California governor's definition of vigilence?
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, June 5, 2002Bill Simon Statement on New Davis TV Ads
Bill Simon released the following statement today. Attached is a document refuting claims made by Davis in his new TV spot.
Thank you for coming. Throughout this election, I have talked substantively about the issues from education to the environment to the economy. Today, at our Ag summit, we had the opportunity to discuss California’s number one industry and the challenges it faces. I’ve chosen to talk about ideas, but Gray Davis has chosen to misrepresent his record.My staff has shown me copies of the ads Governor Davis will be running starting this week. I find it interesting that 5 months before the election, Governor Davis feels compelled to run ads proclaiming that he has been vigilant as California’s chief executive. As we have all painfully observed over the past couple of years, about the only thing the governor has been vigilant about are his 12-hour per day fundraising call schedules.
He certainly wasn’t vigilant in dealing with the energy crisis. He certainly hasn’t been vigilant dealing with our state’s looming water crisis. He is touting his crime record at a time when we are seeing an alarming increase in violent crimes and homicides throughout California.
I believe that one of the principle reasons the governor feels compelled to run these ads at this time is the fact that he has done so little to advance the causes of environmental protection, public safety and increased efficiency of government-provided services.
In fact, he has spent tens of billions of dollars in windfall money he reaped from former Governor Wilson and we have very little to show for those expenditures. But we now have is a governor who has run up a $24 billion debt, and that does not include the billions still looming out there from the governor’s self-admitted panic attack during the energy crisis.
Californians need to ask themselves: Is the state better off today than it was four years ago? Gray Davis has wasted a golden opportunity to make major investments in our infrastructure. Due to his failures, he is cutting money to the California Victims of Crime Prevention program and the 911-response program. Davis is touting his record regarding HMO’s, but quite frankly, I am alarmed at the spiraling cost of premiums that in some instances are projected to increase up to 94% next year. How many people will be crowded out of health care due to the governor’s “vigilance” on this issue?
Davis touts “vigilance” on the environment, but the truth of the record is that Davis has mismanaged the MTBE phase out in the same way he mismanaged the energy crisis. Davis had information at the start of his administration that MTBE needed to be phased out, and that additional California production of ethanol was needed to make the MTBE phase out work without major impacts on California motorists.
Rather than stimulating investment needed to increase California’s ethanol production, Davis ignored the situation, and expected others to deal with it until this year. Then, when faced with another energy crisis of his own making, Davis extended the use of MTBE by another year, thus ensuring continued exposure to MTBE contamination.
Davis touts his “vigilance” on water issues, however, the facts paint yet another picture. The CALFED agreement reached in June 2000 was supposed to be a blueprint for solving California’s future water supply problems. Literally one week before the agreement was reached, the governor’s staff began backtracking, describing the agreement as strictly a framework document. CALFED today remains only a framework, without any substantive measures in place to increase water supplies that the state will need in the future for urban, environmental and agricultural needs.
In 1998, Gray Davis assigned himself the title of best-trained governor-in waiting California ever produced, and stated he had experience money cant buy. Sadly, after watching the countless scandals, ethical lapses, fiscal mismanagement, policy mistakes and stumbling from one crisis to another, California should ask itself if the Davis administration moniker should now be “state government for sale to the highest bidder.”
If he has experience money can't buy, I wouldn't think he'd need the grief:
"If it comes down to taking the money and taking the grief vs. not taking the money and not taking the grief, I'll take the former any day of the week."In other words, we'll antagonize the voters if we can get a few thousand more campaign dollars by doing it.
Hardly a principled stand, no? And an insult to our intelligence, to boot.
Who the heck is going to vote for this man?
D
The little red and green fiery types that grow on bushes and spice up any food rather nicely. The name came from the 30 or so plants I grow every year, just to keep the family in good health.