A Challenge to Chuck DeVore

Got this email from AD-70 candidate Michael Glover; Two things to mention.

1. Mike needs to learn how to correctly spell “Reagan”as in Ronald Reagan.
2. Chuck DeVore still uses AOL for email?  I thought that was only for luddites?  Upgrade to a real ISP Chuck.

Those things aside, I’d like to see the debate Glover is proposing.

Dear Mr. DeVore,

When and where would you like to debate the issues?

You have been in the Legislature for 4 years, and the budget has never been balanced. You voted to re-call Governor Davis and repeal the car tax which cost the state general fund $6B! You voted to pay off the old deficit by selling bonds to Wall Street and now we are paying for that mistake by paying both interest and principal. Now 4 years later while you have “earned” $500K in salary and per diem, the deficit has mushroomed to $20B.

Your biggest claim to fame is to have voted “No” more often that any other legislator and now in a fiscal crisis all you can offer is more of the same.

It is your failed leadership that got us to this brink of financial disaster. If you like “No” so much as an answer to the current crisis, I suggest you join me in voting “No” on every incumbent politician that feeds off the public trough while preaching fiscal conservatism!!

Put up and show up Mr. DeVore, where and when do the voters get a chance to see you defend your “spend and borrow” fiscal responsibility? I believe in “pay as you go” As a member of the Assessment and Taxation and Ways and Means Committees for 7 years in Kansas we balanced the budget every year.  That is why the Republican Speaker of the House with whom I served has endorsed me, not a “Reagan want to” be like you!!

When Ronald Reagan became governor in 1967 he inherited a state deficit of $800M, a paltry sum compared to your mess! Governor Reagan tried typical “window dressing” so he put a freeze on hiring and the purchase of new autos. Finally after coming to the conclusion that taxes had to be raised he pushed through the Legislature the biggest tax increase in California history. When asked how he felt about going back on a campaign promise Governor Reagan said, “the sound you hear is the cement cracking around my feet”

Governor Reagan was a practical politician Mr. DeVore, not an ideologue. He saw a need and filled it. Because of his leadership California avoided a fiscal crisis.

Now 41 years later you have pictures of you and former Governor Reagan on your web site, and yet you have learned nothing from his legacy.

So when do the voters get a chance to hear a real debate about the future of California Mr. DeVore. My office will call your office tomorrow and schedule the first debate.

It might not be Lincoln Douglas but the 70^th District has schools, cities, and a county which depend on a state budget, so let’s debate. You only have one more term before you are termed out, what do you have to loose?

Let’s give the voters a real political debate liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican for the future of California !!

Sincerely,
Michael Glover
Candidate California Assembly 70th

From: Chuck DeVore [mailto:chuckdevore@aol.com]
Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:55 PM
To: mgg@gloverlaw.com
Subject: The Orange County Register quotes DeVore on why taxes aren’t the answer

The Orange County Register, one of California ’s top five newspapers, quoted me in their lead editorial today about why raising taxes is not the answer to California ’s budget woes:

http://www.ocregister.com/ articles/tax-taxes-state-2 116760-sales-california

As Assemblyman Chuck DeVore wrote in a recent column, “California already has the highest income tax in the nation, the highest sales tax rate, the highest gas tax, and the highest corporate tax in the West without property taxes being at the national average, combining for the 47th worst business tax climate in America . Clearly, additional taxes in this time of economic weakness would make it highly likely that California would be the last state to recover in this present downturn.”