Response to “Local Candidates for Assembly, Congress Promote Fixes” – Oct 18, 2012

The four candidates in South Bay campaigns, two for state Assembly, two for Congress, congregated at the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce. Congressman Henry Waxman, the proud incumbent  Democrat, squared off against Independent Bill Bloomfield. Democrat Al Muratsuchi is facing off against Republican Craig Huey for the South Bay Assembly seat.

Every candidate trotted out their talking points from their commercials and townhall meetings throughout the current campaign. I understand that these candidates have to repeat their message over and over. However, with the 24-7 news cycle, instant access to information, telephone townhalls and advertising on the Internet, when will the candidates offer more than proposals, policies, and talking points, but particular steps toward solving our country’s problems?

I do not want to hear politicians talking about the laws that they passed years ago. Fewer laws would be better. I would prefer to hear candidates discuss the difficult choices that we need to make: entitlement reform,  curbing public sector unions’ power, and welfare reform that honors the individual and the national compact.  I am still waiting for a candidate to candidly discuss a voucher program for public education.

Better yet, I would prefer politicians who do not presume to have the answer to every problem. When will politicians admit that the individual citizen and private enterprise have better solutions that California needs? Instead, Candidates need to stress three simple principles: protect our natural rights, secure our borders, and release all other matters to our local governments or to ourselves.

Stop Pounding the Table, Al! Or Get out of the Race!

In law school, the professors instruct their litigators in training to do the following:

“When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When the law is on your side, argue the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table.”

Apparently state prosecutor Al Muratsuchi is pounding every table in sight, since neither the facts, nor the law, nor the voters, nor the anti-special interest sentiment of the South Bay are on his side.

First, he smears small business owner Craig Huey as an “anti-choice” Todd Akin acolyte, when nothing could be further from the truth. Huey is pro-life, pro-woman, and incidentally enough, more “pro-choice” than Muratsuchi and the Democratic Party.  During the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, the party removed “safe, legal, and rare” from their platform on abortion. Even more astounding, this language was first adopted by President Bill Clinton, the Keynote speaker at the convention. What an insult to their own people and every voter in the country, that the Democratic Party has advanced a policy of abortion at any time on the government’s dime. The vast majority of voters in this country do not support so extreme a position.

Since that has not worked, Muratsuchi has played up Huey as a corrupt businessman who markets broken or bad merchandise. However, Huey’s track record of 35 plus years in the private sector cannot coast on lies, deceit, and cheating. That’s the beauty of a free market, in which consumers are free to choose to endorse or reject the products of the business. Of course, not just his tenure, but his award-winning legacy indicates his stellar accomplishments in the advertising industry. An extensive award-winner in his field, Craig Huey, the head of Creative Direct Marketing Group, Inc ., has won such accolades as two Gold Awards for Best Newsletter Promotion, Best Direct Mail Package, and three “Best Of” awards from the Web Marketing Association. These successes may mean very little to voters who have little knowledge of the industry, yet organizations do not recognize incompetence or mediocrity, either, lest they tarnish their own brand. With seventy-seven awards of excellence in his industry -- plus a seat on a committee to monitor the efficiency and effects of school spending, one would think that a state prosecutor would seek out something legitimate to attack Huey.

Joe Trippi, a political strategist for Janice Hahn, ran a biased attack ad-article  in The Huffington Post during Huey’s Congressional run. His oblique references take Huey’s comments out of context. “Using fear”  to engage the attention (not necessarily the support) of a prospective reader is normal – all political candidates do this. Trippi’s article pastes a bunch of hyperlinks with nothing connecting Huey, criminality, or liability. A lot of pounding on the table.

Putting aside facts and law, let’s look at what’s on Muratsuchi’s table. In one ad, he asserts that since he has stood up to criminals, he can stand up to the special interests. This set -up sounds more like contortionists’ send-up, for how can anyone stand up to anyone who is behind you in the first place? Public sector unions up and down the state have showered Muratsuchi with hundreds of thousands of dollars. I asked the Torrance School Board Member directly why he refused to give back the $8,000 which he received from the California Teachers Association, the same special interest which has shoveled millions of dollars toward hand-picked candidates in order to shove education reform into the trash heap in Sacramento. Why do our students have to file law-suits in order to protect their own education? Why does it take twenty years before teachers accused of repeated misconduct are removed from the classroom, and yet receive a severance package and a pension notwithstanding? Why are cities going broke around the state, burdened with pension and benefits obligations beyond their scope to pay?

The power of public sector unions has intimidated council members and city leaders already, along with leaders in Sacramento who are supposed to stand up for us the voters, the taxpayers, the parents and teachers. How then can we believe that Mr. Muratsuchi can take their money with one hand then push them away with the other? He has refused to give back the special interest money, he has refused to sign the “Protect Prop 13 Pledge” – he has neither law, nor facts, on his side. And people are tired of tired politicians who pound the table with blame and shame defamation.

The facts are that Huey is free of such debilitating influences. The laws of supply and demand also state that the state of California cannot continue to tax and spend its way out of debt and deficit, as jobs flee California. Muratsuchi even rejects Prop 32, an open initiative with no loopholes, yet on his flyers he also indicates his opposition.  Is Muratsuchi signaling the voters or the very special interests he claims that he will stand up to?

Stop Pounding the Table, Al! Or Get out of the Race!

Al in Wonderland (His Election Waning in the Looking Glass)

The California Democratic Party just published and mailed a “children’s book” smearing Craig “Mad Hatter” Huey as the “Master of Ceremonies” of an extreme right-wing “Tea Party”. This latest attack to “inform” the voters then claims at the end: “Thank goodness for Al Muratsuchi.” However, nothing screams “condescending desperation” than this cataloge of lies and distortions in a “child-like” print. Do the Democratic operatives really believe that the voters in the South Bay are a bunch of lily buds waiting for a Mommy Flower to direct us in song? Either someone has been smoking the hookah with the Caterpillar, or they really all are “mad” down there.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or spill me tea and crumpets when I saw the ad. “A very merry un-birthday to you,” Mr. Muratsuchi!

First, the mailer alludes that Huey is an anti-choice, anti-woman bigot, an elder abuser who wants to kick grandpa off of Medicare and out the door.  Huey has a documented and award-winning legacy in his business, with nothing but empty innuendo connecting his firm with the failings of other mailings or marketing firms. He is a proud husband and father, both of sons and daughters.   Mr. Muratsuchi has outlined nothing that will stave off the pension and benefits obligations which are bankrupting this state. Or is “Al in Wonderland” going to pass the cake first and worry about cuts later, like Alice at the Battle of the Lion and the Unicorn?

Muratsuchi seems to be changing the size and shape of his attacks. First he says “Eat Me!” when he claims that he will defend Prop 13, but no one is biting, since he has refused to sign the “Protect Prop 13” Pledge. Then he says “Drink Me!” when he talks up his tenure on the Torrance Unified School Board defending the interests of the schools against the crippling cuts which the major party – his Democratic “Tea Party” – yet he also refuses give back the money from the same public sector unions which have blocked meaningful tenure reform, to expedite the removal of immoral and incompetent teachers, or to enact comprehensive pension reform, which every public sector union opposes. No one is drinking the Muratsuchi cup of tea, and his election chances are getting smaller by the minute.

He also claims that because of his training and experience as a state prosecutor, he will stand up to the special interests in Sacramento and protect our tax dollars. We can attribute the same trust of Al and our money just as the oysters trusted that the Walrus and the Carpenter were just going to read them a story about “cabbages and kings.” We do know that they ate very well, and certainly Muratsuchi will enjoy the high-life in the Capitol, but why should we permit him to consume our livelihood and financial future of our children with tax increases? Al can tell all the tales he wants to, but the voters are not going to sit and wait to hear the rest of the sad story, which ends with our state and our future eaten away.

Mr. Muratsuchi wants to give the impression that he is independent, yet with hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Democratic political machine, plus the partnership with Congressman Henry “Cheshire Cat” Waxman, his claims are evaporating quickly, like the “Was it a cat I saw” on the tree, with nothing but his menacing glee remaining. Waxman and Muratsuchi have PAC money coming out of his ears, like the long-range March Hare, still eating his bread and drinking the same party life of tax and spend now, and save  . . . whenever! If any two were more alike than Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, look no further than the policies and positions of Waxman and Muratsuchi, a sad similitude enough to dissuade voters from promoting more liberal-statist rubber stamps at the state and the federal level.

Al has fallen down the Rabbit Hole, apparently, where the same mad cohorts that accosted the little girl in Wonderland are now pandering to his vanity, that the right amount of money and lies will give him the Assembly Seat. “Off with his head!” they cry, attempting to drive Huey’s reputation into the ground with vapid mud-slinging. Then there is the Red Queen, played by the California Democratic Party, which has threatened vested interests throughout California if they support Craig Huey’s campaign for Assembly. They want nothing that will prevent their spend-thrift party from having the two-thirds majority dominance that will give them Carte Blanche power to enact tax increases. Who needs the Knave of Hearts with Democratic dominance in the Statehouse?

The voters in the South Bay do not need some “White Knight” coming to our rescue in Sacramento. Less government, lower taxes, and fewer regulations sound like the order of the day. Craig Huey is more like the White Rabbit, yet unlike the leaping leporidae, Huey is not too late, and the voters in the South Bay can make sure that he gets to Sacramento on time.

Al (Muratsuchi) in Wonderland

Democratic candidate for the 66^th Assembly District Al Muratsuchi has published another attack ad, paid for by the California Democratic Party. This unique multi-page booklet alludes to “Alice in Wonderland”, outlining offensive views of Republican challenger Craig Huey as a “Mad Hatter” with extreme “Tea Party” tenets.

If anyone is mad, it has to be Muratsuchi, who has resorted to “Eat Me” then “Drink Me” attack ads which blow up Huey’s views then diminish his character, yet with lesser effect. If nothing else, it appears that “Al in Wonderland” has fallen down the rabbit hole of mud-slinging, since he cannot run on his record or from the big money public sector unions backing up his campaign. And he is late, late, late to the game.

Muratsuchi ought to take a walk through the Looking Glass of his own campaign donations, in which public sector unions, like the California Teachers Association, whom I am sure would allow the matron whose child turned into a pig run a classroom and abuse students, just as the teachers union killed legislation in Sacramento would expedite firing abusive teachers.

Or perhaps Muratsuchi has been sipping tea with the Queen of Hearts and her coterie, thinking of eight impossible things before breakfast, like taking public sector union donations, yet claiming that he will stand up to special interests in Sacramento.

Then again, the greater likelihood of Al’s serving his cake before he cuts it will take place before the voters in the South Bay can count on Muratsuchi to enact comprehensive pension reform , since he is a government employee, set to receive a pension. We can more likely trust the Walrus and the Carpenter to watch their oysters than for the Torrance School Board Member to care for our taxpayer dollars and protect Prop 13.

Response to "Don't Raise Taxes" in Beach Reporter

Mr. Douglas Delong's comments in "The Beach Reporter" belong on every pro-Huey mailer set to hit mailboxes in the South Bay.

Mr. Muratsuchi continues to paint, very weakly and with faded strokes, that Huey is an out-of-touch Tea Party extremist.

For once, I am glad that a candidate in the South Bay is talking about closing state departments. How much waste and overlap have the voters, the taxpayers had to contend with for the past decade in Sacramento? I was not even aware of these proposed measures, yet the Daily Breeze rashly judged that Huey had not taken enough time to outline the proposed cuts. At least one voter in this district was listening.

State Commissions are committed to spending money, and having little to show for their unaccounted and unaccountable investments. Muratsuchi seems committed to protecting the interests who get this money without having to earn it: the public sector unions, many of which are bank-rolling the Torrance School Board's campaign with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Daily Breeze, in endorsing the Democratic candidate for the seat, all but endorsed a necessary change of leadership for the editorial board for the paper, whose readership and investiture is already in decline, and now precipitously for backing a politicians who will back by special interests, who for all purposes will not have our back or back up the needs of the state.

The last thing that this state is unchecked, one party rule. No to Muratsuchi. Vote for Craig Huey for the 66th Assembly.

Reforms before Revenue Increases -- No on Prop 30

At the October 4^th, 2012 debate between 66^th Assembly Candidates Craig Huey and Al Muratsuchi, (sponsored by the Torrance Police Officers Association --TPOA), the moderator immoderately tipped his hand, first subtly then overtly promoting Proposition 30, a ballot initiative initiated by Governor Jerry Brown to raise the California sales tax by “only” 0.25% and the income tax on earners of $250,000 and above from “only”  10.3% to 13.3%. The revenue increases are supposed to help our schools and public safety programs, both of which are suffering huge annual cuts from Sacramento. One of the first questions of the TPOA debate, Prop 30 has received a comprehensive number of endorsements, including school districts, labor unions, and numerous media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Education is important, and public education deserves all the support it can get from the public. The Huffington Post  has documented that local governments are bearing a greater burden for education funding. As a number of “Yes on Prop 30” commercials suggest, California ranks 47th in per pupil spending.

However, the RAND Corporation, an independent think tank which investigates policy issues like education and spending, asserts that money matters in education, but more importantly how the money is spent matters.  A second paper outlined that the power of school reform, not higher revenue, has helped raise test scores in different schools. A third study  argued that in spite of limited reforms to advance flexibility in school spending, much of which focuses on phasing out directed spending and categorical funding, California school districts still have not reformed how they spend their funding.

Where do most of our schools spend their money? According to the California Budget Project , four-fifths of school dollars go to salaries and benefits. That is an extensive expenditure, one which challenges the notion that raising revenue is about “the students”.

Instead of focusing on how much money schools receive, the voters  -- the taxpayers – deserve to know how the money is spent, a factor which needs greater attention from our political and media classes. Before asking for more money, Governor Brown needs to implement structural reforms to the data and distribution of taxpayer dollars to our schools. Collective bargaining reforms between school boards and public sector unions would give school districts more freedom to negotiate sky-rocketing pension and health care costs, a measure which would protect school staff salaries and our students while cutting costs and implementing greater efficiency into the system. Before the end of his tumultuous tenure, Former Governor Schwarzenegger  proposed laying off every school superintendent in the state, which in the wake of economic crises in corrupted Inglewood Unified  and fiscally mismanaged Poway Unified , sounds like a sure-fire way to staunch the waste and fraud overwhelming school districts throughout the state.

Raising taxes in a state with one of the highest tax burdens and one of the highest unemployment rates  in the country is a foolish idea. To foist higher taxes on already frustrated and frantic taxpayers, with the empty emphasis on “temporary”, sounds like the empty notion that a wolf can temporarily watch innocent lambs and not go in for the slaughter. The same fleecing will without fail fall on our state, our citizens, and our students following Prop 30’s tax increases.

Despite the TPOA moderator’s hinting that these minor increases would “only” raise the state sales tax by “0.25%” and raise tax rates on income earners of $250,000 and above, his classic argument ignores two glaring realities, still unseen to our political class. First, small businesses by and large file as individuals. Raising taxes on high income earners will hurt small businesses in California. Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan discussed this adverse effect  with media personality Chris Matthews. The Internal Revenue Service has also reported that Obama’s tax hikes on the rich will negatively impact one million small businesses. Such a model for state revenue is a recipe for disaster, with higher taxes passing on higher prices to the rest of the state, followed by less investment and more layoffs. Besides, increasing tax rates will not generate increased tax revenues. Democratic President John F. Kennedy cogently explained this “paradoxical”  phenomenon long ago. Before that, Republican President Warren G. Harding  reduced federal tax rates and government spending across the board, which ushered in a sharp recovery following the steep economic recession following World War I. Raising tax rates does not raise revenue, but will motivate high income earner to ferret away their earnings into tax shelters, where the money will be neither taxed nor invested.

Pro 30 will decrease tax revenues, diminish our business class, and delay comprehensive pension reforms, reductions in our state and country bureaucracies, and empowerment of our communities to manage the revenue which they receive already. Until Sacramento decreases and local accountability improves in our schools, there should be more tax increases. On November 30^th, vote “No!” on Proposition 30.

Sign the Prop 13 Pledge, Al! Or Get Out of the Race!

Al Muratsuchi:
Refuses to Sign the Pledge

 The race for the 66^th Assembly District is heating up. On October 4, 2012, the first debate between the two contenders, state prosecutor Al Muratsuchi and small business owner Craig Huey, took place in the George Nakano Theater in Torrance, sponsored by the Torrance Police Officers Association.

About Torrance Unified School District Board Member Al Muratsuchi, I have commented that he appears to be “union bought and paid for.”  Still, he also advertises himself as an “Independent”, a real choice for the voters looking for sound representation in Sacramento. In a recent mailer, Muratsuchi claims that he is “Pro-Choice”, while Huey is an “Anti-Choice” ideologue, trying to play up a social issue which does not weigh on the minds of voters, unlike the disturbing number of businesses fleeing the state because of high taxes and overregulation.  

Howard Jarvis: Peace of the CA Taxpayer

Yet at the end of the debate sponsored by the Torrance Police Officers Association, Mr. Muratsuchi still refused to give up the $8,000 that he received from the California Teachers Association, citing that he was receiving money from many sources. For a candidate who supports choice, he apparently does not differ with organizations which refuse to empower school districts with the choice of removing predatory and dangerously dysfunctional instructors from the classroom.

Furthermore, Mr. Muratsuchi has failed to establish his views – or his choice, if you will – on the matter of  Proposition 13, the spearhead of the 1978 Tax Revolt that required legislators to amass a two-thirds majority before raising taxes while fixing property tax rates low.

In a recent debate sponsored by the Torrance Police Officers Association, Mr. Muratsuchi did come forward declaring that he supports Prop 13, despite the “false accusations” of Mr. Huey. He emphasized that he “does not like taxes”. Yet the Torrance School Board member neglected to mention that Huey has signed a pledge to protect Prop 13, while all we have is Muratsuchi’s word.

The word of a political candidate means nothing when he has received considerable contributions from public sector unions and other special interests. Not once has Mr. Muratsuchi explained how he would lead or even contribute to comprehensive pension reform in Sacramento, nor did he allay the latent concern that he has a vested interest to protect – his pension as a school board member and state prosecutor. He remains mum because of public sector money, no doubt.

Later in the debate, the Torrance School Board member signaled that Torrance schools are suffering tremendously because of the severe budget cuts severing funding from the classroom. Unfortunately, not once did Muratsuchi explain the increasing role of spiraling pension and medical costs for retired teachers imagine on public education because. He claimed that retired teachers take in an average of $36,000 a year. Yet even Cal-STRS submitted a larger sum, one which rivals the pay of active teachers in 28 states. Pension obligations in total in California have now reached $500 billion,   yet Muratsuchi contends that he does not want to lambaste public sector officials as “scapegoats.” Of course, no mention was made of Mark Berndt from Miramonte Elementary, the alleged predator now on trial for multiple lewd acts against children. He is still slated to receive his $4,000 a month pension.

Prop 13 is about protecting the taxpayer and the property owner from the political class. Prop 13 forced Governor Jerry Brown to present and promote Prop 30 on the November ballot, which would impose a 0.25% sales tax increase and a series of higher tax rates on income earners from $250,000 and above. Like many “soak the rich” advocates, Muratsuchi, a Prop 30 supporter because of dwindling public school revenues, refuses to recognize that small businesses by and large file as individuals, and thus would bear the brunt of this job-killing, investment stalling tax increase. While Sacramento stacks schools against taxpayers, as if they do not have a choice, no one from the statehouse on down has established any comprehensive reforms relating to how the revenues are collected, allocated, and invested. Even The San Francisco Chronicle exposed the extraneous overlapping and waste which still dominate in Sacramento to this day.

At the end of the debate, the country prosecutor claimed that actions speak louder than words, rebuffing Huey’s repeated challenge for his Democratic opponent to divest himself of the funds and endorsement from the public sector unions and career politicians who define the dysfunction in Sacramento. If Mr. Muratsuchi wishes to maintain his independence and his insistence that he will honor the interests of the taxpayer and the property owners in the South Bay, the vast majority of whom want to keep their homes, keep their jobs, and keep their tax rates low, then Al Muratsuchi must sign the Petition to Save Prop 13. No action would speak louder than his signature assuring South Bay voters that he will protect Prop 13, keep the two thirds majority requirement for tax increases and keep property tax rates low.

 Sign the Pledge, Al, or get out of the race!



66the Assembly District