It’s the final hours of the 2009-2010 legislative session here in California and legislators are furiously passing bills left and right to beat the constitutional deadline. Legislators did take the time today to vote down two budget proposals, but as Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said, "I feel an urgency, but not an urgency at any price, and that’s really what this has come down to."

And that’s the problem. Legislators seem to have no incentive to pass a budget this year. This is the second longest period the state has gone without passing a budget (In 2008, it was 85 days past due.). Some have even speculated Governor Schwarzenegger would like to hand the unpleasant responsibility of trying to hammer out a budget to the next occupant of the horseshoe.

But just because it’s hard work doesn’t mean politicians can be let off the hook that easily. It’s time for legislators and the governor to declare a moratorium on any legislation that isn’t related to the budget process. Americans for Prosperity… Read More

People and businesses make economic decisions every day. To spend or not to spend; to borrow or not to borrow; to lend or not to lend; to invest or not to invest. In making these, and arguably almost any decision, we weigh whether the benefits and return from taking that action outweigh the costs and risks. If you believe that your potential return on an investment is greater than the risks, then you are likely to do it. If you think the benefit of buying something is equal to or greater than the cost, then you will spend that money.

On a macro-economic scale, there are a lot of risks out there right now. There is a lot of talk about potential disinflation or deflation, but yet the mounting debt augurs for monetization and rampant inflation in the future. We may have a “double dip” recession, or perhaps not. Gold may stay at its record highs and interest rates at their record lows, or it could all reverse. In the words of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the current economy is “unusually uncertain”.

Uncertainty increases the perception of risk and analysis of costs when making those economic decisions. So, the uncertainty causes… Read More

Last week Democrat consultant Robin Swanson dubbed me Jon “Sherlock Holmes” Fleischman for outing Jerry Brown’s potentially illegal secret meeting with an organized labor boss. That same labor boss is currently providing funding for one of the independent union efforts attacking Meg Whitman and the law requires that no coordination occur. You can read more about it here, but I digress.

Given my new moniker, I now bring you The Case of the Vanishing Tweet.

Last Friday, Jerry Brown tweeted:

“ @JerryBrown2010 <http://twitter.com/JerryBrown2010/status/22299760434… Read More

Today was the final day of the legislative session. For those brave enough, like me, to watch much of the shameful legislation being pushed through by the Democrats – it was almost too much to take. I truly think that we all need to chip in to provide for each Republican legislator to get professional counseling for having had to live through it in person. Mid-day yesterday, Congressman Tom Price (R-GA), the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee in Congress, stopped by my office (we did an interview which you can see on the blog later today). When he came in, I pointed out to him that the State Assembly was debating legislation introduced by Democrats to prohibit employers from using the credit history of a perspective employee as a factor in the hiring decision. He was as outraged as I was.

I did want to share a piece of good news. Much has been written about here on the FlashReport about Assembly Bill 1998 – legislation pushed by an evil coalition of eco-whack legislators and greedy grocers, that sought to both ban the use of plastic bags at grocery and drug stores – and also apply a new state-mandated… Read More

Yesterday, showed exactly why it is hard to get things done in Sacramento . Senate Bill 399 would overturn a voter approved initiative and allow the state to re-sentence violent juveniles that have been sentenced to life without parole. Needless to say this has been controversial. As it came to the floor of the Assembly, it was clear the bill didn’t have the votes to pass. This particular piece of bad legislation has had so many lives I have nearly lost count. I first encountered this public safety nightmare in 2009 when it came before the Assembly Public Safety Committee of which I am vice chair. At that time the committee believed SB 399 was a bad idea and it did not garner the votes to pass. Fast forward to January 2010 during a month when the legislature is focused on getting two year… Read More

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that 2010 is shaping up to be a very good year for Republicans. Every day there is another article that talks about it (here is today’s in The Hill) — and it should come as no shock to lawmakers of either party that the reason for this trend shift away from Democrats and to the GOP is because of overreach.

Most of the political factors that go into voter decision-making are geared around the national political scene — where Democrats are reeling from a hard-left push. Whether you look at Obamacare (and its significant costs), whether you look at the federal so-called "stimulus" spending which isn’t helping the private sector economy as much as it has been a boondoggle to support the public sector, or whether you look to efforts to create artificial government-created scarcities (like with the "cap and… Read More

This is a crazy week in the State Capitol as tomorrow is the deadline to get bills passed and to the governor’s desk.While many of the bills considered each year are either silly or simply written to correct a mistake created by previous bill, there is one piece of legislation that I’m hoping makes it to Gov. Schwarzenegger.But it is a long shot. AB 378 (Hagman) would clarify what constitutes continuing education for registered nurses.While it seems like this would fall into the “do we really need a bill?” category, the answer is, “unfortunately, yes.”Just look to the political games the California Nurses Association plays (in the name of “patient care”) and you’ll understand why. Recently, lawmakers were alerted to CNA representatives promising continuing education credits to nurses who … Read More

Here is a video of my speech at last weekend’s convention. Thank you all who attended and voiced your support for sending a true fiscal conservative to the Controller’s office! … Read More