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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (13646)	3/1/2006 5:07:26 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541498

the black market exists because of students who used to be able to make their junk food purchases at school...unless they plan ahead and purchase and bring them in themselves (appropriately cloaked away and hidden from the food gestapo, of course) they are at the mercy of the black marketeers... i don't think you can sue a distributor of a legal product, can you? besides you go where the money is, the individual junk food dealer is probably just doing it to support their own habit anyway. no, a better solution would be to enact a junk food excise tax, then eventually a class action suit against the manufacturers, after the big settlement from big junk food companies, the monies can be earmarked (after the appropriate legal fees have been paid) back to the schools to fund mandatory phys ed (oh wait, wasn't liability concerns one of the reasons phys ed was cut in the first place???) nevermind, i digress....so monies paid out by the junk food addicts in the form of taxes, higher junk food costs as a result of the settlement should fix it, right? <gg> somewhat related....i found this editorial written by a UCLA student while searching for the original story i posted to you... this is a great piece of writing, imo (very funny)....i hope the LA times gives him a job offer... dailybruin.ucla.edu The governor’s new clothes Schwarzenegger used to take strong positions, now he’s dressed as a lefty trying to get re-elected -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alec Mouhibian Click Here for more articles by Alec Mouhibian By Alec Mouhibian DAILY BRUIN COLUMNIST amouhibian@media.ucla.edu Arnold Schwarzenegger has become a girlie-man. Now I have no problem with cross-dressing, as the traffic cameras at Hollywood and Vine can attest. In life, it signifies a charming complexity. But in the context of politics, it's a self-defeating act of hiding one's true ideological identity behind a phony facade in order to fool. We have enough of these Republican drags in Congress, who've assumed the identity of Democrats when it comes to spending. Schwarzenegger had thus far resisted the temptation. His supporters, whatever their specific disagreements, always admired his conviction, whatever the pressure against him. Not anymore. In his "state of the state" address, he sacrificed this principled consistency in favor of cowardly pandering and outright nonsense. The most disappointing contradiction of the speech was when the governor announced that he wants to teach the legislature fiscal restraint by expanding their allowance. Opting for reverse psychology, he proposed vast spending increases that will exceed revenue by billions, even while admitting that "autopilot spending will fly us into the ground" and that "we still face a structural deficit that will soon resurface." Indeed we do have a deficit, and it's only being deepened and pushed further into the future. To use my favorite metaphor for disaster, let's call this postponing the marriage. There was, of course, a hearty dose of PTA pap. "We made our schools healthier by becoming the only state in the union to ban sodas and junk food from our schools," celebrated the kindergarten cop. "It's great to fight obesity. Let's do it together." Junk food is not nearly as harmful to students as junk teachers, and obese students aren't nearly as harmful to society as an obese government. Yet no specific reforms were offered for either. lol! is that great or what? Hitting the high note of nonsense, the governor stated his hope to prevent "a Katrina-type disaster" in Sacramento – Sacramento! But nothing beats his duplicitous call for a minimum-wage hike. "I said that we could not afford an increase in the minimum wage unless the economy bounced back. Well, the economy has bounced back, so it is now time for those who often work the hardest and earn the least to benefit from California's growth." Here he admits that minimum-wage hikes are bad for the economy, while saying that our economy has been so good we can afford some badness. As a student of the economist Milton Friedman, Schwarzenegger knows the basic fact that artificial wage increases, aside from harming efficiency, cost the jobs of many of those they are supposed to help. Supporting any minimum-wage requires minimal economic knowledge, and the average California legislator's grasp of Economics 101 maxes out at being able to count to 101. Still, it's the duty of a principled politician who knows better to persuade, and gulp the necessary compromises with a sour face, so as not to reinforce attitudes which he knows to be wrong. Take the attitude about education. The belief that funding the foulest educational bureaucracy in the free world – California's – is the same as improving education defies logic and empirical evidence. By never challenging this assumption, and even perpetuating it, Schwarzenegger set himself up to be tarred when it came time to push for reform. It cost him the special election. I can't speak for the people of California. I've got no right, for one thing, and I lack the necessary lobotomy to pull it off. But Shrivernegger is taking his special election defeat the wrong way. Aside from his rhetorical suicide, he was outspent heavily by his union enemies, who ran a deceitful ad campaign trying to scare voters who don't know any better. California has one of the largest don't-know-any-better constituencies in the country. rotfl!! The initiatives had nary a chance. Becoming a girlie-man is the wrong reaction. Arnold should avoid the course of so many other Republicans, who have destroyed fiscal conservatism by proudly hijacking Democratic issues. Why not take away a Democratic issue by pointing out how stupid it is? Cross-dressing for a confused public might make winning an election easier, but it also makes it pointless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail Mouhibian at amouhibian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.