THE DEATH TAX HAS TO GO… One of the biggest challenges facing Republicans in Washington, D.C., is that while there is technically a Republican majority in Congress, it is a weak majority at best. Actually, you have to things working against you if you are the President, anxious to have some legislation reach your desk that will excite and motivate conservatives. The first challenge is that a number of the "Republican" United States Senators, such as Jim Jeffords, Olympia Snowe, John McCain, and Arlen Spector (there are a few others) look to themselves as ‘mavericks’ of sort — with that word being code for ‘squishy’ — or maybe I should say that these GOPers really are not committed to reducing the size and scope of the federal government. It is this group of ‘squishy’ GOP Senators that is responsible for porking up the latest appropriations bill, sent over from the House, with funding for the War on Terror and for Katrina recovery efforts.

But as if this particular group of… Read More

THE DEATH TAX HAS TO GO… One of the biggest challenges facing Republicans in Washington, D.C., is that while there is technically a Republican majority in Congress, it is a weak majority at best. Actually, you have to things working against you if you are the President, anxious to have some legislation reach your desk that will excite and motivate conservatives. The first challenge is that a number of the "Republican" United States Senators, such as Jim Jeffords, Olympia Snowe, John McCain, and Arlen Spector (there are a few others) look to themselves as ‘mavericks’ of sort — with that word being code for ‘squishy’ — or maybe I should say that these GOPers really are not committed to reducing the size and scope of the federal government. It is this group of ‘squishy’ GOP Senators that is responsible for porking up the latest appropriations bill, sent over from the House, with funding for the War on Terror and for Katrina recovery efforts.

But as if this particular group of… Read More

We knew this little gem was hiding somewhere. Carla Marinucci is one of the state’s better political writers, out of the stable of good talent over at the San Francisco Chronicle. I had heard that she was making the rounds at the recent Westly/Angelides pillow fight-debate where voters really only discovered a pair of lackluster, unimpressive politicians, hopping over each other to so who could out-liberal the other (okay, those are MY words, not Carla’s).

Anyways, I had been keeping an eye out for Carla’s story, which I knew would be fun reading. She didn’t let us down (though perhaps her techies did, as this story was posted too late to make the morning summary of stories).

So, without further pitch, Carla’s take on the debate starts out:

Democrats’ dustup brightens outlook for Schwarzenegger in November

The Democratic candidates for governor didn’t… Read More

Ken Moser sends the attached Bilbray mailer along, providing a look at the urgency of the message the campaign is sending to Republican voters: "Due to the special election rules, Republican Brian Bilbray’s name will appear twice on your ballot…you MUST vote in both places in order to insure your congressional seat stays in Republican hands!"

No holds barred in a pretty decent mail piece, considering how convoluted the message has to be if one is concerned their base may not understand to vote twice. Another message: "Your Official Republican Nominee is Brian Bilbray." True, or half true, depending on whether a vote is being cast the first time or the second time on the ballot. Heck, I’d say the same thing if I were in Brian’s shoes.

Lastly, where the official ballot is mocked up in the piece, with Bilbray’s name circled in red (and this is why you have to view the attachment), look who is NOT on the list: Bill Hauf. Sure enough, there’s Busby listed right under Brian in the special run-off portion of the ballot, and Eric Roach and the handful of other… Read More

There were a couple of positive legislative developments in Washington this week. First, there was the passage of the arcanely named tax reconciliation bill. This bill extends the 2003 tax cuts.

These tax cuts include the 15% tax rate on capital gains and dividend income and an extension of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) exemption. The AMT exemption had already expired and the 15% capital gains and dividend rate was scheduled to expire in 2008. The legislation which passed in the House (244-185) and the Senate (54-44) this week extends the AMT exemption for the current year (2006) only and extends the capital gains and dividend rate through the 2010 tax year. The bill included about 30 other assorted tax provisions which are narrower in their focus.

Now, I would have preferred to, and the House could have passed a permanent extension of the 15% rate, but the Senate would not have done so. Therefore, a 2 year extension was the best that we could get. This is policy by incrementalism. Republicans have not been particularly good at this in the past. But it works. We have the tax rates through 2010 and we can always try again next year for permanence. Furthermore,… Read More

Maybe I owe FlashReport’s readers an apology. Somehow I hadn’t noticed that San Jacinto Councilman Jim Ayres’ Assembly campaign website contained inaccurate information about the candidate’s military record. If I had noticed, I could have pointed it outbefore the L.A. Times came alongwith today’s headline: "Candidate’s Military Record Embellished".

I have to admit I had heard that thismight be coming. I get a lot of calls from opposing campaigns telling me this or that about one of the other candidates. The 65th Assembly District Republican Primary has been no exception.

Today’s L.A. Times makes this hand wringing irrelevant with the following statement: "…On his website … Ayres said he was awarded a Southwest Asia Service Medal for valor and a Cold War medal."

… Read More

President George W. Bush will be addressing the nation Monday evening, primetime, to discuss his plan for dealing with illegal immigration. I’ve been on the phone and email all morning sort of getting a feel from folks far more connected to me, and here’s what I came up with. Speculation is part of his program will be some kind of ‘guest worker’ program that includes those illegal aliens currently in the United States. The program will fall short of amnesty, but offer a path to citizenship.

More important will be the President’s plan to deal with increasing security on the border. After all, all the plans in the world to deal with the illegal aliens that are already here don’t mean a hill of beans if several thousand more of them are allowed to cross every night. In fact, the new plan to offer amnesty or guest worker status will probably cause another increase in illegal aliens, like the last few amnesty plans did.

We’ve already been burned once, I think around the time of the last campaign, when the President talked about all the new Border Patrol agents that would be placed on the border. For the most part, they… Read More

Due to a morning meeting, and the massive amount of news stories I had to format on the main page, there is no commentary today! I’ll try to swing back and post something later, and if I do, I will link it to the weblog.

Have a great day!

Jon

PS: Spend time on the main page, as I have some commentary under the stories, and have highlighted a few at the top. Of course, you wouldn’t want to miss my column in today’s Capitol Weekly, would you?

Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?

Just click here to go to the FR Weblog, where this Commentary has its own blog post, and where you can read and make comments.… Read More