Health Plan: A Step Down The Wrong Road (Don Perata: Its DOA - DUH Alert)

Orange County Register ^ | 12/19/2007 | Orange County Register Editorial

[goldstategop]

The State Senate must approve the measure next, which isn't a sure thing. Senate President Don Perata, D-Oakland, wants to know first whether the gargantuan health care package would adversely affect the state's budget, which already is projected to be $14 billion in the red for fiscal 2008-09. Sen. Perata, on a Bay Area radio station Tuesday, said "I think [the plan is]DOA. I haven't found anybody yet … that can make any sense of it." He said he will not allow a vote until 2008.

The saving grace is that the legislation amounts only to political grandstanding if voters don't say OK to its taxing schemes, which include a hefty increase in the tobacco tax. We're confident the voting public will soundly reject paying an additional $14 billion in taxes, directly as smokers or businesses, or indirectly as customers to whom the cost increases inevitably will be passed. A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California shows voters oppose new taxes, 2 to 1.

On the looming budget-deficit side of the issue, the same poll showed that Californians endorse in concept cutting state spending 10 percent, as Gov. Schwarzenegger has suggested. Democrat legislators, however, aren't likely to reduce spending. They already are making sounds that they would prefer to increase taxes to fill the budget gap.

What are the chances that Californians, whose economy seems headed into recession, are going to approve $14 billion in new taxes for a utopian health care system andapprove more taxes to offset another $14 billion to make up for the budget deficit? We think that answer is self-evident. Why isn't it apparent to the politicians in Sacramento?

[goldstategop]

Senate President Don Perata is as liberal as they come but he thinks ArnoldCare is DOA. He's right. And are Californians prepared to approve a heaping $14 billion in new taxes? The answer to that seems pretty clear. It should be clear to the Governator and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus