Slate's Bizbox
chatterbox: Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.

Whopper of the Week: Gray Davis

Timothy Noah
Posted Friday, April 13, 2001, at 6:32 PM ET

"I am going to will my way to a solution that is financially viable and within the existing rate structure....'Leadership' means raise rates.... 'Bold' means raise rates. 'Decisive' means raise rates. Everything means raise rates. That makes everyone on Wall Street happy. It does nothing to solve our problem."

--California Gov. Gray Davis, as quoted by Dan Morain and Mark Z. Barabak in the Jan. 21 Los Angeles Times.

"[S]ome rate increases are needed to keep our lights on and our economy strong. ... Under my proposal, more than half of you won't pay a penny more. For the rest, the average increase will be 26 and a half percent. For many of that group, rates will rise only about 10 percent. The heaviest users will see their rates rise 34 and a half percent on average. That includes business paying their share. This is in addition to the 9 percent surcharge we've all been paying since last winter."

--Davis' televised statewide addresson April 5. Click here to see the video.

(Thanks to Tom Roberts.)

Got a whopper? Send it to . To be considered, an entry must be an unambiguously false statement paired with an unambiguous refutation, and both must be derived from some appropriately reliable public source. Preference will be given to newspapers and other documents that Chatterbox can link to online.

Whopper Archive:

April 6, 2001: Sumner Redstone

March 30, 2001: Spencer Abraham
March 23, 2001: George W. Bush, Rep. Jennifer Dunn, and/or the Treasury Department
March 16, 2001: George W. Bush
March 9, 2001: Russ Freyman, spokesman, National Association of Manufacturers
March 2, 2001: Paul O'Neill
Feb. 23, 2001: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Feb. 16, 2001: Oscar spokesman John Pavlik
Feb. 9, 2001: Lynne Cheney
Feb. 2, 2001: Bobby Thomson

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
E-mail Timothy Noah at .
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Unsung Statesman
Marc Thiessen | By the time he left office, Jesse Helms had become a mainstream conservative.
David Broder: Unabashed Racist