In today’s column in the LA Times, George Skelton points to Governor Schwarzenegger’s decision to cut the car tax in his first day in office in 2003 "forced [Governor Schwarzenegger] into the budget box he found himself in Friday." Skelton also cited borrowing $15 billion to pay off the accumulated Gray Davis debt as another reason. He later cites other things, which I will address later, but I wanted to address these two first.

Let’s look at the numbers again, just to reiterate the impact of the car tax cut on state revenues. The day the car tax was first cut in 1998, total state revenues were $57 billion (Schwarzeneggger’s cut restored the rate to its 1998 level). Today, those revenues are $84 billion, a $27 billion increase in revenues. The total amount of the car tax cut, even assuming the cut had no positive impact on state revenues (by increasing private sector growth, and therefore increasing revenue) was $5 billion. It is simply illogical to conclude this $5 billion reduction in taxes, and not the huge increases in welfare, education, state government and government health care spending, from $57 billion to over $102… Read More

* A clever solicitation from Florida US Senate candidate Marco Rubio – it had a dollar bill paper clipped on it

* A mailer from local Sheriff candidate Scott Jones “Endorsed by Sheriff McGinness”

* A mailer from the Fiorina from with her signature on the taxpayer protection pledge which I swear may have come once before, or something similar “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”

* A mailer from Ted Lieu for Attorney General, addressed to the woman who lived in my house six years ago, and who was a Democrat “Working for You”

* A mailer from local Sacramento City Council candidate Patrick Kennedy. Very clean, well done piece. TODAY’S WINNER.

* A slatemailer from the “California Taxpayer Protection Voter Guide”. Poizner and Fiorina. Not sure who puts this one out.… Read More

Former Vice President Dick Cheney today endorsed the candidacy of Meg Whitman for Governor. You can read his lengthy column in today’s Orange County Register which was as notable for his glowing praise of Whitman as its harsh words for Whitman’s primary opponent, Steve Poizner.

In conjunction with the announcement of Cheney’s support, the Whitman campaign has unleashed pre-recorded messages from Vice President Cheney to Republican primary voters. In the all-positive call, Cheney calls Whitman the "clear conservative choice…"

Cheney is a favorite of most conservatives, thus this a significant "third party endorsement" of Whitman.

You can listen to Cheney’s message below…… Read More

The Sunday roundup from around the region… Docs Weigh in for Wells in AD 77… In what has been a fairly quiet race to succeed Assemblyman Joel Anderson in the 77th District (at least compared to what I’m used to in prior Steve Baldwin, Jay La Suer and Anderson dust-ups), things may finally be getting interesting. The California Medical Association yesterday filed a late independent expenditure report to the tune of over $19,500 for a mailer in support of Bill Wells, as he vies against Brian Jones and Christine Rubin.

The amount may not jump out as that significant, but in a race where fundraising has been on the low side, it may be huge indeed(cash-on-hand for the three contenders was in the 25-30k range thru March 17).

Additionally, in the last couple of days, I’ve received two mailers from Jones and one from Wells. All positive…thus far.

Please toss me a note, if you see anything of interest in… Read More

I think it’s close enough to Election Day to start posting what political mail I received. I’ll start with this weekend:

* Gubernatorial candidate Whitman “Tough as Nails” about illegal immigration (good piece, clear)

* Yes on Proposition 16 (good piece, clear)

* California Voter Guide “Leadership for California” (above US Senate candidate Fiorina it says ‘Sarah Palin says: vote for Carly”)… Read More

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

The new Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, is quickly achieving legendary status… Need to know why? Check out this "confrontation" between Governor Christie and a liberal MSM reporter… Simply awesome.

We happily share conservative icon Tom McClintock’s recommendations each election. These are straight from his own blog… McClintock On the Propositions: Prop. 13. Seismic Retrofits. YES: Earthquake proofing your house shouldn’t trigger a tax increase until you’re ready to sell. Any questions? Prop. 14. Distorted Primary. NO: This was the result of the corrupt deal for the tax increase… Read More