As unbelievable as it seems, in the midst of our never-ending budget crisis, the plan from Governor Brown and the legislature’s Democrat majority comes down to this: “Give us what we want, or somebody’s going to get hurt.” If you’re starting to feel like our state government is holding a gun to our head, there’s probably a pretty good reason for that. Because that’s sure what it looks like to me.

Just a few days ago we got to see the legislature’s leaders here in Sacramento smiling and patting themselves on the backs having sent their budget bill to the Governor’s desk. There’s just one catch: the law requires our legislature to pass a “balanced” budget each year. They haven’t, and this budget isn’t. The “balanced” part of the budget, the hard part, has been left on our doorstep – with a ransom note firmly attached.

It is utterly irresponsible for our legislature to approve a budget plan that relies on the assumption that tax revenues will balance with spending if – but only if – voters agree to increase taxes on themselves. That’s just not right. Drafting and passing a balanced budget by June 15th each year is… Read More

Yesterday, Sacramento Democrats finally passed the remaining so-called “trailer bills” to complete the work on their majority vote budget plan. The more we let the sunshine in on the Democrat majority vote budget, the worse it looks for the priorities of California’s hard-working families. In my view, Californians deserve better than a phony budget that was made up by Democrats as they went along in the process, violating the spirit of openness and transparency in state government that should be the guiding principle of every lawmaker.

Here are just a few of the worst features of the Democrat majority vote budget passed yesterday:

Plays Politics to Boost Governor’s Massive Tax Increase

To try and boost the passage of Governor Brown’s $8.5 billion tax increase measure, Democrats voted in their majority vote budget plan to manipulate the elections process. They passed a measure to move the Governor’s tax initiative up to the top of the ballot, even though his initiative qualified tenth among the measures that will appear on the November 2012 ballot. At the same time, the Governor’s education trigger cuts would still be… Read More

The Governor must act on the budget by midnight today. If he had the courage, he would send it back and demand the Legislature send him a fully vetted plan that is truly balanced, contains real reform and spurs job creation in our state.

The truth is that California won’t have a real budget until November. That’s when voters will decide whether to embrace or reject the billions in higher taxes the budget assumes.

Should taxes fail, the budget calls for billions in ‘trigger cuts’ to education funding. I suspect these ‘trigger cuts’ are little more than a head fake aimed at scaring overtaxed Californians into taxing themselves even more.… Read More

Lessons from Europe: Unless you have been hiding in Attorney General Eric Holder’s “Fast and Furious” documents file, you know that trouble is brewing in Europe. Big trouble. Real big trouble. None of us know where it will go from here. But, I can see no good outcome. The experiment of monetary union without fiscal or political union has failed. Most of the solutions they are now discussing will simply delay the inevitable. Using debt that you have no plan to repay in order to pay other debts that you can’t repay doesn’t work with mortgages and will not work with governments. And, it is hard to even describe the political challenges they have over there. Look at the gridlock we have here with one country, one culture and 2 political parties. Now, imagine having 17 countries, dozens of cultures and a hundred political parties. I think you get the point.

Whenever the European crisis hits and however it is manifested, the US will be affected. It could affect us in a small way or a big way. That is impossible to predict at this point. It is also not possible to predict when it will hit, as doing so involves the collective… Read More

RIDER NOTE: Perhapsa more accurate question is this: “Is it time to stop building PUBLICLY FINANCED and SUBSIDIZED convention centers — without a vote of the electorate?” Hmmmm . . . let me think . . .—–

Daily Policy Digest

June 26, 2012

Over the last 20 years, convention space in the United States has increased by 50 percent; since 2005, 44 new convention spaces have been planned or constructed in this country alone. That boom hasn’t come cheap. In the last 10 years, spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually, much of it from public coffers, says Amanda Erickson, associate editor at The Atlantic Cities.

The resultant glut of convention centers, however, has undermined the financial strength of these notable investments. The annual number of conventions is down, as are the number of attendees, and convention centers are… Read More

Governor Jerry Brown and legislative Democrats must take California voters for chumps. That is the only explanation that I can think of for why they think that employing the Washington Monument Strategy will actually succeed in getting voters in the Golden State to vote increase taxes on themselves in the midst of a recession, to bail out a state government that can’t even agree that a public employee who commits a felony with a nexus to their government job should lose their pension. Apparently the “bogey man” that will be used… Read More

I’m really trying. But I just can’t keep up with dumb ideas from the other party.

On the campaign trail, I’ve told the story of a meeting last year with some plaintiffs’ lawyers who specialize in employment law. I mentioned the idiotic and counterproductive Labor Code requirement that bars ten hour work days, even if the employee wants them. In a flight of what I thought was hyperbole, I added that Democrats act as if, without that law, “there would be 12 year old urchins in basements sewing garments again.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Wagner,” one of the lawyers earnestly replied, “that’s exactly what would happen.”

What I took as an obvious exaggeration, she took as a very good argument for a very bad law.

A couple of weeks ago, Democrats on the Assembly Education Committee complained about the narrow scope of a bill by State Senator Bob Huff. They objected to it because it didn’t completely fix a big problem (ironically, a big problem of Democrats’ own making with faulty legislation they passed a few years ago – but I digress). Instead, the bill dealt only with a small piece of the larger problem, and supposedly was objectionable for… Read More

The results have been tallied for our little Election Contest (see the questions here), with about 45 participants. I’m pleased to say it was the most competitive contest yet. Maybe the questions were too easy. I’ll remember that next time. But, we do have some winners.

First, some stats — since the type of ner … uhhh, I meanwonkswho enter the contest are into stats.

Out of the 10 base questions, no one got less than five correct answers, with 63 percent of the participants getting between five and seven right. About another one-third nailed eight or nine correctly, pretty amazing.

More specifically:

San Diego City Council District 5— Thankfully, this “gimme” question that the seat would be won by lone contenderand Republican Mark Kerseywas answered correctly by everyone,includingKersey. He did add an “ahem” after his answer to this one.

San Diego City Council District 1— One third of you guessed… Read More