Neel Kashkari for governor?

Another day, another L.A. Times report of GOP anxiety: “GOP fears fallout from a Brown victory,” which forecasts statewide GOP losses if Governor Brown wins a third term. Flashreport editor Jon Fleischman is quoted as saying that at least half a dozen Congressional seats could be determined by the race for governor.

As the article notes, the GOP front-runner had been Abel Maldonado, but he pulled out last week, leaving only Tea Party favorite Tim Donnelly as the presumptive candidate. Donnelly is pro-life and pro-fracking, anti-gun control and anti-gay marriage, which means that he will not be the next governor of California. That might have been the end of the story, but there was a surprise in the article: a prospective GOP candidate with some potential to win.… Read More

Meningitis type B (MenB) is a highly contagious, often fatal bacterial disease, and when the infection strikes a high-density area like a college campus,a quick response can be the difference between a minor outbreak and a full-on epidemic. Countries throughout the industrialized world use a vaccine to rapidly respond to and contain MenB outbreaks.

But when the infection struck UC-Santa Barbara last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sat on its hands for months, responding to the healthcrisis with a brand of inefficiency and incompetence that would make the architects ofhealthcare.gov beam with approval.

By the time the FDA decided to… Read More

Since winning a supermajority in the Legislature in the November 2012 elections, we have seen Sacramento Democrats go on a mad power grab.

For years, they have prevented legislation Republican-authored from receiving a full vote of the Legislature. Rules are changed on a whim so they can push through their favored proposals. Debate on significant legislation is often cursory, at best. Worse, proposals are too often passed through at the eleventh hour, without sufficient public scrutiny.

Liberals at the State Capitol are clearly out-of-touch and are working overtime to extend their grip on power. Most troubling is a new proposal by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to end special elections and instead have the Governor fill vacancies through appointments.

California has a proud tradition of direct democracy, dating back to the Progressive Era. Whenever Sacramento ignores the voice of the people or does the bidding of the special interests, the people have the ultimate power to change course through regular elections every two or four years, and by using the initiative, referendum and recall processes.

But that could change if Democrats have… Read More

Government employee union leaders are grinning from ear to ear. Governor Brown wants to hire an additional 1,600 employees and jettison some state contracts with private sector workers.

It’s been said that all government work should be subjected to the “Yellow Pages test.” If a service provider can be found in the phone book – or online – the work should be outsourced. If not, the work should be performed by government employees.

An oversimplification? Perhaps. But it should… Read More

California can do better than we are doing today. Whether it’s our high unemployment, all too common poverty, decaying roads or lagging schools, it’s clear that our state, with all of its resources, can do better.

In order to do better, we need to recognize our strengths and our weaknesses. Improving the quality of life for Californians means leveraging our strengths and mitigating the weaknesses that are holding us back.

Education and economic opportunity are two key contributors to prosperity. We know that better educated people have higher earning potential, and we have a broad consensus in California that better education for our young people will help them for their entire… Read More

San Diego’s economy is rolling along — as county unemployment percentage improves dramatically!

Well, actually — not.

Here’s the story by the numbers:

The county unemployment percentage PLUMMETED in December. It dropped from (the revised) 6.9% unemployed in November to December’s 6.4% — a full half percent drop in only one month!!! Yea. Only 600 net new jobs were created. That’s a pathetic number in an area bigger than the state of Rhode Island — a county of over 3.1 million people. The unemployment percentage drop was almost completely the result of people dropping out of the workforce — 7,800 of the unemployed are no longer seeking employment in December — so they are no longer considered “unemployed.” That number is NOT good. Stated differently — only 7.1% of the improved unemployment percentage was the result of more jobs — 92.9% was the result of people giving up seeking San Diego area employment.

BTW, to be defined as “employed,” one has to be working — but not much. Apparently even one hour of… Read More

In another twist in Sacramento’s arena derangement syndrome, a petition drive to put a public subsidy for the proposed Sacramento basketball arena project to a public vote, has been rejected by the Sacramento City Clerk.

Friday, the city clerk announced that she rejected the petitions, along with 34,000 signatures, on the grounds some of the petition versions did not comply with election code.

“Due to technical issues identified in the submitted petitions, I find the petition noncompliant with significant provisions of the California Elections Code and the Sacramento City Charter, and therefore insufficient to move forward,”Shirley Concolino, Sacramento City Clerk, said in a press release.

Yet, just last week,theSacramento County Registrarcertified there… Read More

After the housing bubble burst in 2007, which precipitated the “Great Recession”, for too many Californians, the opportunity for economic success was lost. The release of Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed 2014-15 budget, which includes the first surplus in over a decade, has led some legislative leaders to believe that our economic challenges are over and that it is time to start spending again. Recent temporary tax increases and a resurgent, yet volatile, stock market have brought in more revenues than expected, causing Democratic legislators to irresponsibly call for increased long-term spending with short-term revenues.

However, most economists agree that while the United States’ economy is recovering, it is still not what it once was prior to the recession. They stress that for our economy to experience a “true recovery,” we must see a substantive drop in the unemployment rate and real employment growth.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal unemployment rate is currently 6.7% (8.5% in California). In December of 2007, the… Read More