Wednesday Daily Delawhere [2.25.15]
Dover Air Force Base, in snow, by Stuart Rankin on Flickr.
Asked in a new CNN/ORC poll whether seven possible candidates better represent the future or the past, 50% said Clinton evoked the future, more than said so of any other candidate. By contrast, Joe Biden and Jeb Bush, whose names have been in the political conversation even longer than Clinton's, were each seen as representing the past by 64% of Americans.43% say New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie represents the future, while 41% says its Rand Paul, while 39% says its Scott Walker.
Republican Sen. Greg Lavelle will not seek the governor's office next year, according to a letter the lawmaker sent to political supporters. [...] Lavelle told supporters this week he "had given a lot of thought" to a run for governor, but said personal commitments prevented him from launching a campaign. "I have decided that now is not the time for me to take on this challenge," Lavelle wrote. "At this time, the personal bandwidth just doesn't exist to create and sustain the time needed to run for Governor, while maintaining and addressing my current and varied responsibilities."
Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and failed U.S. Senate candidate from California, will speak at the annual gathering of party faithful on May 30[.]To their credit, Ms. Fiorina is, for reasons passing human understanding, considering a presidential run of her own in 2016. I don't know, I just feel our local GOP could have done better.
Roads are crumbling, bridges require repairs, schools need upgrades and public pension systems remain underfunded. How can states and cities find the money to address any of these problems? One way could be through their tax codes. According to a new report, if the rich paid the same state and local tax rate as the middle class, states and cities would have hundreds of billions of dollars more a year in public revenue. Last month, the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that the poorest 20 percent of households pay on average more than twice the effective state and local tax rate (10.9 percent) as the richest 1 percent of taxpayers (5.4 percent).Enter the Kavipsian Progressive Tax Fairness Plan of 2015, which I demand be enacted by the General Assembly forthwith!
WASHINGTON — The Republican-led Congress returns to town Monday with no viable plan to avert a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security less than five days away on Friday.