Angelides Offers a Plan

This morning, at the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles in Hollywood, Phil Angelides announced a new plan to take the tax burden off of the middle class in California and restore tax fairness to the state. Considering how much money has been spent distorting the facts of Angelides' fiscal plans, it was good to see him fight back and squarely place himself on the side of working families.

Phil was introduced by State Superintendent Jack O'Connell and was joined by US Rep. Brad Sherman of the San Fernando Valley, among others. His speech was a pretty direct statement about "restoring the promise of California," a hopeful speech that played on his roots as a son of Greek immigrants, who needed student loans for college.

My impressions of the speech, more pics, and details on his proposals on the flip...


Phil comes from the middle class of the state, and though he's built his own business and career, he wants to return hope and opportunity as "the birthright of the many, not the privilege of the few." In fact the entire speech was very resonant of a "people versus the powerful' message, with Angelides hammering home points about the Governor lining the pockets of the special interests, producing larger and larger deficits with reckless "borrow and spend" policies, cutting public education money at a time when the state in 43rd in per-student spending and 48th in student achievement, raising tuition and fees statewide, and providing no options for affordable health care. And Phil also made one other thing clear: he never invoked the name "Schwarzenegger" without also invoking the name "Bush." It was the "Bush-Schwarzengger" fiscal plan, the "Bush-Schwarzenegger" health care crisis, the "Bush-Schwarzenegger" special interest racket, the "Bush-Schwarzenegger" low road versus the "high road to prosperity and opportunity."

Angelides' plan for his first 100 days as governor are as follows:

-cleaning up the budget mess by eliminating the $4.5 billion dollar deficit, cutting down on tax cheats, and fixing corporate tax loopholes. He specifically alluded to "balancing the budget the way Bill Clinton did," and referenced the infamous Schwarzenegger comment of a couple days ago that he has "no plan to end the deficit."

-restoring tax fairness by returning families with income over $1,000,000 to the same tax rates they had under Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson.

-accounting for every government spending initiative without borrowing; in other words, pay-as-you-go.

-after fixing the budget mess, Angelides pledged to cut taxes on all middle class families making up to $100,000 a year, a proposal he claimed would impact up to 4.5 million families and seniors. The amount of the cut was a little unclear, though he did give a figure of around $660/year for some families, and promised further details later.

-rolling back the double-digit tuition hikes on California's state schools under Schwarzengger.

-offering property tax relief for low-income seniors.

-indexing a minimum wage increase to future rises in overall inflation (which the governor has specifically disavowed in his own minimum wage proposal).

-cutting taxes for small business (up to $5,000/year) and expanding micro-loan programs, and using the power of CalPERS to invest in small business, particularly in the inner cities.

-fully insuring all children in the state.

Angelides closed by alluding to the "special interest-funded ad" that Arnold's been running showing Phil walking backwards. "It's Phil doing the moonwalk," he said. But he turned the ad on its ear, saying that he did want the state to go back to fiscal sanity, back to rising wages and opportunity for the middle class, back to California being a nationwide model for higher education, and more.

My thoughts are that focusing on the middle class is a familiar but winning tactic. Wage stagnation and rising costs on necessities like energy and health care have caused a real squeeze for the majority of Americans. Now that the housing market is reaching a soft landing, middle class families cannot rely on refinancing anymore to stay afloat, either. Angelides is taking a sharp focus to the problems facing the middle class and offering a real alternative. It's a positive vision that offers hope that we can stop the gravy train in Sacramento that far too often works for special interests and lobbyists instead of working people. There was ample media coverage at the event and hopefully this will get some actual play, and not just a story about "charisma" but one that details the actual agenda Phil is offering for the state.

At the end of the speech, the cloud cover broke and light streamed in through the skylight, falling right on Angelides as he finished his remarks. Nice stagecraft.

Here are some more photos.