California Conservative

MEMORANDUM

TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Steve Schmidt, Campaign Manager
RE: Angelides’ “Tax Plan”
DATE: August 14, 2006

Over the past two months, our campaign has asserted that Phil Angelides’ promises add up to at least $10 billion in tax increases. That number is no longer accurate.

Angelides has continued to add to that total, and now the tally is approximately $18 billion. Every five- or six-point plan he comes up with leaves California taxpayers footing another bill. A few weeks ago, he added to the tax-increase plan again by promising that – “on day one” if he is elected – he would sponsor an employer-mandated health care bill. It’s a program similar to one that would have required more than $7 billion in new taxes, according to the state Chamber of Commerce. His other major campaign promises and their corresponding tax increases are as follows:

Angelides has said he would close the budget deficit by raising taxes on wealthy Californians and increasing corporate taxes. Angelides’ senior campaign advisor put the deficit at $3.5 billion for the coming year.

Dan Weintraub of The Sacramento Bee reported that Angelides wants the additional $3.2 billion in Proposition 98 money to be funded annually, and said his tax-increase plan would cover the cost.

The Los Angeles Times put his various education proposals, which include college tuition fee decreases and hiring more school counselors, at $1.5 billion and said Angelides lumped them into his tax plan.

Angelides supported the $2.4 billion tax hike that came with Proposition 82 and has continued to support universal preschool even though that initiative failed. Angelides told KPCC radio that he would cover that cost with his tax-increase plan.

Angelides endorses a child health care plan, which would cost about $300 million. He told the Los Angeles Times his tax-increase plan would pay that cost.

He has also said he would expand Cal Grant Scholarships (the San Francisco Chronicle reported a cost of $185 million), and he supports a host of other programs, such as state-run single-payer health care, for which we have no solid cost estimates.

We are not arguing over the merits of these programs, but over their costs and how Angelides would pay for them: with huge tax increases.

Our campaign understands our tally may be off by a few hundred million dollars up or down. We are forced to use these figures from media sources that approximate the cost of the programs. But it is clear that the total is nowhere near the $5 billion Angelides continues to insist will cover the cost of these programs.

It has been more than four weeks since Angelides promised to produce his own state budget – “line by line,” in his own words. And it has been about 19 weeks since he promised to outline his tax plan. He has failed to follow through on those promises and has failed to rebut our estimate of his tax increases.

There are two options when it comes to Phil Angelides’ campaign promises, and both cannot be true — it’s one or the other. Either Angelides is making campaign promises that he does not intend to keep, or he will pay for them with a massive tax hike.

Taxes are the price we pay for government. However, we cannot let government get so big that the services and the opportunity that Californians deserve take a back seat. In a speech advocating lower taxes, President Ronald Reagan once said, “One of the first rules of economics is if you tax something, you get less of it. High tax rates discourage work, risk-taking, initiative, and imagination.” In short, higher tax rates could threaten the California dream. So, whether Phil Angelides wants to raise taxes by $10 billion or $18 billion or $33 billion — the number matters.

Incredibly, Angelides gets away with saying his tax increases will amount to only $5 billion. His figure has gone unquestioned and has been repeatedly reprinted in the press. That’s like the Governor holding a press conference to announce that it is 50 degrees outside when it’s quite clearly 100 – and it being regurgitated as fact.

Our campaign will use the more accurate $18 billion figure. We welcome and encourage Phil Angelides to unveil his promised tax plan and let us know if we are off the mark.

RELATED:
VIDEO: “Phil Angelides: Tax Man”

This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Announcements, Arnold, California, Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.