Also, I want to reduce the capital gains tax from its current level of up to 40% to a flat 15%. This would free investment capital and result in incr… - Howard Jarvis

I think the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor voted for 13 because I think people from every class resented the fact that government was stealing too much of their money. I think the general idea in California and all over the country, with rich and poor alike, is that the government is too invasive; it has too much control; it passes too many laws; it curbs too many freedoms.

I never smoked a cigarette or had a drink or saw a pregnant girl either in grade school, or high school, or college. Never. When I was in high school, the coach would write on a piece of paper. ‘These are the rules,’ and hang it on the wall. And believe me, those were the rules. You had to go to bed at 9:00. You couldn’t eat ice cream or pie. You had to report for practice at 3:35 every afternoon, for all sports. And of course we could not drink coffee or tea or Coca Cola or soda pop. It never occurred to us to disobey the rules.

Elected officials have a responsibility to represent their constituents to the best of their ability. But there is hardly a better example of a conflict of interest than the difference between the best interest of the politician and the best interest of the people he has the duty to represent. The more taxes, the more money government has to spend, the more public employees the politician can put on the public payroll, the more power the politician has.