A New Year: It has been over a month since you last heard from me. I have not disappeared nor have I lost interest. This gap in communication was caused by a combination of holidays, work volume, some writer’s block, and a nasty cold that had me flat for nearly a week. Some have speculated that the latter was caused by the Obama Administration trying to dim my effectiveness by slipping something into my Jack Daniels. I think that is a low probability explanation. I think it’s more likely that I succumbed to the Petri dish that is winter time in the Longworth Building in Washington.

CBO Truth Serum: OK, enough insignificant jabber. Last week, I had the opportunity in the Budget Committee to question the Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Doug Elemendorf, about several things. He confirmed for me that repealing the Bush tax cuts only on the “rich”, defined by the Obama Administration as people making $250,000 or more, only represents about 15% of revenue “lost” from all the tax cuts enacted since 2001. And, it would only raise enough money to cover about 10% of the deficit over the next… Read More

This morning veteran political columnist George Skelton of the Los Angeles Times has a column, Commit A Crime, Collect a Pension, in which he spotlights the fact that current law in California allows people convicted of felonies with a nexus to their government jobs to continue to collect their pensions. He cites the accused teachers in the sex abuse scandal at Miramonte Elementary School in the Los Angeles Unified School District as just one example.

In the piece, Skelton refers to the fact that one of Jerry Brown’s pension reform proposals would end this unfortunate status quo. Also in the column, Skelton quotes Senate President Darrell Steinberg as saying he does not a problem with Brown’s proposal in this regard.

Nowhere in Skelton’s piece, however, does it mention that last year Republican Tony Strickland actually authored legislation, Senate Bill 115, that was a modest proposal that said that a public employee convicted of any of the following… Read More

In a scene right out of the Keystone Cops, it is quite entertaining to see California Democrats so exuberant to raise taxes that there are at least four different major tax increase proposals that appear to he headed for the crowded November ballot.

Governor Brown of course is proceeding forward with a proposal for billions of dollars in increases in state income and sales taxes. Independently wealthy Molly Munger is personally funding the signature gathering effort for a massive $10 billion hike in state income taxes. A couple of the state’s most influential unions are pushing what’s is dubbed the millionaire’s tax — another multi-billion dollar hike in state income taxes. Wealthy investor Tom Steyer is funding a ballot measure to change the way some business taxes are computed, a de facto multi-billion dollar tax increase.

It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that while the Democrats and their union bosses are busy dividing their resources and squabbling amongst themselves, there is an opportunity for those who want fiscal sanity to come forth in state government. To use… Read More

As a policy advisor for an Orange County Supervisor I’m always interested in seeing what other counties are doing to deal with issues they face. However, a recent policy that was agreed upon fell below the radar until it was too late. While listening to KFI after leaving work yesterday I heard a headline informing listeners that the county had approved restrictions on throwing footballs or frisbees on county beaches. Thinking it may be a knee-jerk soundbite with no detail I mostly ignored the story. However, when I got home I saw a headline on the Drudge Report about the ordinance and linked details to the Local CBS News station confirming the KFI headline. Having grown up in LA County and played football and frisbee on LA County beaches countless times, I was outraged.

As I often do, I looked to Supervisor Michael Antonovich for perspective on what happens in LA County. (As reference to background, I have admired Supervisor Antonovich for many years. He has been a friend to my family for decades, my grandfather who was a newspaper editor was an early supporter of his early in his political career and the Supervisor remains personal friends with my… Read More

Ex-Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham is slowly winding down a lengthy sentence in a federal prison — the crime committed by this war-hero-turned-politician? He sold America. Literally. As a Member of Congress, he personally profited, and not in a small way, by selling his votes. One of the most stunning pieces of evidence introduced in the trial against Cunningham was a cocktail napkin on which he hand wrote how much money he would have to be paid to deliver specific earmarked spending for the person bribing him. There is no way to really describe the betrayal of America and her values as was done by Cunningham, although I tried a few years ago in this column. I remember at the time being so angry — I had walked precincts for “The Duke” in his first election! Years later I found it in my heart to forgive him personally (barely), but his crimes against the country make him… Read More

Today we saw a little shake up in Orange County (and Southwest Los Angeles County) politics. Republican Troy Edgar, the Mayor of Los Alamitos announced that he now running for the newly created 72nd Assembly District, a “safe” Republican seat that is located in Northwest Orange County. Edgar is a private business owner — with two companies, a construction firm and business consulting firm.

There were already three Republicans running in the 72nd — Hungtington Beach City Councilmember and former state YR Chairman Matt Harper, Long Pham, and Westminster Councilman Typer Diep — although rumors have been swirling for a couple of weeks that Diep going to be dropping out of the race for personal reasons.

If Diep gets out of the race as is expected, it replaces the candidate with the most campaign cash on hand (Diep has topped $150k) and replaces it with a candidate in Edgar who starts out with over $300k in his campaign account. In announcing his candidacy for the 72nd District, Edgar has the endorsements of Congressman Ed Royce, State Senator Tom Harman and Assemblyman Jim Silva, Los Alamitos Councilmembers Marilynn Poe and… Read More

As I mentioned in a previous posting, for me, myWALL ST JOURNALnewspaper is my catnip with my morning coffee — at least the Opinion section. Great stuff.

Oddly enough, you can subscribe FOR FREE online for this very section. The WSJ will send you a daily email with the editorials, op-eds, letters to the editor — with the URL links. To subscribe, go ALL THE WAY to the bottom of any of the articles below and click on the “Register for Limited Access” line.

For today, here are THREE excellent articles for your consideration — the first two are “must read,” and the third one appears only in the European WSJ edition:

A Fairness Quiz for the President — Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama’s largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204369404577206980068367936.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

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The Heartland Tax Rebellion — More states want to repeal their income… Read More

Speaking of Super Bowls (and everybody is, as today’s the day!), here’s a timely article on building new stadiums to draw such “profitable” events to a city. As one might expect from a well-referenced, objective analysis (such as this opinion piece), it’s a BAD idea financially. There might be other “rah rah” reasons that voters would approve such projects, but proponents’ bogus economic claims of riches (shades of CA HSR!) should not be among them.

Here’s the comment I posted under the article:

A binding public vote (not just an “advisory” vote) on such boondoggles is essential. But the election spending on such matters is VERY one-sided. Those who profit from a new sports stadium (and not just the team owners) will spend a bundle, whereas there is no “special interest” in opposition. It’s the usual problem of “concentration of benefit, dispersal of cost.”

It should be noted that the media (especially TV and the daily newspaper) have a HUGE vested interest in pro sports. It’s a major draw of local viewers and readers — both the games… Read More