Pretty soon state government employees won’t be able to take that call outside the office—at least not on the taxpayers’ dime. Governor Jerry Brown announced today that he’s ending cell phone plans for 48,000 state employees and confiscating their phones by June 1. Apparently that’s just half of the cell phones currently in use by government workers. It’s hard to imagine why 40% of state employees have taxpayer-financed cell phones. For the governor’s first executive order, cutting government spending is an encouraging sign. It’s estimated nixing the cell phone usage in half will save the state $20 million. Governor Brown should be applauded for taking his first swipe at cutting government waste. But, as evidenced by his budget proposal yesterday, it’s going to take more than token cuts to solve the $25 billion+ deficit.

Pension reform and ending collective bargaining for state… Read More

I have great respect for tax-fighters like Grover Norquist, Jon Coupal, Ted Costa and others, but I don’t believe Republicans should be afraid to take our issues to voters – and that includes fighting reckless tax increases.

In fact, we should push for it.

I believe raising taxes – particularly when so many families and small businesses are struggling – is unconscionable and reckless. And I think most voters agree with me.

State government spends billions of dollars on meaningless boards and commissions, duplicative bureaucracy, wasteful contracts and overly generous salaries and pensions. Over-regulation, over taxation and meaningless paperwork are choking business and preventing job-recovery. And I think most voters agree with me.

The state needs to cut waste and abuse; eliminate duplication; cut regulation to free up business to create jobs and boost the economy; ratchet down costly salaries, pensions and benefits; and… Read More

Once again Californians are confronted with a huge budget crisis. The fact is for too many years we’ve been spending more money than we should. More money has been going out than revenues coming in.

The real answer to this problem isn’t about how much we can cut. The real answer is getting Californians back to work.

We can solve our budget problem and the best way to do that is by getting Californians jobs, not by raising taxes.

Watch a video of my budget comments here.… Read More

At roughly eleven o’clock this morning, Governor Jerry Brown is expected to hold a press conference and release his proposed state budget for the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Presumably he will also present his proposed revisions to the current budget, which is significantly out of balance. It has been widely reported that Brown will include in his proposal for the 2011-2012 budget placing on the ballot increases in the state’s income tax, alternative minimum tax, sales and use taxes, and an increase in the vehicle license fee.

These tax increases should be a non-starter, and Republicans (rightly so) are already strongly united against putting them forward to voters. It is worth noting that these very same tax increases were placed before voters in a special election in May of 2009 and rejected by almost a two-thirds margin. The fact that Brown would even introduce such an idea represents a bit of hubris from the Democrat Party. You see, it has been decades of liberal policies that have placed California government in such a precarious position. Not only have liberal-dominated legislatures continued to ratchet up spending… Read More

While Jerry Brown campaigned for office with promises of doing things differently, the reality is that today he has demonstrated that he is just another tax and spend Democrat. To ask lawmakers to put what would be the largest tax increase in the history of California on the ballot — and to have the hubris to ask working Californians in the midst of a recession to approve them, exhibits an amazing tone-deafness by Governor Brown. In principle it is unfair to increase taxes on California’s families and businesses to offset decades of overspending by liberal politicians. As a practical matter, voters rejected these very same taxes proposed for a two-year duration (let alone five) just two years ago, and last November voters rejected ballot measures that would raise taxes as well. Brown assumes that voters are either dumb or gullible — as he uses a “Washington Monument” scheme to try to put a gun to the heads of the electorate. The fact remains that Californians are among the highest taxed people in the nation, yet that doesn’t seem to provide enough tax revenue to feed the voracious appetite for spending of Capitol Democrats. The cynicism and… Read More

Governor Brown today rolled out a proposed budget, which you can see summarized here (from the Governor)…

Here are responses from our Republican leaders in the legislature:

From Senate Republicans… Senate GOP Leader Dutton Responds to Budget Proposal Sacramento – Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) issued the following statement on the budget Governor Jerry Brown proposed today: Governor Brown’s budget proposal contains difficult but necessary spending reductions, which Republicans have supported in the past as the best way to address our state budget… Read More

News reports indicate a neighbor of nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green of Tucson was going to Congresswoman Garbrielle Giffords’ event yesterday morning and invited the youngster to come along. Christina had just been elected to the student council at her school and was interested in politics and public service.

Christina was born on September 11, 2001, and her mother says she believes it symbolic of her daughter’s patriotism.

My daugher is also nine and other than knowing I was elected to city council until she was five, hasn’t expressed much of an interest in politics. I’m okay with that, either way.

Yet, reading about that littlevictim, I not only thought about my daughter, but it hit me. The thought of a little girl just elected to her student council. The purest and most innocent expression of representative government, coming face to face with the darkest, sickest form of lashing out against it.

The most tragic of ironies.

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It should really come as no surprise to even the least-seasoned politico that the Sacramento Bee’s editorial board in a sharply penned column today trashes Americans for Tax Reform and their well-regarded no-new-taxes pledge. After all, the Bee’s large editorial board, doesn’t have even one Republican on it — not even a moderate one. This is the same Sacramento Bee editorial page that frequently calls on state legislators to — you guessed it — raise your taxes!

The accusation made in the Bee’s stinging attack on ATR, the pledge, and its President Grover Norquist, is that somehow that they are trying to dictate policy from across the country — admonishing pledge signing legislators that, "…they need to decide whether their allegiance to a demagogue 3,000 miles away trumps their allegiance to California and its citizens."

Give me a break. It is very clear in reading the editorial that ATR and Norquist are the "straw man" — and that in reality the liberal Sacramento Bee Editorial… Read More