This week in Know Your Future Governator, meet Steve Poizner!
Currently Mr. Poizner is our elected Insurance Commissioner and, as such, oversees everything insurance in our great state of California from car insurance to health insurance (yipes, I see this getting ugly). Mr. Poizner is also a very successful businessman and entrepreneur. His latest company SnapTrack established the great idea of putting GPS receivers into cell phones so you won’t get lost as long as you have your phone.
Now for the juicy stuff, the issues! Steve’s pet issues include economic growth, education, government reform, water and fiscal accountability.
Straight from the Steve Poizner for Governor website: http://stevepoizner.com/
On economic growth: Mr. Poizner believes we must overhaul our tax and regulatory structure. Currently, California is ranked as one of the worst states to do business in.
On education: Apparently Mr. Poizner spent a year teaching at a public school so he considers himself an expert on the subject. (Wow, a whole year! Don’t hurt yourself!) He believes that we should shift control of the classroom, facilities and budget back to the local level to improve accountability as well as grade-level proficiency.
On government reform: It appears that Steve wants to completely dismantle the current structure in Sacramento (with its 300 boards and commissions, 11 agencies, and 79 departments) and rebuild it to be more efficient. His most specific suggestion for reform: a part time legislature. Rather than having full time assembly-people and representatives, make them part time. Giving them less time to pass laws will focus their efforts on what’s truly important and giving them less money will give them incentive to have other, “real world” jobs so they can actually appreciate their constituents’ issues.
On water: I’m glad Steve brought this up; I think this is one of the more important, but least discussed issues facing our state today. His long term policy solutions of empowering local agencies to innovate or build new infrastructure and increasing surface and groundwater storage to provide stability during droughts are all well and good. But, I’m not going to lie, two of his short term solutions make me cringe. 1) Calling for the “flexible” application of the endangered species act during times of drought. I’m still not sure how that would actually help our water problem. 2) Utilizing the governor’s executive power to get water where it needs to go. Personally, I am highly suspicious of any policy that gives one person all the power.
On fiscal accountability: The only thing I actually got out of this section was that, well, we need it. Thank you Captain Obvious. The other interesting statistic he cites is that the CA legislature approved a tax increase for 95% of Californians. While this sounds terrible, I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the temporary 1% sales tax increase passed in the original budget for the year (back in Feb/March of 2009) which is scheduled to expire on July 1, 2011. But I do generally agree, yay for fiscal accountability.
Again, what does this sound like?
“I will not fail you. I will not disappoint you. And I will not let you down. For two months, I've been speaking out about the needs of bringing back fiscal responsibility to this state, bringing back the positive business atmosphere, bringing back businesses, bringing back jobs, and bringing back our education.” -Governor Schwarzenegger in his 2003 victory speech.
So Mr. Poizner, let’s talk…
HOW will you overhaul our tax and regulatory structure. I agree it needs to be done, but what exactly will you be changing?
HOW are we going to shift back control of our classrooms to the local level and still ensure that poor and underprivileged areas get the resources they need to give those kids the education they deserve? (I’m assuming that when you shift control back to the local level you shift the funding back to the local level also.)
WHAT makes you think that by calling legislators “part-time” will make them run out and get another, regular part time job? As of 2007, CA legislators make the most money of any state legislature (followed by Michigan, the only state which seems to be doing worse than California). http://www.empirecenter.org/html/legislative_salaries.cfm Even if you halved their salaries (which I doubt they would be too keen on and I’m pretty sure they would have a vote in the approval process), they would still be making over $55,000 a year. For something really nifty, check this out: http://www.capitolweekly.net/salaries/index.php?_c=y8cnuzmg4kh5nt
HOW do you plan to convince the rest of Sacramento to go along with your government reforms?
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I just have to say, I found it somewhat interesting that the current INSURANCE commissioner has nothing to say on the current health insurance situation.
ReplyDeleteMost states are proposing or have proposed some kind of state health program.
Does anyone know what Poizner's been doing as insurance commissioner?