Meeting Recap - January 26, 2016
Posted by Callee Setzer
on Jan 28, 2016
We had a great turn out for our weekly Tuesday meeting! President Dave Cohen called the meeting to order and began by thanking Millie Stone (OBTP) for the wine reception. Our door greeters Jonathon Marz (Diepenbrock, Elkin, LLP) and Rick Osen (Sutter Builders) were recognized for their efforts. He also thanked our weekly musical directors Aaron French (Zanker Road Resource Management). Our thought of the day was provided by Callee Setzer (Setzer Forest Products).
Our stage today was decked in Patriotic fashion. There were 22 American flags to pledge to today, of course they were double timing, as they are for sale for the Pony Express Marathon finish line as well. They are in recognition of the “22 Too Many” of our service men and women who commit suicide every day after coming home from duty. Our visiting guests and prospective members were introduced, as well as the head table.
Our meeting sponsor Gilbert Associates donated their money and time to Lucy Crocker from Walk of Stars. Lucy informed us that “The Sacramento Walk of Stars will honor national and worldwide accomplishments made by those who call or once called the Sacramento region home.” The first 5 honorees will be announced in May. This event benefits the economic development of the downtown and midtown Sacramento area which should not be missed as many “stars” are sure to be in attendance.
Hold on to your forks, we were granted a full 12 minutes of fellowship time this week, so clearly President Dave was keeping us on schedule. This week’s announcements included the Networking Night on Feb. 2nd at the Rind, the snow shoe walk date change to March 12th, the PEM flags for sale honoring our fallen soldiers and the President’s Breakfast on Feb. 10th (Dave has confirmed he will “buy” breakfast), and finally Bruce Hester (Colliers International) is still on the search for his missing rain coat from last week’s meeting. Please check your closets, as his Passport, keys and coat need to be returned for his next world travel experience!
Our speaker was Sacramento Bee’s finest political columnist, Dan Walters. Over the last 41 years, he has followed the x’s and o’s of the political “Big Game” in the capital. Naturally, there are two sides to every game, in this case the business interests vs. the Big 4, comprised of private labor unions, environmentalists, consumer activists and personal injury lawyers. Each year hundreds of bills are introduced by the Big 4, out of those approximately 3 dozen are labeled as “job killers” by the business interests. These business issues have been carrying the day in recent years, because they can garner voting support in the Assembly. Over the next six to eight months the two sides battle over these bills before they are sent to the governor’s desk. Ultimately, the governor blocks a majority of the bills that come across his desk. There is a tremendous amount of effort with tens of hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, to play this game. Each two year election cycle there are half to one trillion dollars being fought over. The key is the primary process, amended through a deal brokered by Abel Maldonado which eliminated the two party process. Business interests pick the more conservative of the Democratic candidates, called the “Mod Squad”. Recent elections have found liberal Democrats are targeting Mod Squadders in future elections. Essentially eating their own. Dan eloquently reminded us that the “government exists to take money from one group of people and give it to another”. Our tax dollars are hard at play in the Big Game.