Last week, KLIV's Jason Bennert presented an excellent series on California budget propositions, including Proposition 24.
While accuracy is all too often a casualty in political campaigns, the inaccurate statements by a San Jose State University professor urging support of Prop 24 need to be corrected.
First, background:
Proposition 24 was placed on the ballot by the powerful California Teachers Association to rescind three state tax measures passed with bi-partisan support to make California employers more competitive with other states, let alone other nations.
In defending Prop 24, the professor claimed the tax provisions would only help a handful of large companies. That is false. According to the state's own Franchise Tax Board, Prop 24 would negatively impact 120,000 California employers, large and small.
The Rose Institute of Local and State Government estimates Prop 24 could cost another 322,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in lost tax revenues.
Our tax laws should encourage job growth, not penalize it. Vote NO on Prop 24.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Support for Measure A
We recently took our one-year old daughter Siena to her doctor for a check-up.
Yet for 15,000 kids in Silicon Valley, the poorest of the poor, preventative medicine is a dream, and health care coverage comes only in the form of emergency room visits, underwritten by all of us at tremendous cost.
Fortunately, here in Silicon Valley creative minds came together in 2001 – business, labor, doctors and the county to form the Healthy Kids Program. Healthy Kids has provided basic health insurance – medical, dental, vision – for kids 19 and under whose families earn less than $66,000 a year.
Healthy Kids now covers more than 95 percent of the Valley’s poorest children, but thousands of kids still lack basic coverage.
On November 2nd, we can ensure that 100 percent of the kids in our Valley have health care - by supporting “Measure A” on the countywide ballot. Measure A will raise roughly $13 million each year, funded through a modest parcel tax of $29 dollars annually. Make no mistake – we either pay a modest amount by passing Measure A, or we can pay much more when poor kids without insurance show up in our emergency rooms or sick in our classrooms.
Measure A is the wiser way.
Yet for 15,000 kids in Silicon Valley, the poorest of the poor, preventative medicine is a dream, and health care coverage comes only in the form of emergency room visits, underwritten by all of us at tremendous cost.
Fortunately, here in Silicon Valley creative minds came together in 2001 – business, labor, doctors and the county to form the Healthy Kids Program. Healthy Kids has provided basic health insurance – medical, dental, vision – for kids 19 and under whose families earn less than $66,000 a year.
Healthy Kids now covers more than 95 percent of the Valley’s poorest children, but thousands of kids still lack basic coverage.
On November 2nd, we can ensure that 100 percent of the kids in our Valley have health care - by supporting “Measure A” on the countywide ballot. Measure A will raise roughly $13 million each year, funded through a modest parcel tax of $29 dollars annually. Make no mistake – we either pay a modest amount by passing Measure A, or we can pay much more when poor kids without insurance show up in our emergency rooms or sick in our classrooms.
Measure A is the wiser way.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Backpacks for kids who need them
My five-year old daughter started Kindergarten this week. She and 19 other three-feet tall children excitedly entered Dave’s Avenue Elementary School in our small town of Los Gatos, each with smiles on their faces and new backpacks on their backs.
In Los Gatos, overwhelmingly, our kids are blessed with wealth and opportunity.
Yet in many ways Silicon Valley is a tale of two Valleys, with pockets of poverty in too many neighborhoods and too many schools.
We can help. This week, the Leadership Group hosted U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein at Marvell Semiconductor, with more than 400 Valley leaders.
With only 72 hours notice, we encouraged our guests to each bring a backpack – filled with school supplies – for kids less fortunate than our own. More than 100 people brought backpacks with them.
200 kids at Rocket Ship elementary schools now have new school supplies as they start the new year. But there are 1,400 kids at Rocket Ship’s three San Jose campuses, with nine of every ten children qualifying for the Federal Government’s “Free and Reduced Lunch Program.” You can help. As our kids return to school, contact me if you can help to place a backpack on a young student’s back.
In Los Gatos, overwhelmingly, our kids are blessed with wealth and opportunity.
Yet in many ways Silicon Valley is a tale of two Valleys, with pockets of poverty in too many neighborhoods and too many schools.
We can help. This week, the Leadership Group hosted U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein at Marvell Semiconductor, with more than 400 Valley leaders.
With only 72 hours notice, we encouraged our guests to each bring a backpack – filled with school supplies – for kids less fortunate than our own. More than 100 people brought backpacks with them.
200 kids at Rocket Ship elementary schools now have new school supplies as they start the new year. But there are 1,400 kids at Rocket Ship’s three San Jose campuses, with nine of every ten children qualifying for the Federal Government’s “Free and Reduced Lunch Program.” You can help. As our kids return to school, contact me if you can help to place a backpack on a young student’s back.
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