In the ongoing political drama over the California state budget (or lack there of) all eyes are currently on State Controller John Chiang. Under the relevant section of voter-approved Proposition 25, Chiang is responsible for making the call on whether the budget that the legislature passed by on the deadline, is “balanced” — a requirement that must be met (on time, and balanced) or else legislators forfeit their pay and per diem going forward until a balanced budget is passed (it is a forfeiture of compensation, by the way, so any pay that legislators do not receive may not be later reclaimed, it is lost forever).

For all of those people who are spending their time trying to do their own analysis to determine whether the budget passed by Senate and the Assembly and quickly vetoed by the Governor was balanced, in order to try to figure out what Chiang will do — I would submit to you that you are looking to both the wrong standard, and the wrong decision maker.

John Chiang is a wholly owned subsidiary of the state’s public employee unions. You can read about that… Read More

Republicans are nothing, if not responsible. In the late ’90’s, I became an advocate for majority vote budgets because of that character trait in Republicans. My Republican colleagues in the Legislature would always say they had to do the responsible thing in the lean budget years, and vote for tax increases, because “we had to have a budget,” and that budget needed a two thirds vote. Of course, in the budget’s salad days, Republicans loved the two thirds vote because it meant they got some of the pork. We never restrained spending in the good years with the two thirds vote because of the lure of pork, and we never stopped taxes in the bad years because of the need to be “responsible.” It was the worst of both worlds.

So I voted for a majority vote budget. Boy, was that ever controversial. Everybody said I was selling out Republicans. I was being anti-Republican. How could I do such a thing? I of course had no real dog in that hunt, so rather than take the heat, I just stayed quiet. No one was pushing on the matter, I had no friends that wanted it. I just thought it was good policy, because Republicans… Read More

Today I called upon Governor Jerry Brown to veto the so-called “Amazon Tax” recently approved as a budget trailer bill by the Legislature. You can read my letter below or here.

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June 17, 2011

Dear Governor Brown:

I am writing to request your veto of Assembly Bill 28X (Blumenfield), the so-called “Amazon Tax.”

As an elected member of the State Board of Equalization, the agency responsible for use tax collection, I am concerned that in its hunger for revenues the California Legislature is traveling down a legally suspect and dangerous path. Rather than educate California taxpayers on their use tax obligations when making purchases from out-of-state sellers, the Legislature is stretching the definition of nexus to the point of absurdity and to the detriment of California’s economy and jobs.

Proponents of AB 28X claim it will “create fairness” by “leveling the playing field” between brick and mortar retailers and online sellers and generate $200 million in new revenues for the state. But in reality the measure… Read More

Senate President Darrell Steinberg has decreed that the Senate will immediately cease confirming any of Governor Brown’s appointees.

I have no idea what kind of pressure this does or does not put on Jerry Brown to bow down to the edicts of Steinberg.

I can, tell you, however, that if the lack of a budget resolution will mean that the confirmation of Brown’s appointees will just continue to hang out there in the legislative ether, I’m okay with that.

Let me add that is awesome that, for once, Republicans are unified and it is the Democrats who are fighting with each other. I hope Californians are watching.… Read More

Controller John Chiang is being a bit of a drama Queen, choosing to pause before confirming that he will continue to pay the salaries and per diem payments to California’s state legislators. When voters passed Proposition 25 last year, it included a provision suspending compensation to legislators if no budget is passed by the Constitutional deadline of June 15. So to be clear, if Democrats had not passed a budget on Wednesday, legislators not be getting paid. It is certainly no accident that the language in Prop. 25 does not tie the legislative pay suspension to the enactment of a budget, just the legislature sending one to the Governor. It would be a stunning display of independence from the state’s public employee unions if Chiang were to withhold the pay of their legislative vassals.

Given that the basic issues surrounding the budget impasse had not materially changed going into the 15th (liberals want to hike taxes to balance the budget, conservatives want cuts, and a small group of moderates want to trade putting taxes on the ballot in return for reforms), and since the legislature has an unfortunate, time honored tradition of ignoring the June… Read More

Ever heard of a deliberative poll? Apparently this is where you bring together some random group of people and give them an informational download and then garner their now-informed opinions. California Forward, New America Foundation, California Common Cause and a group of other left-of-center organizations are bringing together such a group of 300 randomly selected Californians to participate in such a process in about a week, for such a poll that is scheduled to take place over a three day period. The problem, of course, is that normal people — you know, from the real world, don’t spend three-day weekends as human equivalents of laboratory rats. So it leaves you to wonder who actually is participating in this bizarre sociology experiment.

The New America Foundation first got on my radar screen in a big way as they weighed in to bolster efforts by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to significantly expand state government’s role in health care in California, making the case over and over (and over) that the substantial costs (increased taxes) of such an endeavor are offset by reducing the massive… Read More

This morning at a conference of the American Association of Political Consultants in Sacramento, Gloria Fauss confirmed again that the politically liberal union “had a lot of Republican members” who “want us to engage with Republican candidates” for the legislature. Fauss claimed 150,000 members of the SEIU-UHW, who are generally hospital workers. She agreed with other lobbyists on the morning’s panel on “California 2012 – The Wild West”, that candidates from the “extremes” or “one issue” candidates would not receive support. But what Fauss did specifically say, was that her organization was seeking to support Republican candidates willing to support the “revenue” side of the equation in dealing with California’s budget problems. I think it is fair to interpret her comment as meaning the SEIU will be looking for Republican candidates in the 2012 primaries who support raising taxes.… Read More

Yesterday was a very bittersweet day for Californians, relative to their state government, as the Democrats pushed through an “on time” state budget plan. The good news is that due both to the resolve of Capitol Republicans to oppose tax increases, and a seemingly equal resolve by California’s public employee unions to oppose any meaningful spending and pension reforms, the budget that was adopted does not include the placing of massive income, sales and car taxes on a special election ballot, nor does it include the “bridge to nowhere” – our name for the outrageous request of the Governor that the legislature extend such taxes for a year, regardless of what voters might do. So when one considers the actions of the Democrats yesterday, it must be in the context of understanding that things could have been a lot worse.

I couldn’t say it better than Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway: “By standing united together as the last line of defense for California taxpayers, Republicans were able to stop Governor Brown’s massive $58 billion tax increase from becoming reality. This means that hard-working Californians will see much needed tax… Read More