Newsom doesn't read the Guardian!

06.02.10 - 1:51 pm | Tim Redmond |

(13)

Gav was on KQED this morning, talking about his run for Lite Guv, and he started right off by saying how he doesn't ever -- ever -- read the Bay Guardian

Michael Krasny started off by asking why Newsom refused to appear on the radio in a debate with Janice Hahn. "She agreed, you didn't." Krasny asked. "Why?"

Newsom's comment: Gee, I didn't have time for a debate. Too busy running the city, and trying to balance a budget-- "the most complex budget in city history." He insisted that he'd solved a $522 million deficit without laying off police or firefighters, while protecting the soc sev safety net and investing in homeless service and universal health care.

Krasny: "So the Guardian can't beat you up any more?"

Gav: "Honestly, I haven't read it in years, with all due respect to Tim Redmond and Brugmann and whatever the team is over there."

Krasny, politely, tried to bring up the idea that a no-new-taxes budget means fewer jobs, but Newsom had none of it: "They seem to have a tax first policy," he said (although he doesn't read us, so he doesn't know. He complained that San Franciscans are already paying 10 percent in sales tax -- "a regressive tax," and that "they (presumably the Guardian) consistently support it, I don't."

Read our paper, Mr. Mayor. The Guardian has consistently, for many years, argued that sales taxes are regressive, and we've consistently, for years, argued that there are far better options, ways the city can reclaim money from the wealthy. And we've argued that Newsom's no-new-taxes policy is bad for the economy.

Oh, and by the way: You talked over and over about universal health care in San Francisco, and how proud you were of that policy. But if you were reading the Bay Guardian, you might recall that it wasn't your policy. That initiative came from then-Sup. Tom Ammiano, and you opposed the key employer mandates that fund it. Hey, you could even pick that up by reading the Chron:

Comments

"ways the city can reclaim money from the wealthy."

You have some serious entitlement issues.

People not giving you things is an infringement upon you?

Posted by Mr Matlock on Jun. 02, 2010 @ 2:45 pm

"The rich are not paying

"The rich are not paying their fair share"

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/28/clinton-rich-paying-fair-shar...

Posted by Guest on Jun. 02, 2010 @ 11:55 pm

In case you've never read a

In case you've never read a macroeconomics text or any of the history of the past two hundred years, an unmodified market economy on its own does an atrocious job of distributing wealth. This was a fact known and discussed by Mr Adam Smith in his magnum opus, and had become so obvious by 1820 they began trying to do away with capitalism altogether. Thank the socialists for saving your despicable, selfish ass, and shove "entitlement issues" where it belongs.

Posted by Lucy Lucknow on Jun. 03, 2010 @ 4:10 pm

Free Market? Ha ha ha

The notion that there's a free market in the United States is a joke.

With one single massive customer - the US Government - controlling both supply and demand through taxation, reserves, borrowing and lending and spending trillions of dollars of the Military Industrial complex... well

for a clearer picture

http://mibi.deviantart.com/art/Death-and-Taxes-2009-86140295

Posted by TheLaw on Jun. 04, 2010 @ 11:05 am

Gordo.

If we could all have a rich "uncle" like Gordon Getty we'd all be Mayors.

Its not entitlement when you pay taxes that make the rich wealthier and subsidize their earnings.

Posted by TheLaw on Jun. 04, 2010 @ 10:58 am

"The rich are not paying their fair share"

"The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues (the United States is), whether it's individual, corporate, whatever the taxation forms are," she said.

Clinton pointed to Brazil's high taxation as an example that other countries should strive toward.

"Brazil has the highest tax-to-GDP rate in the Western Hemisphere and guess what -- it's growing like crazy. And the rich are getting richer, but they're pulling people out of poverty," she said. "There is a certain formula there that used to work for us until we abandoned it, to our regret in my opinion."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/28/clinton-rich-paying-fair-shar...

Posted by Guest on Jun. 02, 2010 @ 11:54 pm

The fallacy Tim subscribes to

The fallacy Tim subscribes to is that there are enough rich people with enough money to pay for an unlimited amount of public services. We merely have to take it from them.

But there isn't. And even if there were enough, they could quite easily move outside the City if there was the kind of purge on them that Tim fantasizes about.

The sad fact is that bloated public sector pay and benefits is paid for by the regular working stiffs of this City, and not by the wealthy who can afford to move to Marin or hire a tax genius.

Posted by Tomfoolery on Jun. 03, 2010 @ 12:22 am

The modern progressive reminds

me of the 70's labor party member in England.

Other than punk rock the country didn't produce anything new as all the wealthy left for the USA, an d the standard of living slid down for those not well off enough to leave, thus leveling society down.

Posted by Mr Matlock on Jun. 03, 2010 @ 8:47 am

and...

Yeah that Teddy Heath was the real socialist! A red under the bed communist!

Wilson devalued the pound in 1967 because of an inherited debt of 800Million from the.... conservatives... remember that part?

Posted by TheLaw on Jun. 04, 2010 @ 10:47 am

No, but I do rermember reading about the

nationalizing of everything and the growing welfare state, Thatcher was ridiculous in many ways, but she was right about Reagan "nothing between the ears" and the welfare state being a failure.

Lesson learned by SF "progressives," nothing.

Posted by glen matlock on Jun. 06, 2010 @ 9:14 pm

..."The fallacy Tim

..."The fallacy Tim subscribes to is that there are enough rich people with enough money to pay for an unlimited amount of public services. We merely have to take it from them.

But there isn't. And even if there were enough, they could quite easily move outside the City if there was the kind of purge on them that Tim fantasizes about.

The sad fact is that bloated public sector pay and benefits is paid for by the regular working stiffs of this City, and not by the wealthy who can afford to move to Marin or hire a tax genius."

Thank you. You will never read in this otherwise productive publication that public employees are now making 50% more than their private sector counterparts- and the folks at the SFBG have concluded it's still not enough. Why doesn't the SFBG report, per Newsom's new budget, what the average wages and benefits are of a San Francisco City employee? $135,000 a year?? You won't read that stat here. I'd like to see the SFBG call for market wages and benefits for public employees to solve our deficits- ha, fat chance. Read the recently released report from the San Jose Civil Grand Jury about the obscene pay of public employees...

Posted by c.j. roses on Jun. 03, 2010 @ 9:34 am

I agree with C.J.

I agree with C.J. Roses. While the SFBG consistently argues for revenue measures, it ignores the excessive amount of money San Francisco spends on public employee wages and benefits/pensions. We would not need more revenue if we paid these folks less and made them pay for their own retirement (like private workers do). Why doesn't the SFBG ever call for reductions to public employee wages and benefits?

Posted by Patrick on Jun. 04, 2010 @ 11:40 am

It is not so much that the

It is not so much that the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes, rather that our tax dollars are being spent on the military that enforces protections for the private capital of the global north onto the global south, and that the non-US global north is being given a free ride on the backs of the American taxpayers.

Military spending makes us less safe and less secure, yet takes up a mounting percentage of the federal budget. Tamp military spending down to a justifiable level, and there will be plenty of headroom for tax relief for all. Comparisons of tax burdens across national jurisdictions that do not take into account military spending are not accurate and are intended to mislead.

If the federal budget were not constructed as a giant wealth funneling operation, then there would be plenty of funding for essentials to the extent that state and local governments would not need to be squeezing schools and social services to make up the difference.

-marc

Posted by the city's burden on Jun. 03, 2010 @ 9:36 am