Compromise: First of all, thank you to all those who live in the new 45th Congressional District in California for your strong support of my reelection. It looks like I will have won by a margin of 18 points in spite of a new district (50% of which I have never represented), a poor year for Republicans and another opponent who spent many times more money than I did and spent it largely on negative advertising. I appreciate your confidence in me. I will not let you down.

But, I must confess, it didn’t feel much like a winning night. Frankly, I haven’t been this saddened in a very long time. Yes, I won convincingly, but politics is a team sport. I need friends and allies to get stuff done, and a lot of them lost.

I will let others do the political analysis of why the election turned out as it did. But, I will tell you that my sadness is much deeper than it was four years ago. In 2008, we were pretty sure that McCain was going to lose, and we had some hopefulness that Obama wouldn’t turn out to be as bad a president as we feared. But in 2012, we were pretty sure that Romney/Ryan were going to win, and we are pretty sure that Obama,… Read More

Some good news for the State of California…

The State Board of Equalization collected $1.86 billion in general fund sales and use tax revenue last month, surpassing the state’s $1.74 billion budget estimate.

The state’s year-to-date general fund sales and use tax revenues are now meeting projections. From July 1 through October 31, the state received $6.5 billion in revenue, narrowly exceeding the state’s budget projection.

October’s revenues came from sales taking place prior to the gas price spike of early October. Retailers must file returns monthly, quarterly or annually depending on the size of their business.

Let’s hope that stronger tax revenues are a reflection of a recovering economy rather than merely the result of higher prices.

… Read More

Prior to Prop 30 passing, CA already had the 2nd worst state income tax rate in the nation. Currently our 9.3% tax bracket starts at $48,029 for people filing as individuals.

Now our “millionaires’ tax” rate is 13.3% – including capital gains. Increased income taxes now start at $250K. And it is RETROACTIVE to 1 January, 2012!

So today CA has BY FAR the nation’s highest state income tax rate. We are 21% higher than the 2nd highest state (Hawaii), 34% higher than the 3rd highest state (Oregon), and a heck of a lot higher than all the rest – including 7 states with zero state income tax.

http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/ff2012.pdf Tables #11 & 13

CA is so bad, we also have the 2nd highest state income tax bracket. AND the 3rd! Plus the 5th and 7th highest tax brackets.

Stated differently, we have 5 of the first 7 highest state income tax brackets — including the top 3. In the Olympics, that would be considered a medal sweep!… Read More

I’m going to go way out on a limb here. Proposition 30 is not going to raise the $6 billion it promised to raise, and within a year, the leftists who are now in total control of Sacramento will move to raise your taxes. This will happen in June, and it will be for the schools.

How do I know this? 1991. Pete Wilson comes charging into the Governor’s office, finds a deficit, claims to find a budget fix that is half tax increases (estimated to raise $7 billion by the same Legislative Analyst’s Office that estimated Proposition 30 to generate $6 billion) and half cuts. The cuts never occurred, and the taxes, which were supposed to be on the rich, only generated $4 billion. California actually never made up that loss until it cut the car tax in 1998.

That is the way it is in a socialist worker’s paradise. The talented and the rich are expected to pick up the slack when the government can’t do it, and, of course, those same talented and/or rich people flee for a more hospitable economic environment, even if the weather is not as good as it is here. In the 1990’s, that more hospitable environment was Florida and Texas. I know… Read More

Every election victory or defeat is an opportunity to learn, adjust and to grow.

One of the complicating factors in conducting post-election analysis is the tendency for CYA to take precedence over objective analysis that involves criticism. Another tendency is to claim the strategy or tactic was correct, but just needed more resources in the form of time or money. These and other factors that can obscure the truth are why serious post-election analysis requires multiple viewpoints from informed sources with experience in the subject.

Given the relatively small margin of Mitt Romney’s loss, and the historical odds favoring an incumbent President, clearly many things were done right, and that fact should not be overlooked. That which was done well should not be discarded because it took place in the context of an overall loss.

Of the many contributors to the defeat, some were within the control of the Romney campaign, some were within the control of some entity of the Republican Party… Read More

November 6, 2012 will long be remembered by Republicans nationally as, well, a really bad election day. Governor Mitt Romney’s loss to Barack Obama, when the President was forced to run for re-election on the economy, in a bad economy, smarts. Losing a significant number of U.S. Senate races where polls and pundits had put the GOP in the hunt just added to the misery. Republicans did hold on the House of Representatives, which is very significant, of course. But because this was expected, it did little to ease the disappointment of this Republican.

Here in California, the shellacking was pretty thorough. After rejecting the last eight tax increases in a row to appear on the statewide ballot, voters approved Governor Brown’s massive income and sales tax hikes to the tune of $7 billion a year, as well as a separate measure to hike taxes on multi-state businesses by another… Read More

So where to get election night results?

The election night guide from yours truly is pretty simple:

I will be on Twitter tonight – if you aren’t following me, I am at @flashreport.

For California results, there is no place to go more comprehensive than Scott Lay’s Around The Capitol Election Results Page. On this page you can easily navigate to all of the info on California elections in real time — statewide initiatives and the hot House, State Senate and State Assembly races are at the top. But you can easily get to any California partisan race.

For national elections results, you can follow it easily at the Politico results page. If you are more wonky, Real Clear Politics isn’t as pretty but bristles with data. Of course, I’m watching Fox News all night long for the most comprehensive coverage (I may flip to MSNBC if they call it for Romney just long enough to watch Chris Matthews claw all of the skin… Read More

There are 230 bond, tax and fee increase proposals on the 2012 ballot in California. Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30 tax increase measure is the least of voters’ problems this election.

There are 100 school bond measures on the ballot throughout California. There are more than 30 sales tax increase initiatives, business tax increases, parcel taxes, utility taxes, and hotel taxes. There are even tax increase measures for sodas and abandoned-cars.

How many tax increases will “fix” California?

The answer is easy. None.

What’s really wrong California?

Local governments would have everyone in the state believe that they are struggling to make ends meet. But they grossly misuse the word “struggle.” The only downsizing done in local government has been to cut the lower paid employees who probably weren’t eligible for pensions anyway.

In Sacramento, the City Council is pushing hard to pass several ballot initiatives:

* Measure Q: Sacramento City Unified School District;

* Measure R: Sacramento City Unified School District;

* Measure T: Sacramento (City of) Mandates on Garden and Yard Refuse… Read More