A lot of ink is being spilled talking about the US debt – which has surpassed $20 Trillion. But the debt problem isn’t just national.

California’s debt has climbed to over $425 Billion – and if you include local unfunded pension & debt liability, we face a $1.3 Trillion debt – over half of the entire GDP of the state. According to USdebtClock.org, California is accumulating $100 Billion more debt every year.

That is more debt than many countries. California’s debt is twice as much as Switzerland, who’s national debt stands at $670 Billion; and about the same as Mexico ($1.4 Trillion) and Australia ($1.3… Read More

There are some MAJOR misconceptions about the effect of Proposition 13 on commercial property taxes. Below are some revealing facts, exposing several liberal canards in this area. And these facts are provided by the California State Legislative Analyst’s Office — an unimpeachable source.

But first, some background:

***

Perhaps the most important proposition on the November ballot will be the Left’s strongest attempt yet to gut Prop 13. They will employ a “divide and conquer” strategy. Prop 13 has withstood attacks because of an uneasy alliance between the business and homeowner constituencies. If the progressives can break this alliance, Prop 13 will go down in flames.

The first phase is to get everyone mad at evil businesses (aren’t ALL businesses evil?). The Big Government advocates will dwell on a couple unfair strategies used to avoid commercial property reassessment — a strategy that is used in a tiny fraction of commercial real estate transactions. But rather that fix this “loophole,” the November… Read More

Politico and Sac Bee Confuse ‘Misconduct’ and ‘Harassment’ With Latest Allegations Against Asm. Cristina Garcia

Thursday it was revealed that the #MeTooMovement may be compromised by one of its leaders, Democrat Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, after new sexual harassment allegations against her surfaced.

Politico reported:

California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia — whose high-profile advocacy of the #MeToo movement earned her national media notice — is herself the subject of a state legislative investigation in the wake of a report that she sexually harassed and groped a former legislative staffer.

And a lobbyist,… Read More

Most of us are less wealthy than last week. The stock market and crypto-currencies took dramatic tumbles. But it’s actually a triple whammy — especially for Californians. Not only did our investments, IRA’s and 401k’s take a belly punch. The drop in equity values means that our mandatory obligation to our CA state and local public servants jumped as well, as the unfunded pension obligation just soared higher. And then there’s that coming CA capital gains tax shortfall. Only our risk-free public employees are pretty much unconcerned about economic downturns. Because the government worker pensions are guaranteed, the hapless taxpayers will simply have to write bigger checks to make up the bigger shortfall. And to add pain to suffering, a stock market downturn translates in into lower capital gains on tax returns. Few realize that the MAJOR reason we have a CA “budget surplus” (ignoring theMadoff-type accounting used) has been the flood of capital gains tax revenue into state coffers fueled largely by our rising stock … Read More

For many years I have written about the horrendous challenges California business owners face because of legislatively-imposed environmental regulations, business-killing regulations and labor laws, hostile politicians and city councils, and government-sanctioned labor union attacks on non-union businesses. Few politicians have ever run a business or owned a business, and even fewer appreciate what it takes to grow a business.

Whether it is Gerawan Farming fighting the corrupted California Agriculture Labor Relations Board and United Farm Workers labor union thugs attempting to take over, or Magliteflashlight inventor and company owner Anthony Maglica, who has been in a battle with the State of California over the “Made in the USA” label on his flashlight packaging (exclusively made in California), these and other businesses and employers are under constant siege by the state and local politicians over business… Read More

Here’s the latest annual U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report to Congress on TANF and SSP [welfare] recipients, using the latest figures from 2015:

U.S.******4,170,107 recipients

CA*******1,803,873 recipients

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/resource/twelfth-report-to-congress page 20

In other words, CA — with 12% of the nation’s population — has an appalling 43.3% of our nation’s needy that require taxpayer assistance. Last time I checked a few years ago, CA had not quite 1/3 of these welfare recipients. As far as I know, no CA press has reported this increase to 43+%.… Read More

This month my home SDG&E electricity bill added a third price category — a “high usage charge.” See below.

Actually I have no problem with such tiered pricing, but the high cost for EACH tier is breathtaking when compared with most other states. Compare my SDG&E (and California) rates with the latest (November, 2017) numbers from the U.S. Energy Administration (EIA) provided below.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a

MY SDG&E BILL — JANUARY, 2018

Tier 1 — 0-374 kWh Tier 2 — 375-1152 kWh Tier 3 — 1153 and up 23 cents 40 cents 47 cents(!)

My total usage (with a solar array): 396 kWh

======================================================

Here are the EIA November, 2017 numbers, with comparisons of CA with the nation — and with Texas. Note that my… Read More

Here are all of my comments from the State of the Union last evening, along with a few others who joined me at Tom Del Beccarro’s Political Vanguard: … Read More