League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
San Mateo County, CA June 3, 2014 Election
	Mark Gilham Answers Questions Candidate for Member of the State Assembly; District 22

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California Education Fund and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. How would you prioritize the fiscal choices the Legislature must make to align the state’s income and spending?

As usual the state legislators are out of touch with the citizen's, tax's payers and voters of our state. The reality is that as long as our legislators believe they have an open check book and can spend money as they see fit, getting spending under control will never be a reality.

If I were granted the position of honor by the voters to be elected as the representative of this district and sent to Sacramento- how I would prioritize income and spending would be the following:

1) Cut the size of the state employee's by 10% -to- 15% across the board in every department. If that doesn't slow spending, then I would advocate an additional 10%. When the US Government and State's had applied this principle- spending is slowed and revenues are increased. History has proven this to be true.

2) Eliminate all pensions for those who are elected as public servants (representatives), public unions pensions, with the exception to law enforcement and fire departments- then only having the pension set to about 20% -to- 25% of the base pay, and advocate 401K's and other retirements plans for all those working for the state, just like the rest of the working class tax payers of this state.

Taking these simply steps would eradicate our state spending problems and would generate income to our state treasury and thereby allowing us to pay down the state debt and pay off our state creditors, which never appears to be addressed nor a consideration for our current leadership of the State of California.

2. Given our current drought condition, concern for water rights and usage is an important issue. What solutions would you support to address our water problems?

Here we see the reality of the missed management of our resources by the current state legislative leadership.

The reason we build water reservoirs in other parts of our state with more rainfall is due to most of the State of California being a semi-desert region which is known for drought conditions to occur.

But due to EPA Federal, State and local regulations imposed, trying to build and improve our reservoir system is almost impossible. As a result, California will continue to suffer with a lack of water which impacts the ability of our state to generate income through state and local taxes, and push our businesses out of our state to other states who actually address such concerns.

This is a circle that if not complete, ends up hurting us as a state and local community.

I would advocate the suspension of EPA regulations via the voters and streamline the development of new reservoirs in the portions of our state that receive higher levels of rainfall to benefit the portions of the state that receive less and sometime none at all.

The EPA impact would be minor but the benefit to our state would be major. Starting from the center of our state down to the boarder, our cities and businesses could grow, our famer's and ranchers could produce food and taxes could be generated.

This is a win for the citizens, tax payers and voters. But the current conditions are a lost and as a result, California will continue to stuffer with no change in sight.

3. California high school students rank lower than many states in student performance. What do you see as the ongoing role of the Legislature in addressing this problem?

Are you kidding? They are the problem. Addressing it is simple: disband public education and move to private, charter and home education system as a state system to educate our students.

It appears to me that the only driving issue with public educators is money. With hundreds of millions of dollars annual being poured into our state education system, one would think we would be rank #1 in the nation but that is not the case.

Prop 30 was another "education" bill designed to help improve our education. We were told that if the voters would pass this bill it would help our state education system for the next 7 to 10 years, and no bound measures would be requested for education. If this is true, then why is the education board of Redwood City trying to get a 230 plus million dollar bond issue for the next election cycle? Again, wasn't prop 30 to be a fix to our education system?

One way to fix our broken state education problem is to remove Sacramento out of the equation completely. Place the reasonability in the hands of our counties and local cities. The requirement standard of our counties and cities would be that of our private education system, which appears not to be plugged with money as the number concerned but education of our students.

At the moment, and the continual future, the current system is all that is offered to us. But if one were to ask a parent if they had a choice of whether to allow the child to attend public school or private school and the cost was the same, which do you think one might choice?

This is the question we should be asking ourselves: which is best of our students? The current education system is a failure. So the choice should be too hard to make.

4. What other major issues do you think the Legislature must address? What are your own priorities?

Lower the business tax: California has a flat corporate income tax rate of 8.840%. The federal corporate income tax, by contrast, has a marginal bracketed corporate income tax. California's maximum marginal corporate income tax is the 10th highest in the United States, directly below Maine's 8.930%.

I would reduce the business tax to 0.0% for the first 3 year, then to 1% for the next 3 years, then 2% for the next 3 years, to a maximum cap of 3.5%.

Most states who we are competing with have a business rate tax of 0.0%. If California is going to be competitive in attracting and keeping business in our state, we are going to need to be aggressive in our taxation.

When a business knows what they can expect several years in advance concerning taxation, they can potion themselves and know what the state and local taxes are expected from them. This helps a business plan for the future and allows them to determine whether or not they can grow or should they relocate elsewhere.

Employee payroll tax: I would reduce the employee payroll tax to 0.0% and move to eliminate employee payroll tax completely. Most states don't have payroll tax for employees. The benefits to the tax payers would be realized immediately as an increase of personal income.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. References to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: May 12, 2014 13:05
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