(I did indeed encourage this story to be posted here. It is really is all about Tauscher's relationship with her constituents. - promoted by juls)
Before I begin I warn you I have never posted a blog before. I have commented on a few posts at DailyKos and was told by juls that I should post my experience with Tauscher here so here it is.
I am a very active democrat, especially for my age group. I am 18 years old and a senior at Acalanes High School. I am the Youth Outreach Coordinator of the Lamorinda Democratic Club, President and Founder of the Acalanes Democratic Club, member of East Bay for Democracy and East Bay Young Democrats, and during the next several months will be working to create a Contra Costa County Young Democrats. Despite all this involvement, I have only seen Tauscher speak once. Maybe this is because, as a Congresswoman, Tauscher's in DC all the time (which I doubt is the reason because I've heard Miller speak 3 or 4 times) but I suspect that it is more because she does not like dealing with local clubs knowing that she will be put under the spotlight and actually asked tough questions. Surprisingly enough she agreed to speak on the topic of Nuclear Bunker Busters and the Possibility of U.S. Intervention in Iran for the Mt. Diablo Peace Center on June 10, 2006.
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) has been one of the most successful tax programs ever. It rewards working, so it is hard for conservatives to kill it, and it provides help to those with the least. So, as a progressive, it's hard not to love. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, whatever he may be, can support it.
The City and County of San Francisco attempted to provide a local match for the program, called the Working Families Credit. It was partially funded by private corporations, primarily H&R Block, and partially from City coffers. The program was mildly successful, but there were some inherent problems with the program in that it was a city program and so you had to seek out a seperate form. Also, H&R Block's involvement was a bit...troubling given their problems with preying on the poor with Refund Anticipation Loans (RAL).
Despite the problems, the idea is a good one. Many of these problems could be resolved by using a state-based approach. And hey! Assemblyman Dave Jones has plans to introduce such a bill. (The full press release is over the flip). This plan provides a 15% match of the federal EITC, a simple plan that is similar to the other 19 states that already have such a match. It can provide up to $680, depending on your filing status. It's a great idea, but hopefully one that could be improved upon.
There are several ways to further optimize this program. First, make Steve Westly's Ready Return Program permanent. Ready Return simplifies the tax return program by filling out most forms for taxpayers, especially lower income taxpayers who have generally simple tax returns. Ya, yeah, I know this is slightly off topic...but oh wait it's not. Ready Return would encourage low-earners to a)file b) get all the resources that our programs should provide to them.
To go along with this, I encourage faster processing of returns for Ready Return filers that would provide faster refunds. This would discourage using high-cost tax prep services like H&R Block and the pernicious RALs.
Another reccomendation, which might be more challenging, is to focus on the cost of living. Filers who live in more expensive locations (ie LA and SF) should receive more money than those in cheaper locales (ie Barstow, Bakersfield, etc.). This would require some number-crunching, but would begin the long process of stopping the flight from our cities of all but the most wealthy.
However, as for Dave Jones' bill...Let's do it. It's a great idea.
I'm in the Oakland airport, and have been for almost three hours now. Not the best way to spend an afternoon, but the $10 for wireless was well worth it. But, when I was paying it, it reminded me of Seinfeld...what's the deal with that? What's the deal with paying $10 for internet for a day?
Who knows? And on to my real topic. Mike Villines. The Assemblyman and longtime Wilson aide is set to lead the Assembly Republican Caucus into a brave new world of...irrelevancy? You know, I've seen plenty of articles saying how he's going to a) whip those Reps into a solid voting bloc b) stand up when the governor makes deals with the Dems. You know the funny part is that while all these articles are written, few even mention that who Villines is trying to fight his own Republican Governor.
Somewhere along the line there is a disconnect between what the people want and what the political parties want to do. And what Schwarzenegger wants to do. Who knows what that dude is planning on doing, but one thing is clear is that there is a level of trust that has reached record lows for a party caucus and its governor.
Villines plans on making the Reps more relevant, apparently by pulling them away from the center and toward his wingnut base. Exactly how that will be successful is beyond me. On non-budgetary issues, it's hard to see how Villines hopes to accomplish much. Of course the disastrous ramifications of the supermajority requirements gives Villines some leverage on the deal.
So, Villines plans to make his party relevant by obstructing the will of the majority...oh and his own governor. I guess we can expect another delayed budget, a lot more partisanship, and a lot less being accomplished for the people. Yup, this is definitely going to make them relevant.
Man, we really need to redistrict to end the obstructionist tack of the Republican extremists. Poll over the flip...
(oops, forgot that checkbox - promoted by SFBrianCL)
Most of us around here are fairly comfortable with the notion that the CDP is not a source of help for progressives and/or the netroots. It seems that it may now be an actual impediment for at least the netroots and better democracy.
The Foundation for Taxypayer & Consumer Rights has done an excellent push on investigating a possible pay for play for Fabian Nunez. As of my last Google News Search, no major news services have picked up on this story, but Matt Stoller of MyDD noticed it yesterday. I saw it a few days ago, but I was hesitant about drawing more attention to the issue. It's definitely a thorny one. It's a complicated story, but I'll try to give a simple version.
So, AT&T and the telcos wanted to get into the cable TV business. The only problem is that currently municipalities have the right to offer an exclusive franchise to one terrestrial cable company. It annoys Comcast and TimeWarner, but they deal with it. Or at least it did annoy them until they were bribed by Nunez and the telcos. How did they bribe them? They dropped the franchise agreement requirements, which required them to provide such pesky services as public access channels and government access.
How did this affect us? Well, the franchise agreements were also another firewall in the net neutrality war. The franchise agreements could have required the service providers to provide a neutral internet. That is gone. The cable companies win, the telcos win. We lose.
But don't worry, Fabian got his too. Nunez raised over $1.7 million from the telcos for the CDP. The CDP, in turn, passed along a $4 million check to Nunez for all his fundraising efforts. According to the letter that the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (PDF) , the check was sent on election day. Why election day? Well, it was in time to place in his 2006 election fund and too late to come into question.
I will leave it to you to draw conclusions about whether this check is fishy. Did Nunez sell out the netroots? Does the money go in and do the favors go out? Is this a quid pro quo? It certainly raises some troubling questions.
