If there is at least one good thing that has come out of the Governor’s bargaining with the Legislature over tax and budget issues, it is Jerry Brown’s call for closing down the redevelopment agency scam that has allowed tax-and-spend Councilmembers and City Managers in local cities like pristine Mission Viejo to declare themselves ‘blighted communities" and then setup new taxing and spending authority to build corporate welfare edifices such as shopping centers anchored by up-scale stores like Williams-Sonoma and Nordstrom’s. It just doesn’t make economic sense for taxpayers, especially most taxpayers, who shop at WalMart, not Restoration Hardware.

Republican Assemblyman Chris Norby is a fighter against the redevelopment scam, having countered the policy on the Fullerton City Council, as a County Supervisor, and now in the Legislature. He is willing to be one of the just two votes the Governor needs to knock out this bad policy and save our budget millions in useless tax and spending authority.

The… Read More

Here is today’s lesson in our bilingual education program. For all the complaints that conservatives have about bilingual education in schools, it is actually a bigger problem in one really important area-government budgeting. Government budget experts do not communicate in English. Yes, the words they utter have English-like sounds, and the markings they make on paper have English-like appearance, but the sounds and the marks they make do not have English meanings. It is a foreign language, spoken every day in the halls of power around the country, and no one complains about it.

For instance, when they say they wish to "implement new sources of revenue," that means they want to take more money from you or your neighbor. For instance, they may wish to "increase user fees." They will say that it is only fair for the user of a service to have to pay for that service. Like the DMV. Why, the car tax is simply a user fee. Of course, if you don’t pay the fee, you can go to jail (because if your car is not registered you can be arrested), but you are using this valuable government… Read More

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Recently conservative State Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries announced that he will be running for his local seat on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors in 2012. This, of course, was not welcome news for the longtime incumbent of that office, Supervisor Bob Buster, who has announced his intention to seek election yet again to the office he has held since 1992.

There will be a number of key issues on which Buster and Jeffries disagree, but it would appear that one of the most significant is going to be the question of whether taxes are too high or too low. Yesterday Buster voted with a majority of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors (Benoit and Stone voting no) to endorse Governor Brown’s local government realignment plan, which is, of course, predicated on the voters of California passing the… Read More

After 18 years as a CRP delegate and Executive Committee member, two terms as CRP Vice Chairman Central, a term as CRP Treasurer and the past 4 years on the CRP Rules Committee, I’ll have to admit, many CRP convention agendasdon’t inspire me to attend. In fact, if there is nothing interesting going on, in many cases I no longer attend conventions.But because the Party was considering, through the Rules Committee, a way to endorse candidates and select nominees in a post Prop 14 era, I thought I would make the trek to Sacramento to weigh in and be a part of the process this past weekend. My mission: make sure any plan passing the Rules Committee included no special protection for incumbent legislators.

I left Fresno Friday morning asa strong supporter of the Nehring plan. Here is the language I liked: (K) DISTRICTS WITH A REPUBLICAN INCUMBENT… Read More

Conservative State Senator Joel Anderson recently introduced his proposal to eliminate CalTrans. Early today Senator Anderson introduced this idea to the weekly Heritage Foundation Boggers Briefing in Washington, D.C. Anderson appears by video-conference. So below is your chance to see Anderson talking about the bill (its the first agenda item for the group)…

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Do you know anyone who still is on a T-Mobile phone? I know a few. That said, I was shocked when I looked it up — over 33 MILLION Americans are on T-Mobile!

My interest was peaked because of the big news that AT&T is acquiring T-Mobile. This will make AT&T the largest provider of wireless service in the U.S. by far — at around 130 million customers. Behind them will be Verizon with 96 million customers. From there, you have TracFone (17 million), MetroPCS (8 million), U.S. Cellular (6 million) and so on.

The first thought that I had? That it is nice to see a big American company like AT&T expanding, by gobbling up a European one. I am not protectionist, and am an advocate for fair and free trade. But we’re in a nationwide period of economic malaise — so seeing someone on the "home… Read More

On a party line vote the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee this afternoon passed out Assembly Bill 153 by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley).

Although not surprised, I’m disappointed by the Committee’s decision to move forward with a tax measure that will cost California jobs and hurt state revenues. There are as many as 25,000 internet affiliate businesses based in our state that could be wiped out by this bill.

Leading online retailers, including Amazon and Overstock, have informed me that passage of this bill will force them to terminate their relationships with their California-based affiliates.

Out-of-state retailers, with no physical presence in the California, have no legal obligation to collect California’s sales or use taxes. AB 153 is trying to redefine ‘physical presence’ to include the use of online affiliate advertisers based in California.

The bill simply won’t work. Out-of-state retailers will cut ties with their California affiliates and continue selling to California consumers. The only thing AB 153 does is kill up to 25,000 affiliate jobs in California. That’s the last… Read More