For the past week conservative talk show hosts have been following the unfolding scandal of President Obama’s firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is actually at the center of this scandal, as it was his non-profit organization Walpin discovered was abusing federal grants.

It was alleged that Johnson’s charity St. HOPE Academy misused the federal money for political purposes and personal errands—such as car washes—for Johnson. Johnson and his charity agreed to pay back $847,000 worth of grants they received from AmeriCorps between 2004 and 2007. Sacramento voters will recall that last year during the campaign for mayor, this scandal threatened to derail John’s bid to unseat incumbent Heather Fargo. But Johnson was able to survive the bad publicity and ultimately defeat Fargo.

Late last week Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck brought national attention to the fact an independent inspector general had been unceremoniously fired from his job and questioned the possible political motivation behind it. It was suggested that the firing… Read More

Have you ever wondered how much money your local school district receives and how its academic achievement ranks compared to its neighbors?

That fairly simple information has been hard to come by, but the Pacific Research Institute has finally created a database that puts such information at your fingertips. Their School Finance Center website gives you data for the school districts and charter schools in California. One of my favorite features of the site is a simple chart that looks like your gas tank. It shows you from the lowest to the highest where your district ranks in academic achievement and in money received per student. My Republican colleagues and I recently unveiled a reform proposal, “Roadmap To California’s Future,” which calls for more legislative sunshine and accountability. This School Finance Center website helps to achieve that goal of transparency because it clearly demonstrates how much money is being spent and how well students are performing. As you can see from the data, there is no correlation between student performance and more money—some schools do better with less money while others to worse with more… Read More

ASSEMBLYMAN NIELSEN ENDORSES WHITMAN This morning, Assemblyman and former Senate Republican Leader Jim Nielsen announced that he has decided to switch his loyalties and endorsement in the contested Republican primary for Governor. He had earlier endorsed Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. He is now throwing his support to former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Nielsen was recently tapped by Assembly Republican Leader Sam Blakeslee, a Poizner supporter, to serve in a newly created "Ways and Means Committee Chairman" position for Assembly Republicans — serving as Vice Chairman of both the Assembly Ap propriations and Budget Committees.

While Poizner has a vast edge over Whitman when it comes to endorsements from elected Republican federal and state legislators, this is the second legislator in a week’s time who had been supporting him that has now moved to Whitman. Congressman John… Read More

Los Angeles County came out with a proposal to cut welfare costs today, or at least that is what they called it. In the world of government, where black is white, and a spending increase is a cut, these bureaucrats think they are helping "balance the budget." Their proposal, however, is an example of just how far off the reservation our government has gone. These bureaucrats want to use the child care money to pay parents to take care of their own children. Think of it this way, welfare recipients get their welfare money to stay home, and then, on top of that, they get child care money to take care of their own kids. What an idea. Does anyone really think that welfare recipients will make any effort to get off the rolls, once they hit this gravy train?

I was the Vice Chair of the Committees that oversaw welfare policy for 12 years. It is the worst job for a Republican in the Legislature. Thousands of whining bureaucrats trot out the sob stories of society for hours on end, demanding more government spending. Truth is, 75% of the money spent on our welfare programs are spent on bureaucrats, administrators, or wealthy vendors, while the… Read More

Op ed from today’s Union Tribune here.

California is facing a 24 billion dollar deficit. While there is no shortage of ideas for how to deal with it, I suggest we learn a lesson from Clyde Jennings, the CEO of J&W Lumber. On a recent visit to his facility, Clyde told me about the difficult cuts he has been forced to make in our declining economy, the efficiencies he has found, and how every member of his 50-year… Read More

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is deserving of praise this morning, for his quick and public rejection of the billions of dollars in tax increases that are included in the package of changes in the state budget introduced by Democrat legislative leaders yesterday. Key provisions of the Democrats’ plan include a 50% hike in state cigarette taxes as well as the creation of a tax on oil. Governor Schwarzenegger has made it clear that he will veto this package if it is placed on his desk as proposed. Of course, even before the Governor gets legislation to fix the budget deficit, there is the question of whether Democrats will work with legislative Republicans – their track-record for doing so isn’t so good, and it was not a positive sign that Republican legislators pretty much found out about the details of this proposal at the same time as the rest of us. A bi-partisan fix is important because without a 2/3 vote in the Senate and Assembly, it will be several months before any of the changes are enacted. With the supermajority support, changes go into effect immediately.

I am sure that many will scrutinize the details of this latest proposal, which purports to… Read More

WALTERS IS BLOGGING THE BUDGET CONFERENCE State Senator Mimi Walters, one of three Republicans on the Budget Conference Committee who opposed the ill-fated big taxes/big budget/open primary deal last February, has set up a blog (www.waltersreport.com) to keep interested parties up to speed on what is going on in that key committee…

Senator Walters had this to say to FR:

There are many negative effects throughout both the private and public sectors that have resulted from the plummet of stock values on Wall Street. In the public sector, throughout the country, public pension funds were heavily invested in the market — and the results have been a plummeting of the value of these funds. The problem, of course, is that while nationally there has been a massive "evaporation of value" — the liabilities on these funds remain — with public employees expecting their defined benefit pensions to be fully funded and paid on promptly.

Here in California, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (which is the fund for most state and local government employees and pensioners) has seen the value of its holdings fall by literally tens of billions of dollars. According to the Los Angeles Times, it’s holdings were around $240 billion last July — but have now (with the downturn and then a slight upturn in the market) down around 23% — a massive drop. The Times goes on to say that in order to make sure… Read More