Candidate for
Member of the State Assembly; District 50; Democratic Party

Big government is corrupt, inefficient, wasteful and unsustainable. Our state government is too big, taxes are too high and our debt is increasing with every new bond measure that is passed. Now the governor and the legislature want to make government even bigger. Their main disagreement is on how to pay for bigger government, higher taxes or more debt. Republican politicians choose more debt. They like to cut taxes to stimulate the economy in order to increase government revenues. Unfortunately they increase spending at the same time they cut taxes, leading to massive deficits. All of that borrowing requires a large percentage of future budgets be dedicated to paying off the debt, leading to tax increases. Democrats prefer raising current taxes. Both parties prefer to raise the taxes of some despised group. Whether it is smokers, the rich, property owners or people that drive SUV's, they want you to believe that there is always someone else out there that can pay for their big government programs.

This never ending cycle of borrowing and raising taxes has to stop. Art Olivier is a proven tax fighter. He does not believe it is the job of the governor to get along with the legislature and the special interest groups. What California needs is a governor that can steer a steady ship towards reducing the size of government, not one that has his staff check the polls every morning and changes course accordingly. Starting with the most corrupt programs, Art Olivier will steadfastly reduce the size of our state government.

Spending cuts must be made. California's employee pension system must be reformed. Workers should have a defined contribution plans opposed to the existing defined benefit plans. The University of California students should not have their subsidies increased. We should not spend the $1.7 billion more on education than Prop 98 requires. With just a few common sense adjustments, we could avoid the massive, unsustainable deficits we are now facing. Our state income tax system can be made much simpler by taking the tax owed on the federal return and divide it by a number somewhere between three and four. As the size of government is reduced, the divisor can be increased, reducing the tax owed. This change would make is easier and less expensive for Californians to comply. Workers' compensation is an indirect tax on all workers in California. The system is rife with corruption and cannot be fixed by making minor adjustments. Employees should be able to negotiate with their employer on whether or not they want to be covered by workers' comp. For the workers that opt out, their pay may dramatically increase, some by more than 50%.

California cannot afford to continue to give public benefits to people that are here illegally. Emergency rooms are shutting down because people without money are using them for their primary care. In a true emergency, like a major earthquake, our hospitals will not have the capacity to handle such a disaster.