Quote of the Week: “I don’t know anything about cars” – Edward Whitacre, new Chairman of General Motors. Saturn: As most readers of this missive know, before losing my mind and entering politics, I was in the car dealership business for 25 years. As many of you probably don’t know, I was the first Saturn retailer (Saturn was avoiding the term "dealer") chosen by the company back in 1987. I was on the "Franchise Operations Team" that helped develop and grow the retail system that has demonstrated its success in providing high levels of customer service. I opened one of the first 25 stores in 1989 and eventually owned and operated 5 Saturn Facilities in Orange County by 1997. I sold my business to a subsidiary of General Motors in 1998 when GM (in one of their many recent mistakes) decided that they could run dealerships better than individual dealers could, and my business was their first acquisition (That experiment failed a few years later and they sold the stores back into the market). As you can imagine, I have more than a little experience with the … Read More

FR readers should be advised that in order to catch a very early flight, the main page links were pulled together between 2-3am. It’s possible that some stories were not updated on newspaper sites that early. That is certainly the case with the San Francisco Chronicle, which you may want to check for yourself.

Sorry for any inconvenience.… Read More

Pacific Legal Foundation announced today that it is filing a lawsuit to challenge Caltrans’ new race- and sex-based quotas projects. According to PLF, Caltrans announced in March that it would be implementing the 2009 Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program, which “sets a quota of having 6.75 percent of contracts go to women or members of targeted, preferred groups – African American, Asian-Pacific American, and Native American (but not Latinos or any other group).” PLF filed the lawsuit on behalf of Associated General Contractors of America, San Diego Chapter.

During a media conference call today announcing the lawsuit, PLF principal attorney Sharon Browne explained that this new program not only violates the United States Constitution’s equal protection, it violates California’s Proposition 209. In fact, Ward Connerly, the former UC Regent who led the campaign to end race-based quotas in California’s government institutions, participated in the media conference call. Connerly stated that it’s wrong to place the construction industry in the… Read More

This just in from Assemblyman Martin Garrick who last week was named Assistant Assembly Republican Leader:

Predictably, the public employee union bosses and various left wing groups are calling for the repeal of various tax breaks on businesses that were part of the infamous big taxes/big spending/open primary budget deal that took place last February. In return for their political support for the $14+ billion in income, sales and car taxes in that deal, and support for another $16+ billion in more taxes in funding the Yes on 1A campaign (which thankfully lost), the "business community" got tax breaks through that will save business between $1-2.5 billion. Of course, since business in California is particularly overtaxed in the "Golden" state, who can blame them? Well, okay, I can. The whole thing stunk — where the business community should have allied with taxpayer protection groups and the Republican Party against ANY new taxes, they… Read More

The Orange County Register’s Brian Joseph is their Sacramento bureau chief and he wrote a great article on the State’s budget woes that appeared on the front page of Sunday’s paper. With the several other articles sharing the cover I decided that not even this Flash Report could replace the OC Register or other print dailies.

I wrote a column that appears on today’s Irvine World News on the subject of newpapers. You can check in out here.

I read a lot of new online, but there is something about grabbing the paper from the driveway that I enjoy and hope I always get to do.… Read More

This was just released to the public…

June 11, 2009

An Open Letter to Elected Officials: We, the undersigned taxpayer advocates, have grave concerns about the current effort to amend the California Constitution in a manner which would allow a simultaneous or subsequent initiative calling for a Constitutional Convention. Rather than being a panacea for California’s woes, such an effort could very well result in the weakening or outright repeal of vital taxpayer protections such as Proposition 13 and Proposition 218, the Right to Vote on Taxes Act. At the outset, we acknowledge the good intentions of many of the individuals and organizations who have previously supported the notion of a Constitutional Convention. Notwithstanding these good intentions,… Read More

The Governor proposed, and the Legislature is considering, imposing a 9.9 percent severance tax on oil production in California.

The chart(shown below) shows where California compares to other oil generating states. The bottom line is that California is already among the most heavily taxed states in the country relative to oil production. If the Legislature agrees to impose this new oil tax, California’s combined taxes on petroleum would make it far and above the highest taxed state in the nation.

In addition, the new oil tax will reduce the supply of oil produced in California, result in close to 10,000 lost jobs in California, and increase our dependency on oil imports (including from Venezuela, which is presided over by despotic leader Hugo Chavez). Since the transportation, distribution and refining cost of importing oil are greater than the costs associated with California oil production, consumers will pay higher gasoline prices as a result of the severance tax.

Source: An economic and… Read More