A great, succinct recap on the new California budget from the Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley…

California Dems Pass Budget California Democrats have asserted for the past six months that it wasn’t possible to close the state’s $9.6 billion budget gap without raising taxes. Yet the budget deal that Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrat lawmakers struck this week does just that.

The budget agreement, which passed without Republican support, cuts $450 million from higher education and the courts and defers $2.8 billion in payments to K-12 education. It also takes $1.7 billion from local redevelopment agencies that use property taxes to subsidize private developers.

The deal assumes an additional $200 million in extra tax revenue from the collection of sales tax on online purchases, which is likely on the high side since Amazon has threatened to sever its relationships with its California affiliates if the state starts collecting online sales taxes. Democrats also want to increase fees on vehicles and rural homeowners by another $450 million, but they will need the support of at… Read More

Yesterday Capitol Democrats pushed through a majority vote budget that is bad for California. On the short term, it makes a lot of poor decisions on how to spend available resources. On the long term, there are no fixes such as a spending cap or pension reform. Not one Republican voted for this bad budget.

Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton had this to say…

Let’s get one thing clear about the budget the Democrats passed without Republican input or support – we will never fix this state’s chronic budget crisis until we get Californians back to work.

We need to focus on job creation, which must include regulatory and CEQA reform. We cannot continue to be the worst place in the nation to do business. Regulatory relief is critical for creating job opportunities in this state.

This budget not only lacks regulatory relief that is critical for creating job opportunities, it lacks the other reforms that Californians are demanding and deserve. Californians want a hard spending cap and they want reforms to fix the… Read More

If I were to tell you things were chaotic in Washington last week, you might correctly exclaim, “So, what else is new?”. But, things seem to be even more chaotic than normal right now. I submit the following rundown for your consideration:

The President announced his latest strategy for Afghanistan in which he tries to thread the policy needle by giving a timetable for some withdrawal, but at the same time keeps more troops there throughout his term than at any time during the Bush presidency. I don’t think he succeeded in pleasing anyone with this plan – certainly not this Member of Congress. He also still has not indicated what it is we are now fighting for and what the desired end-state looks like. Bin Laden is dead and al-Qaeda is largely out of Afghanistan. Are we nation building? I think we are and I don’t think that is worth $2 billion a week and more American lives. I also believe you either fight wars with all you’ve got, or don’t fight them at all. Vietnam taught us that. The President seems to want to fight half a war. Speaker Boehner criticized the President’s speech and basically called … Read More

Dysfunction is a code word Democrats use in California to disparage the initiative process, which, with the relative implosion of the statewide GOP in the last election, is the last real safety valve the People have in their toolbox to protect their freedoms and property rights. Democrats would love to stifle and regulate the people’s right to petition government through legislative initiatives, because then they would have almost complete power, save the two-third vote requirement in the Legislature to raise taxes. And they may even get their two-thirds in the next one or two elections, according to Sacramento insiders, meaning without he initiative process, we will be sunk.

That said, it has been interesting to watch the Greek financial crisis on the news. Average people there blame their politicians for creating the crisis by spending too much. Why aren’t we blaming the politicians in California, meaning the Democrats, who have had literal and figurative control of policy for almost a generation? What is the IMF telling Greeks to do to fix things? Sell their assets. Like office buildings. A solution Governor Brown stands in the way of.… Read More

Last week former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman officially joined the 2012 race for the White House in front of the Statue of Liberty. He has wasted no time circling the wagons with press and fundraising appearances across the country. One such appearance was at a private fundraising event emceed by OC GOP Chief Scott Baugh at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach. A number of top GOP donors and influential operatives were in attendance to hear the Governor, encourage friends to support his campaign and get a better understanding for his plan to defeat Barack Obama in 2012. Of course in order to do that he will have to stand out to GOP primary voters in what is becoming an increasingly crowded field. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the event and get a better perspective of Huntsman and his campaign.

… Read More

Republican representatives in Sacramento probably have the worst political job in America. They have to sit and watch extremely stupid people across the isle ruin the State, work on “problems” that don’t exist while ignoring ones that do exist, and propose absolutely nothing of import to get the economy out of the mud, provide confidence to business owners, and enable hiring.

This must be very difficult to observe close up. Thank goodness I only have to read about it, because it is probably ten times worse than what we read or see in in the print media.

We’ve ceded ground on almost every issue in Sacramento over the past 10 years. Our legislative “leaders” in 2009 went up on a tax “solution” that solved absolutely nothing. We continue to feed tax dollars to the education pig that demands more even as statewide student enrollment declines while educational performance suffers.

My point is simple – the tax extension is a hill to die on. I wish our representatives continued resolve, strength, and in the face of insult from the Governor’s staff, its time to dig in even harder. Keep it up!… Read More

Governor Jerry Brown and legislative leaders are hoping that a surge in new revenues will help them avoid triggering additional budget cuts.

But it’s hard to imagine their budget numbers working when California is racing to become the nation’s unemployment leader.

We need jobs to spur revenues, but burdensome taxes, fees and regulations continue to hold back California’s economic recovery. The Governor and Legislature need to wake up to the reality that their economic policies are destroying California’s competitiveness.

If the Governor and Legislature want to see growth in revenues, they need to get Californians back to work. We need to bring private sector jobs back to California instead of driving them away.… Read More

The statewide sales and use tax rate will decrease from 8.25 percent to 7.25 percent on July 1, 2011. This is great news for overtaxed Californians, who bear the sixth highest overall tax burden in the nation. A lower sales tax will help our state’s economy and help job creation.

There’s still time for a budget deal before July 1, but it’s already too late to extend the higher sales tax. According to a June 6 Board of Equalization letter, the minimum amount of time necessary to notify retailers of a sales tax rate change is 15 days.

In May 2011 the Board of Equalization notified approximately 680,000 California retailers and out-of-state businesses that make sales in California that the statewide sales and use tax rate will decrease from 8.25 percent to 7.25 percent on July 1, 2011.

Temporary taxes often have a way of sticking around—keep in mind that the 1991 ‘temporary’ 1.25% sales tax increase is still with us today! It will be good for California if this latest sale tax hike goes away and stays away,… Read More