What I know about Meg Whitman
What do I know about Meg Whitman?
Not much, really. Only what I’ve seen in her ads and what’s on TV.
Meg was CEO of eBay during it’s period of major growth. A wonderful accomplishment. I wish I could put that on my resume! But, we know it is easier to be a manager in an organization that is on the way up and flush with money than one that is experiencing hard times. No more bringing your dog to the office, etc. The environment Meg proposes to take over is one that is completely different, in every way, than the one she left. (I noticed that eBay posted record profit in the recent quarter. I guess they’re doing okay without her.) Meg has no experience in government –none.
The problem I have is that it is totally different being a CEO where everyone is obliged to do as you say and being a governor where you have to negotiate everything to get anything done. Ask Arnold or Jesse. Good ideas but no way to get them implemented without the support of the party – any party.
One of Whitman’s ads says that Jerry Brown ‘gave state employees collective bargaining’. He ‘gave’ it to them? Like a king? I doubt that. More than likely, he signed the bill that the Legislature passed ‘giving’ it to them. I remember when Jerry Brown was governor. I was young then and politics was near the bottom of my list then. I remember , though, that things were generally good. I don’t remember any scandals other than Jerry’s dating Linda Ronstadt – a good choice for him, in my opinion. Proposition 13 came along then and adjustments had to be made in the budget to accommodate and Jerry and the Legislature did what was necessary. Not a bad job during those years, in my mind. And then mayor of Oakland. Oakland, at the time, reminded me of the old saw that ‘if you wanted to give California an enema, you’d stick it in Oakland.’ As I understand it Jerry’s management there was pretty okay and things were, at least somewhat, better when he left office than when he arrived. I don’t know many details, though.
In another ad, Whitman proposes an increase in spending for schools, something we can almost all agree we need. She then proceeds to say that she will pay for this increase in spending by reducing welfare and adding a ‘welfare to work’ program. She implies that welfare money is being wasted and the recipients are scofflaws who sit at home watching Oprah. Welfare isn’t primarily for you grown-ups, though, it’s for children. Given to grown-ups but to take care of families with children. Children who find themselves eligible and in need of any kind of state assistance are not responsible for their situations. We, as a society, need to provide at least the minimum for children to allow them, hopefully, to grow into contributing members of society someday. ‘Welfare to Work’ is a euphemism for cutting-off welfare to someone. The issue of providing social welfare and training people to be productive is much bigger than I can discuss here. I just don’t cotton to the idea of paying for schools by cutting provisions for people who need the help most. Especially now.
We are in a conundrum in our state. Revenues are down because many are out of work and not paying taxes any longer. 12% in California I heard on the radio today. I also heard that employment is on the rise, though. Just more slowly than we need. No governor is going to step-in and throw a switch, though. Don’t listen to that from anyone. We need more business to employ more people. That’s the long and short of it. Cutting taxes is not the do-all, end-all that Republicans profess. It’s just a way to transfer more money to the wealthy who have enough already. It’s just corporate welfare, plain and simple. It’s true, some businesses may have moved from California because it is more expensive to operate here. Everything is more expensive here! Cutting some taxes will probably not be a deciding factor to in attracting or keeping a business here. Wages usually play a much more important part and they’ll always be higher here.
I listen to what Meg says and I don’t see the substance behind the words. She will create jobs, improve education, cut taxes, etc. There is nothing new in anything she says there. I’ve heard it from Republicans and Democrats for decades. Harder to do than to say so I don’t put any weight on it – not an ounce. The Republican method, or non-method, of giving to the wealthy and letting business run roughshod over all of us has put us in the predicament we are in now. I don’t believe that there is going to be a wholesale change in government in the coming election. I believe that most people see that the people in government now are working hard to clean-up the mess they found when they came in. If you were seriously injured in an accident and spent weeks in the hospital, you wouldn’t walk out and run down the block home. It would be some time before you could function normally again and maybe longer until you could go on normally, if ever. This is where we find ourselves today. The economy is improving gradually. Business is growing. The stock market is going up, slowly. And, voters know who did this to them. Do we want to go back to where we were three or four years ago? Meg Whitman does.
