I get so sick of the ad hominem "news stories" every budget cycle about how the poor and disabled are going to be hurt by every single budget the Governor proposes. These stories always lay the pretext and give fuel for the Democrats in the Legislature to tear apart necessary reforms. I frankly think they are coordinated with the Democrat leaders in the Legislature. Today the Los Angeles Times once again includes an above the fold headline "Governor’s budget deals blow to poor" and a story about how children, state workers, and welfare will be affected. One of these days I am going to hire ace researcher Jim Sills to track every headline the L.A. Times has ever written about Arnold’s budgets, or Pete Wilson’s budgets and predecessor’s budgets, and publish them here. They will most certainly be rehashes of the same old story by lazy journalists just doing things the easy and expected way.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a headline like,… Read More

We’re going to start posting up .pdfs of the major slate cards that are dropping around the state (note: are you a slate mailing company? Send us your .pdfs!) — so that you can see what they look like, and who they are featuring for office. Of course each is a sample, so you’ll know who they are carrying statewide, and in the local area that happens to match up with the sample they send.

The first slate is the National Tax Limitation Committee’s Voter Guide, which is managed by Jim Lacy’s Landslide Communications. The piece goes out to 1,400,000 households, targeting GOP voters. Yes, they will mail in the fall. Go to their website if you want to inquire about how to get on it.

Click on the images to enlarge.… Read More

Unfortunately we are all used to the fact that when the Governor issues lists of new appointees, it is filled with Republicans and Democrats and people of neither party. These days, it is not uncommon to see Republicans on the short end when you tally the batch of appointees.

What is not very common, though, is to see the Governor to appoint members of minor third parties. In the case of today’s appointments, the Governor has appointed a member of the Green Party to a position over at the Public Utilities Commission:

The Meg Whitman campaign has launched a new radio ad featuring Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President (and FlashReport contributor) Jon Coupal… (h/t to Richard Costigan, who alerted us to this on his twitter feed)…

… Read More

There was a bit of good news Thursday in the fight for Republicans to hold onto the 15th Senate District Seat formerly held by Abel Maldonado (some would actually call it a chance for a GOP pick-up!): Monterey County officials reported that the U.S. Justice Department registered no objection to their initial request for holding a special election on June 22. This means that the federal government has not yet been persuaded by any of the rather outrageous legal objections (the election violates the Voting Rights Act, is racist, etc.) Democrats have been raising to try to delay the election until November, when more rank-and-file Democrat voters tend to turn out.

To recap, this all started six months ago, when Governor Schwarzenegger first appointed (sigh) Abel Maldonado to be Lieutenant Governor. In a blatant political move, Speaker Perez and company turned Maldonado’s February hearing into a race-baiting partisan spectacle with no consensus, and then delayed his second hearing several weeks so that the deadline would pass for consolidating the special election with the June primary.

Nomination of Maldonado aside, fortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger… Read More

My statement on the May Budget Revision…

“The budget cuts proposed by Governor Schwarzenegger are tough ones – but are realistic ones, given that revenues simply aren’t available to fund state government and its spending programs at their current level. The reality is that California is in a recession, and when the economy restricts, that means that the size of the state government must do the same. What cannot be on the table – which seems to be acknowledged in this May revision – is asking already over-taxed Californians to pay more in taxes. Blame lies on the Democrats for the tragedy of this situation – which has been directly caused by excessive social program spending, massive and unsustainable concessions to public employee unions, and draconian regulations that have caused terrible damage to this state’s economic health. I commend the Governor for having the courage to set out as a priority in this budget… Read More

Greek Tragedy: There has been much publicity as of late, particularly among the financial community, about the fiscal problems in Greece. The Greek government has spent far more money than it has taken in and done it for enough years that they now have a huge deficit and an even bigger debt. There are fears that Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland could be next. Stock markets around the world lurched downward out of fear that these systemic debts and deficits may not be able to be repaid and that these countries may need to default on their debt.

But they are not alone. Here are the current year deficits (2010) and outstanding national debt as a percentage of that country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Greece, the largest European countries and the U.S.:

Country

Deficit as % of GDP

Public Debt as % of GDP

Americans for Prosperity of California, part of the national grassroots taxpayer advocacy organization, issued its own statement about the Governor’s revised budget today, which I have posted below. One of the key budget points for taxpayer protection groups is the Governor’s commitment to cutting spending.

As noted in the press release below, Democrats are simply returning to an already-dry well by demanding more and higher taxes. This is a short-sighted plan that will only serve to worsen California’s dwindling tax base. It may seem like inverse logic to Democrats, but cutting taxes in the short-term will actually lead to increased tax revenue in the long-term as businesses and taxpayers thrive and the tax base grows.