During the best of economic times, taxpayers need to be on their guard against special interests who are looking to make big bucks by putting their hands on your tax dollars. Of course, during especially difficult financial periods, like the recession in which we find ourselves today, we all need to be incredibly diligent to guard against this sort of thing — and we expect our politicians to be looking out for us.



That said, I have to once again raise the red cautionary flag for the taxpayers of Los Angeles County, who may have read with some interest that two business titans of the city — AEG Executive Tim Leiweke and Wasserman Media Group founder Casey Wasserman — are actively considering trying to build a pro-football stadium right in downtown Los Angeles (they want to nuke a big chunk of the Convention Center to do it).

The reason why this should worry Los Angelinos? These are the same folks who built the Staples Center and the LA Live! mall that received millions in taxpayer subsidies and continues to get special consideration on taxes… Read More

I’m a Navy Veteran. To some degree, I appreciate all the people and companies who are filling my inbox today with generic spam and ads that have “Thank You to our Veterans” in the subject line, and a variety of promotions and discounts they are offering to “honor my service”. It’s nice that these folks have Veterans on their minds this weekend, but honestly, if you are going to take the time to send me an email or conduct a sale, why don’t you ask me what I really want for Veterans’ Day? Don’t assume I want a mattress sale, a furniture sale, or a discount on my meal. If you really want to honor Veterans, ask us what we want. Here’s what I want for Veterans’ Day: · A pair of pants · A shirt … Read More

Some random thoughts on the passing California political scene…

Apparently in both San Francisco and in Oakland, they have adopted a bizarre method of “ranked voting” in their elections, designed to save the expense of runoff elections. Instead of voting for their favorite candidates, instead they rank-order their favorites – 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice. Then when the ballots are counted, if no one gets a majority, the lowest vote getter is dropped, and the people who voted for that candidate have their votes redistributed to their 2nd choice candidate, and so-on. Totally bizarre. Well, from the “be careful what you ask for…” files, a totally bizarre, off the wall candidate for Oakland Mayor, Councilwoman Jean Quan, who got less than a quarter of the 1st place votes, has apparently emerged as the new Mayor. This system allowed all of the whack votes to ultimately solidify behind the top whack. Crazy. It looks like both the University of California and the California State University systems are going to raise their tuition and fees, respectively. Look for faux outrage from … Read More

The Legislative Analyst has put out their report on the state’s finances. Our government is $25.9 billion dollars out of whack. The Sacramento Bee summarized it thusly (in part):

"Gov.-elect Jerry Brown will face a massive $25.4 billion budget shortfall next year – twice as large as legislative leaders were anticipating – according to a new projection from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

California faces another major budget problem because tax rates are slated to drop next year, the federal government will provide far less relief to states, and state leaders enacted a flimsy fiscal plan last month.

Of the $25.4 billion, $19.3 billion is projected for the 2011-12 fiscal year that begins in July. The remaining… Read More

It was predicted. Dana Point Councilmember Lisa Bartlett pushed through a plan last year, as Mayor, that made hotel taxes in Dana Point even higher than New York City’s. For that, she should have been automatically disqualified for endorsement for re-election to the Council by the Orange County Republican Party. I had warned Scott Baugh and Jon Fleischman that Bartlett would nevertheless be knocking on their door, and had a very bad vote sitting out there. But Scott and Jon soon forget the warning, and local CRA volunteer Craig Alexander, a member of the endorsements committee, who lives in Dana Point and knows Bartlett is a tax raiser, nevertheless quietly cleared her for the endorsement. With that, Bartlett’s manager, Scott Hart, who also produces the “Continuing the Republican Revolution” slate, produced a mailing for Bartlett littered with references to her Orange County GOP endorsement, including the official seal of the party. In the meantime, Baugh called Bartlett, and as I understand subsequent events, she pledged to never raise taxes again. But last night, less than one week after her re-election, Bartlett simply walked out before a… Read More

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Here are a couple of good items from today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail from FR friend John Fund… … Read More

This isthe followup to mycomments of last Thursday.

As bad as it was for Republicans Tuesday, one can see that, still, voters on one hand, are for limited and accountable government. What am I talking about? The election in California was a total wipeout. Yes, of course it was on the statewide offices. But we look to the propositionsand one can see the roots of a conservative, keep-government-off-my-back mentality.Now the logic of placing the candidates in statewide office in that same election that defy those tenets of limited and accountable government, is the voter schizophreniathat election experts and party officials are always trying to get a handle on. So it happens again in California as it appears 8 or even all 9 statewide elections will go to Democrat candidates.Even then,several good propositions passed and bad ones were stopped.

My own favorites were that Prop 20 passed and Prop 27 was soundly defeated, meaning the redistrictingprocess will be at least 90% cleaner than it has been with… Read More