As Hollywood gets ready for its biggest night, the 86th Academy Awards, one is reminded of the glamour and power of Tinsel Town’s motion picture industry, as well as the big personalities who perform on its sound stages. Hollywood, of course, is a very left-wing place, judged from the fabled political stances of many of its celebrities, from Oscar-winners Warren Beatty and Gwyneth Paltrow to 2014 Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio, a maxed out Obama donor and hard-core environmentalist.
These entertainers have surely been generous donors to liberal causes and politicians. And as he readies to run for his unprecedented fourth term as Governor, California’s iconic liberal, Jerry Brown, has amassed a huge $16 million fundraising advantage with the help of these same entertainment industry friends who will be sitting in the Dolby Theater this weekend. This includes $27,200 maximum contributions each from the likes of director Steven Spielberg and his wife, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, music impresario David Geffen, and Paramount Pictures Group.
?Jerry Brown has indeed been a liberal tax-and-spend governor. With help from his allies that control the Legislature and every statewide office, Brown has implemented policies that have California now leading the nation not only with the highest state income tax rates, state sales tax rates, and taxes on gasoline at the pump, but also in poverty.
In the last two years, as California’s taxes have reached their zenith in the nation, California has ignominiously become the state with the highest poverty rate in the nation. Over 6.1 million Californians now live in poverty, comprising 23.8% of the population, according to the Census Bureau. Though liberal Nobel award-winning economist Paul Krugman has yet to publicly help connect the dots, the data offers little question that liberal politicians in California are raising the cost of living with their high tax and regulatory policies and thereby pushing poor people deeper into poverty, with no relief in sight.
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