Transcript of gubernatorial recall debate


September 24, 2003

Page 19

they refused to. This is creating a crisis and I'll tell you where it starts hurting. Counties start looking at their pension fund as a big pile of money that maybe they can somehow they can lower, solve their budget problems by not making the payments that they should be making. So what we need to do is give that money back. We have to empower the local government. We have to give them more freedom. We have to look at these issues more carefully, and I think that as a supervisor that Helen's raising, the stress that she's feeling, the stress that all supervisors are feeling, the lack of funding to be able to carry out the very important tasks they do, including preventive, uh, medical, the health care, the issues of -- if we cut those, we'll end up paying more because that simply becomes the problem in emergency rooms.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Peter. We've gone beyond an enjoyable hour and five minutes. We're going to go to Senator McClintock.

McCLINTOCK: When Governor Wilson raided the local property tax, I was one of the very few members of the state Legislature who stood up and tried to stop him. This is a cause near and dear to my heart. It seems to me that the biggest problem that we've had with local government is the blurring of revenues and authority. Sacramento has not only raided their own money but also usurped their authority. We have got to restore the distinction between local government. The state worked a lot better when local governments could use local revenues and apply those to local purposes. They've got to have a dedicated stream of revenues restored to them and then they've got to have the full authority restored to them to use those revenues as they best see fit. Mandated state costs on local governments have got to stop. If the state government wants to mandate programs for local government, the state government can bloody well pay for it. That is one of the most important governmental reforms that we've got to embark upon, because right now we end up with the state budget being a political literally robbing (unintelligible) to pay tax.

MODERATOR: All right, time constriction. Give us one more comment lieutenant governor for about a minute and a half.

BUSTAMANTE: Actually, we agree on this particular issue. But I think it's more than just not providing state mandates without funding. I think you're right about that. We should create better partnership. For example, right now there's an overdependence by local governments on sales taxes. And as a result, there's no emphasis on building homes in our communities. They're building strip malls and auto malls, but they're not building homes. If we would be able to swap out some of the sales tax, with some of the

PAGE 1 | PAGE 2 | PAGE 3 | PAGE 4 | PAGE 5 | PAGE 6 | PAGE 7 | PAGE 8 | PAGE 9 | PAGE 10 | PAGE 11 | PAGE 12 | PAGE 13 | PAGE 14 | PAGE 15 | PAGE 16 | PAGE 17 | PAGE 18 | PAGE 19

Home | About The Recall | Why Recall Davis | Latest News | Contribute | Tell A Friend | Recall Sponsors
© 2003 Rescue California. All rights reserved.

Designed & Constructed by Net Media Communications and Netvolution.com, Inc.