Well, it’s been almost seven long years since the voters of California placed their economic and political future into the hands of Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the State in far worse shape than when he inherited the Davis mess, one could make the case, easily, that when he declared himself to be "post partisan" his chance at becoming effective as Governor ended.

We can all have a romantic vision of post partisanship, but it doesn’t work, and never will. Politics is bloodsport. We are never, ever all just going to "get along". My chief complaint with this Governor is that a man with business experience and a supposedly center right disposition could get his ass handed to him over and over again by leftist legislators with nary a clue on how to run an economy or a government. Arnold had truly been a girly man during his term. He’s got one chance left now to make amends and not leave California hanging over a cliff.

This is the year to shut the State government down in order to make the budget work. There’s no revenue, and there has been no reform of State spending. Taxes can’t be raised unless the… Read More

In the State of the State address yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger talked about using tax incentives on the purchase of green technologies as a means of creating jobs. This is not simply a theoretical notion. The fact is, there are several initiatives throughout the U.S. that could make this piece of the Governor’s plan a reality, and the President and CEO of two of them will be my guest on Go Green Radio tomorrow.

Robbie Diamond is the President & CEO of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) – www.secureenergy.org – , and the Electrification Coalition – www.electrificationcoalition.org -, both nonpartisan, not-for-profit groups of business four star military leaders committed to promoting policies and actions that facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to combat the economic, environmental, and national security dangers caused by our nation’s dependence on petroleum.

Among Robbie’s distinguished group of… Read More

*Note, this post has been updated to include a statement from Senator Walters (below). For those looking for responses to the State of the State Address from particular legislators, I provide links to releases with that information below.

I pulled the quotes from the other Republican women so that I can say we gave attention to all six. : Senator Mimi Walters, Laguna Niguel At a time when our state, and our nation, is suffering from a severe recession, it is critical that we implement policies that will encourage business to remain in California. The economic foundation of our state is… Read More

I just spoke with a longtime FR Blog reader who told me they had only discovered a couple of days ago that we feature original content on our main news aggregation page. Yes, almost every day we have original columns you won’t find anywhere else! Today we have an AFP-CA video and columns from Steve Poizner Sam Aanestad and Brian Nestande that you won’t want to miss.

So if you stop by the FR blog regularly – great! But at least once a day visit the main page, too!

LINK TO MAIN PAGE

Today John Perez, an ultra-liberal Democrat from Los Angeles, was elected Speaker of the Assembly. Good for him – and congratulations. That is a major achievement, especially for a freshman lawmaker. I know that Perez has the best interests of California at heart, even if his left wing ideology will guide him down the wrong path to make our state a better place for Californians to live, work and play.

As was tweeted by Anthony York at Capitol Weekly earlier in the week, and reported by Torey Van Oot on the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert blog this morning that Assembly Republicans will put forward their leader, Sam Blakeslee, for Speaker. They did so, and it made me, as a Republican, proud.

I have written that Republicans as a minority party should put forward their own candidates for leader for many years. I did so when Senator Steinberg was elected Senate President Pro-Tem, and I did so when Speakers Nunez, Bass and now Perez were elected.

Yes, every Assembly Republican knew that the outcome of the Speakership vote was preordained. So… Read More

Yesterday, I posted a blog on Flash Report that disputed the numbers Governor Schwarzenegger used to compare California’s spending of prisons and higher education.

He said during his State of the State speech that California spends 45 percent more on prisons than on higher education. I replied that the state spent 7.3 percent of thetotal state budgeton prisons and 9.7 percent of thetotal state budgeton higher education, which differs vastly from the Governor’s State of the State numbers.

Keep in mind I was using the Governor’s own 2009-10 budget numbers!

Here’s the Governor’s chart (I’ve highlighted prisons in yellowand higher ed in green): (Click on the chart to enlarge it.)

Today, I read a Flash blog that… Read More

Here’s some "instant, lightning round" response to some of the statements of the Governor in his State of the State Address. Excerpts from the Governor’s speech are in quotes, and boldface. My comments follow each quote… "The Schwarzenegger household is something of a menagerie."

No doubt.

"Just last night the Assembly passed major educational reform, reform that once seemed impossible, but now will become law as soon as it hits my desk." Some good reforms. Governor should have noted that it should not have taken federal incentives dangled from 3,000 miles away to get them, and that the federal government should not be crafting state-level policy with payoffs.

"And now we must work to pass the 11 billion dollars in water bonds that will be on the ballot in November." This package… Read More

Today, during the annual State of the State speech, the Governor claimed that California spends 45 percent more on prisons than on higher education.

That’s not true.

In fact, the 2009-10 budget spends 7.3 percent on prisons and 9.7 percent on higher education – and that doesn’t include the billions of private dollars that are invested in our public colleges, universities and junior colleges.

Not only were the Governor’s numbers incorrect, his ideas for reducing prison spending are off the mark. Don’t get me wrong; I strongly champion trimming government spending, but let’s discuss real solutions not feel-good ideas that will never gain traction.

So what should California do to spend less on prisons?

Let’s begin by removing the federal receiver who has been instrumental in costing taxpayers $17,000 per inmate per year for just for health care. This could result inan approximate$2 billion savings per year. It’s a genuine solution that deserves the Legislature and Governor’s attention.… Read More