21st Century politics in California and, in particular, the Bay Area has become the domain of both traditional politics and a seemingly unending supply of Silicon Valley millionaires and billionaires who seek public office as if it were a new venture capital investment. The common thread among these millionaire politicians is their claim to bring the business perspective and “innovation” of Silicon Valley to California government.
But the “innovation” many of these candidates tout is vastly different and what it could mean for state government services is ill-defined.
This year, the “innovation” politicians are ubiquitous and competing for offices from Governor to Assembly. They include former E-Bay CEO, Meg Whitman, who is squaring off against former SnapTrack founder, Steve Poizner, for the Republican nomination. Both candidates are billionaires and are willing to spend their millions to win.
Whitman, a resident of the town of Atherton, is running for her first political office, and running for the top job in the state. Her campaign website is filled with buzz words promising “innovation” on all fronts which mostly rests on punishing the California legislature and pushing massive tax cuts at a time when the state is currently teetering on insolvency.
Steve Poizner’s first round in politics was a narrow loss to Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, who eked out a win against Poizner’s money machine in 2004, despite being outspent by millions.
But just two years later, Poizner was back in action and was able to pump enough funding to run and win the State Insurance Commissioner post against a weaker Cruz Bustamante.
Now Poizner, who resides in the town of Los Gatos, is going for the top spot in California on a promised platform of “innovation”.
Poizner’s pitch for fixing the state budget is a 10% cut in personal income taxes, the state sales tax, and the corporation tax coupled with a 10% cut in state spending over two years and the establishment of a $10 billion Rainy-Day Fund by the end of his first term.
Surely sounds innovative.
The problem is what happens to state services when Poizner cuts an additional 10% out of a budget that has already been cut by as much as 30% over the past few years? How do we pave the roads—especially if we cut revenues the state collects by another 10%, and then divert another 12-13% of the budget into a reserve fund?
Well, perhaps Poizner has an innovation that he can use to maintain funding for health care for the poor and elderly and to keep school class sizes under 45 kids per class at that level of budget reductions. That would truly be an innovation.
In turn, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, another Republican, has put her hat in the ring to take on Barbara Boxer in November. Fiorina currently lives in Los Altos Hills.
On her website, Fiorina states: “Washington must do the same two things most families and business do when things get tight: reduce spending and pay down debt. That requires taking on the difficult task of prioritizing programs and spending our taxpayer dollars where they have the greatest impact.”
Fiorina’s goal for reducing the federal debt: abolish “earmarks, forcing honest accounting, taking the power to cook the books away from politicians, and limiting federal salaries and benefits.”
Innovative. Maybe that would solve 0.1% of the budget problem.
But the Silicon Valley millionaires club has produced a couple of Democrats, too. Former Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly, a resident of Palo Alto, has thrown his hat into the crowded ring for the office of California Attorney General. Kelly has dumped several million dollars of his own money into his campaign coffers, hoping to best several legislators desiring to extend their political careers in statewide office, including San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.
Kelly’s messaging in particular has focused on his technology background. Early in his campaign, Kelly issued a press release detailing his basic plan to “emphasize innovation as a means to a more efficient government”. It is light on details—as is all of Kelly’s proposals—including how funding for these many technological investments needed to yield these savings and efficiencies would come about.
More locally, Josh Becker, a Valley venture capitalist is running in his first political bid for the 21st Assembly District against San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon and former Palo Alto Mayor and Councilmember Yoriko Kishimoto.
Becker’s campaign moniker touts him as “The Innovation Democrat”. The first statement on his webpage states: "I am committed to bringing the Spirit of the Silicon Valley to the State Capitol. California needs that Spirit.”
One of Becker’s solutions to solving the state budget deficit: “We need to work to bring government into the 21rst century and evaluate government functions from the perspective of the consumer. The average citizen in California should be able to find and evaluate information about our State’s budget and priorities. Too often, small businesses in California find it impossible to navigate the bureaucracy and government workers with good ideas have a hard time getting those ideas heard. We can use incentives to free up the good ideas within government and allow best practices from the private sector to be used.”
The “innovation” associated with Becker’s proposal for an internet based suggestion box is marginal and the likelihood of it actually proving tangible benefit in addressing the state budget deficit is questionable at best.
While approval ratings for the state legislature hover at historic lows, many new faces are emerging on the political scene to seize the opportunity–and voters just may bite.
But the danger for Californians in buying into “innovation” is that that the innovators may just really be inexperienced policymakers who have little understanding of the workings of government and no real means of affecting change.
Contact Bruce Balshone at bruce.examiner@gmail.com
Visit Bruce Balshone's Examiner Page
Visit Bruce Balshone's Twitter Page
Visit Bruce's Peninsula Examiner Facebook Page
0 comments:
Post a Comment