—that threaten existing companies like Yahoo! and others.

Here’s how it works: When you share photos or music, or set up a small website, you consume much less bandwidth than a huge site such as Google. Net neutrality would force Internet providers to charge high bandwidth sites like Google, the same, they charge our small website, www.ElectionForum.org.

The aim of net neutrality is to subsidize and protect big business at the expense of the present ISPs. These companies have invested millions in setting up systems, and the politicians want to regulate away their profits and return on investment.

This is corporate welfare at its worst. It’s very interesting that these Internet giants have been giving huge donations to these politicians.

The free Internet doesn’t need this “fix.” Let innovation, competition and market-based solutions improve our lives. 

We hope you found this article to be informative. To visit more articles and for additional information regarding the upcoming elections, please visit www.ElectionForum.org.