Speaker Bass has to go!

California’s budget crisis cannot be solved until those responsible are removed from leadership. Last February the “big five’ leaders from both parties in both houses plus the Governor, rammed down billions in new taxes and put to vote more billions on the May 19th ballot. That didn’t work.

Everyone knows the new taxes didn’t resolve the budget gap and the voters in a 2-1 vote scuttled the new new tax increases.

So far of the original gang of 5, two have been removed. If the budget log-dam is to be broken we need new more flexible leaders.

Speaker Bass is ineffective to do the job. She has to go. Sadly, Bass has only one constituency she must answer to. Government unions are her only and sole concern. They elected her. They funded her. They control her. Since 2003 California government has grown with over 50,000 net new state employees, all union members. Don’t let anyone tell you there a hiring freeze either.

Bass doesn’t have the background for… Read More

Nothing surprises me anymore. Including the findings from a recent study that shows AB 32 (the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) will impose staggering costs on California families, workers and small businesses.

The study, conducted by Sanjay Varshney, dean at Sac State’s College of Business Administration, finds that when the plan is fully implemented, "California families will be facing increased annual costs of $3,857 …"

Let me repeat that: Your family and mine will shell out an additional Three Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty Seven Dollars annually. How many families are in the position to bear the burden of such a substantial increase in living expenses? Not many. Furthermore, how many families are willing to spend money on a law like AB 32 that is founded on mythical claims?

The study also found that California’s job loss will top one million and the total gross state output by small businesses will decrease by 10 percent. In other words, AB 32 gives small… Read More

As a freshman legislator, it’s astounding to me how many times I’ve already come across scenarios in which common sense has failed to prevail. The latest is so aggravating, that I feel compelled to share.

AB35XXX was just put on “Suspense” by a vote of 7-5, with every Democrat voting for the Suspense motion, and every Republican voting against. The bill would have saved taxpayer dollars while minimizing the impact in the summer-break of the kids and parents who are being punished for a minor mistake made by Chino Valley Unified. The district miscalculated a few minutes in their bell schedule, forcing a few schools to extend their school year by 34 extra days…which in turn forced students and parents to cancel summer plans, vacations, camps, etc. This bill would have minimized the impact of that error.

The fact that the bill was put on the Senate Appropriations’ “Suspense File” only surprises me a little bit; after all this is not the first time that a common sense piece of legislation has been… Read More

Speaker Bass has to go!

California’s budget crisis cannot be solved until those responsible are removed from leadership. Last February the “big five’ leaders from both parties in both houses plus the Governor, rammed down billions in new taxes and put to vote more billions on the May 19th ballot. That didn’t work.

Everyone knows the new taxes didn’t resolve the budget gap and the voters in a 2-1 vote scuttled the new new tax increases.

**There is more – click the link**

View Full Commentary… Read More

Last we checked, Monday is a "work day" for full-time legislators. Also, last we checked, the state is still dealing with a massive budget short-fall that is only going to be fixed by legislative action — which is needed, like, yesterday.

If you looked around the building today for a meeting of the Fab Five (OK, that’s "Big 5" in Capitol parlance) — you won’t find one.

The Governor’s around. The Senate Republican Leader is around. The Assembly Speaker is around. The Assembly Republican Leader is around.

But someone is missing…

Who could it be?

Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg has DISAPPEARED. Rumor has it that he isn’t even in California.

WHERE’S DARRELL?… Read More

The BoE has released its 2007-08 Annual Report that breaks down the $53.1 billion in revenue collected by the BoE in year ending June 30, 2008. The BOE collected approximately $700 million less than the previous fiscal year, a decrease of 1.3 percent.

It is clear the economy was getting softer in the first half of last year and that retail sales were declining even more than other revenue categories. In light of this, February’s decision to raise the sales tax by one percent was a punitive and destructive decision. The Governor and legislators that signed off on it claimed raising the sales tax would bring in $6 billion more in revenue, despite the dynamic revenue analysis of the BoE’s chief economist showing that a … Read More

Question: What is significant about this amount of money? $15,000,000.00. Answer: According to the British Government, that is the cost of one of Queen Elizabeth’s two Golden Jubilee Bentley state limousines.

Second Answer: According to a campaign release, that is the amount of money that former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has added to her campaign coffers today in the form of one large campaign contribution.

Whitman had already dropped a cool $4 million into her own campaign, bringing the total of self-funding to a staggering $19 million. Add to this her impressive haul of $6.7 million from donations and that makes for a lot of green stuff.

Whitman’s wealthy primary opponent, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, has put over $4 million of his own into his campaign account, and raised another $1.2 on top of that.

Before you let these numbers glaze your eyes — based on the net worth of the candidates, and how badly each wants to be Governor of California… Read More

It didn’t take long for split roll property tax advocates to make their way into the headlines. Bottom line–split roll property tax and any similar tinkering with Proposition 13 will kill jobs in California. Below is a recent op ed I wrote for the North County Times on the subject:

Forum: Split-roll property tax proposal a job killer By NATHAN FLETCHER — 75th District assemblyman

In a crisis a lot of new ideas are put on the table. Many of these are welcomed additions to the debate. I’m particularly fond of new ways to make government work better-more accountably, more efficiently, and more transparently. There are some reform proposals that focus on using technology to open up state government for review and reorganization. There are other ideas for structural change-two-year performance-based budgets, term limit changes, instituting a part-time legislature, even calls for a constitutional convention. I have read about some cutting-edge steps to once again make California a competitive place to start and grow a business and to create jobs. All of these ideas have merit… Read More