This week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was presented with an unexpected opportunity to show people how he responds to a crisis. News that some of his top aides were involved with creating traffic problems in Ft. Lee in retaliation for its mayor not endorsing the governor’s re-election bid contained all the ingredients for a serious scandal for a national figure.

While even the worst details of the “bridgegate” scandal don’t come anywhere close to Watergate, Iran-Contra, or Whitewater, history shows that how a leader responds to a crisis can have a bigger impact than the crisis itself. Recall that in Watergate, it wasn’t the June 17, 1972 break-in… Read More

A budget that demonstrates fiscal restraint is essential for California to stay on track. Yet the Governor’s high speed rail funding plan shows his funding priorities are off track.

Our increased revenues are primarily the result of temporary tax increases that will soon expire. A successful, comprehensive plan will prepare for the ending of the increases Californians imposed on themselves to get out of the fiscal hole of overspending and recession.

California cannot solve its long-term budget problems by relying on temporary solutions that undermine job creation and economic growth.

It is also vital to set aside reserves for future shortfalls, or the Legislature may push to make temporary tax increases permanent. A strong rainy day fund is an important part of ensuring our state’s fiscal stability.

Ultimately, California’s budget challenges will only be truly solved when a strong and healthy private sector is able to create jobs and opportunity for more Californians.… Read More

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”

I agree. I don’t mind paying taxes, or government spending on defense, education, infrastructure, public safety, or to give a helping hand to those in need.

What I mind is OVERPAYING taxes because government recklessly overspends, and overspends, and overspends.

I mind paying HIGHER taxes because government wastespublic money in an oftentimes spectacularly stupid manner.

I mind well-paid bureaucrats allowing that waste to continue because fixing the problem might be hard.

I mind my taxes being diverted away from vital services, programs and infrastructure to subsidize the extremely lazy, the extremely wealthy and the politically connected.

I mind paying year-after-year-after-year to subsidize those with a sense of entitlement so deep that they make no effort to better the lives of their own children.

I mind paying over 1/3 of what I earn while government racks up an exploding debt that will hobble my children – and their children – and limit their future… Read More

Call it “arena derangement syndrome,” or ADS. It afflicts cities trying to use taxpayer money for new sports arenas or stadiums.

It’s now threatening thevalidation of 35,000 ballot initiative petition signatures that would halt the proposed subsidy of a new arena for Sacramento’s Kings basketball team.

The ADS gripping Sacramento has infiltrated most of city government, and made it all the way to the city’s top ranking officials. ADS started in the office of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, himself a former NBA star, then spread like a communicable disease through the Sacramento City Council, senior city management and city hospitality and convention agents. ADS thrives in a host of labor unions and crony capitalist business owners that would benefit from constructing the arena — and, of course, in the super fans.

ADS has divided friends and neighbors, even caused riffs in families.

In December, after the Sacramento City Clerk’s Office is done counting the petition signatures, Sacramento county elections officials said a validation process would take weeks.

The anti-public subsidy group… Read More

The group pushing the referendum to overturn California’s recently enacted law to open school showers, bathrooms and locker rooms to members of the opposite sex took a huge step forward yesterday when it was announced that a random sample of signatures submitted showed they have collected enough valid signatures to advance to the next stage of the verification process – a full check of every signature submitted.

The leaders behind Privacy for All Students (PFAS) have quite literally been fighting “city hall” from the beginning. Many pundits and media representatives dismissed them outright, saying there was no way that a group relying primarily on volunteers could qualify a referendum in California. After all, it takes over half a million valid signatures to qualify, and they must be collected in about 80 days – a herculean task.

Conventional wisdom was that the coalition backing the referendum would have an extremely difficult time raising money. But they’ve raised over $600,000 so far.

Conventional wisdom was that voters wouldn’t really care much about the issue. But PFAS conducted a poll showing that an overwhelming percentage of voters… Read More

In this space not too long ago, an argument was made in support of the so-called “Citizens’ Legislature,” a new initiative proposed for the 2014 ballot that is now in the signature circulation stage. Proponents claim it will somehow reduce the pernicious effects of money in politics by increasing the number of politicians. It’s not just a small increase, either. It’s a radical one, i.e., by creating 100 times more legislators than currently in office. In short, the so-called Citizens’ Legislature initiative would change the state’s Constitution to create a 12,000 member legislature instead of the 120 members we have today. Every one of those 12,000 new politicians would then stand for election, be permitted to introduce legislation – as if we do not have enough hare-brained bills floating around Sacramento already – have to vote on all of those bills, and, most importantly, need to fundraise.

The idea may charitably be called counter-intuitive.

I have had the opportunity to meet with the… Read More

The news is mixed for Republicans as Gallup provides new insight on the political parties with which Americans are identifying, or, increasingly, not identifying.

Gallup found that only 25% of Americans now identify with the Republican Party when given the choice of Republican, Democrat or independent. This is a lower number than we have seen at any time since 1988. Self-identified independents have risen to a new high of 42%. Democrats are in between at 31%.

We can expect the predictable take from those within the party to explain the decline. Many conservatives will argue the decline is because elected officials don’t follow “the platform” and “don’t stand for anything.” Moderates will claim the decline is because the party has become “too conservative” and has “lost the center.”

Gallup suggests both arguments miss the mark.

“The rise in political independence is likely an outgrowth of Americans’ record or near-record negative views of the two major U.S. parties, of Congress, and their low level of trust in government more generally,” says… Read More

California’s legislature passed, as usual, hundreds of laws that took effect on January 1st, but two of them are prime examples of how the Golden State has turned its governance over to an alliance of public sector unions, environmentalist extremists, and wealthy elites. Nowhere within this privileged clique is there any recognition of how difficult they are making everyday life for ordinary people.

Do you want to remodel your kitchen? Starting in 2014, you will have to install energy efficient “luminaires” (that’s bureaucrat-speak for “light”) that will not pass inspection unless they’re in hardwired sockets. Normal “screw base luminaires” do not qualify as “high efficiency.” Courtesy of the California Energy Commission, here is “Chapter Six – Residential Lighting.” If you want to know how to install lighting in your new or remodeled kitchen, you’ll need to wade through 58 pages of specifications.

It gets worse.

Do you want to doanythingto your home that involves getting a building permit? Remember that… Read More