18
2003
He's says it's coincidence "great minds and all that" but the hardest working columnist at The Chron, Dave Lazaras used his Sunday column to echo some familiar thoughts about Prop. 13, Warren Buffett, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He's From Omaha. He's Here to Help. Really Help. And all that.
In the meantime, the Wall Street Journal has weighed in with an editorial decrying Buffett as a "tax and spend" billionaire. Ya gotta loves those guys; they're so predictable. They probably still huddle in a circle, smoke cigars, eat red meat, and chant "Lower the Rate, Increase the Base."
It's an important piece, however, since it could just as easily serve as an outline Prop. 13 reform bargaining chips including income tax rates for the state's wealthiest residents, the workman's compensation debacle and, of course, the bond crutch.
The whole brouhaha makes a nice curtain-raiser for the "Economic Recovery Council" that Newsweek says Schwarzenegger has scheduled for Wednesday at UCLA. Tax reform, total tax reform, is on the table for anyone and everyone who has an idea, underscoring just how much businessman politics is behind this race. It's going to get more so when Peter Ueberroth media tour kicks off. He's going to talk to political and business writers.
That's because, while he doesn't like to talk about it, Ueberroth's campaign manager, the ubiquitous and garrulous Dan Schnur spent a little time with the state's newest and wealthiest business community, Silicon Valley, where he got a up-close and personal look at the minds of billionaire businessmen bent on political reform.