With the March election over, the next big vote comes in November. In California, the Presidential race is unimportant — the Democrat’s nominee will win in CA in a landslide, and all the Electoral College votes will be awarded to the winner.

But the fall California election will be HUGELY important, as there will literally be HUNDREDS of new tax increases on ballots across the Golden State. One statewide levy will stand out — a multi-billion dollar annual property tax increase on our beleaguered California businesses. It will be the first phase in the progressives’ attempt to gut the REAL Prop 13 that limits the taxation ofallof our real estate.

There’s much to be debated about this tax, but I’d like to start the discussion by questioning the fundamental tenet of the Democratic Party — businesses don’t pay enough taxes in our state. Of course, it’s NEVER “enough.”

Our CA property tax BILLS are actually quite high — for both businesses and homes. That’s because of the high cost of California real estate — the culmination of decades of bad state and local… Read More

As a columnist sometimes one wonders where the next column is coming from. You need an idea. Then lightning strikes. In this case, what we are talking about could be a small side show, but it is a philosophically defining moment that brings great clarity to everything the Left does.

Have you gotten a traffic ticket in California recently? It used to be you could go to traffic school and that would relieve you of the fine and erase the ticket on your record. No more. You have to pay the fine even if you go to traffic school. And the fines have become insane. It will cost you $500 if you get caught turning right on a red light without coming to a proper stop. Some drivers have been hit with a $1,000 fine for that little transgression.

These fees are obviously ridiculous. The government in California sees this as an easy target –very much like hotel taxes. They see these people as able to pay so let’s go after their money. Who you going to complain to? They anticipate huge revenue from these fines. The total in 2019 was $1.4 billion. When you have an immense number of employees and ridiculous pension payouts you must somehow feed the beast. The problem is… Read More

For a variety of reasons, the number of California children under age 18 has been steadily dropping — EVERY year from the 2004 peak. From an education spending standpoint, this rock-solid trend is a BIG deal! And it’s a big deal not only for public school age children, but also when deciding about the future need for expandingcollegefacilities.

But first, let’s look at our youth population trend. Here’s a simple chart of the “18 and under” children in California during this century. This number includes babies, toddlers and kids in both public and private schools. Many of these kids will later be seeking to go to college.

California

Less than age 18

Year Number

2000 9,267,089

2001 9,325,466

2002 9,365,142

2003 9,404,594

2004 … Read More

In March California voters may well vote to go further into debt with a mislabeled “Prop 13” $15 billion state bond measure. I’ve previously written an article about why this con job (using “Prop 13”) is a terrible idea.

But I must credit the recent SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE editorial opposing this March Prop 13 (occasionally they get something right) with presenting an additional devastating point that needs emphasis. It’s worth quoting and expanding on. It’s an insight that no one is raising:

“Sadly, the days when California required 35-year bonds be used only tobuild long-term capital improvementsare long gone. Proposition 13 specifies $5.8 billion would go to K-12 schools to build,repairandmodernize schools. What does this mean with current loose rules? Districts use long-term borrowing to pay for… Read More

After a short time, it seemed like Bluto (John Belushi) would come out on stage and start throwing cake. Or maybe Harpo Marx would start blowing his horn at the participants. Yet, all we had was the remaining candidates for the Democrats’ nomination for president. This was a political spectacle never quite seen before.

One would think they might anticipate having a large audience derived from the addition of Moneybags Bloomberg to the lineup after he poured hundreds of millions into his campaign. It turns out the TV audience was the largest ever for a Democrat debate. Excellent timing for the six people on stage to go after each other like family members after the death of the wealthy matriarch.

Fifteen minutes into the debate I tweeted we are really going to need fact checkers for this slugfest. But, since they are all left-wing operations, that would be futile. True to form PolitiFact almost exclusively went after Bloomberg while letting the others off the hook.

One fascinating part of this debate was how little the opposing candidates went after frontrunner Bernie Sanders. Here is a question that one of them needs to ask, but never have: “Senator… Read More

A smart friend of mine reminded me of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Very few Americans are aware of the pyramid of actualization that Dr. Maslow developed, but when explained to them they would see it as common sense. They would also recognize that for many Americans the Trump Presidency has allowed them to reach the top of the five levels.

In 1943, Dr. Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs that humans experience. He went on to refine it, but the pyramid defines how modern life works. Obviously, the goal is to work your way to the top. Going through the levels, we can see how Trump has gotten more Americans to level five than his recent predecessors.

The first level is physiological needs. Those are your basic human needs for food, shelter, clothing, etc. Few Americans are challenged at this level. The homeless in urban environments are a recent development as to whether all Americans fulfill their needs at this level. Think of third world countries where people lack the basics such as a clean water supply. Our country has risen above that as have other first world countries. Once you don’t need to worry about those basics, you go to the other… Read More

Lost amidst the tumult of the last several weeks was the quiet passing of an outspoken leader of California – H.L. “Bill” Richardson. H.L., as he was known to his friends, arrived in the California State Senate with the freshman class of 1966, part of the Reagan landslide that year.

For every one of the 22 years he served in the Senate, H.L. was a force to be reckoned with. He served for many years in the Republican leadership, but he was never, ever, a political insider. His enormous influence inside the senate stemmed from the fact that he never joined that club – he never lost sight of the people who elected him – and he not only worked tirelessly to serve them inside the capitol – he worked even harder to organize, inform and mobilize them outside the capitol.

He founded a multitude of advocacy groups to empower the millions of Californians who believed in individual liberty and economic freedom. He started the “Free Market Political Action Committee,” to support free market principles and the candidates who embraced them, and it became the inspiration and prototype of groups like the Club for Growth and Americans for… Read More

California made a dramatic splash with the passing of the now infamous AB5. The bill, which became law on January 1, 2020, codified and expanded a California Supreme Court ruling dictating that virtually anyone working for your company except specifically excluded professions is a W-2 employee. These employees include ever-escalating minimum wages, egregious unemployment and worker compensation costs. The California state government continues to intensify their micromanaging of California businesses.

In addition to the dramatic AB5, the state legislature passed and the governor signed into law 18 bills in one year that control how business owners operate their businesses. That might make sense if the elected leaders knew how to run businesses or even had experience working in private industry beyond a teenage job at a burger joint. The Assembly has 80 members, of which 61 are Democrats. Those Democrats collectively have six who actually worked in private industry for any discernible time. Two of those were doctors/dentists who ran a practice. The remainder either were attorneys, labor leaders or spent their entire careers in positions related to government or as an… Read More