Last Friday the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Club of Fresno County voted unanimously to oppose all of the May ballot initiatives being proposed out of the already failed budget deal worked out between the Governor and Legislature. Board Secretary Jeff Reid prepared a devastating, and irrefutable critique of the initiatives.

Tonight, Jeff Reid and myself took to the podium at the Fresno County Central Committee meeting. Reid presented his analysis of the initiatives and his findings were met alternatively with gasps and disbelief from the members and audience on hand.

I appealed to the members on several levels, not the least that it is regrettably time to part with our friends in the Legislature if they betray our core values. There was more to my remarks, but I will spare the details. The resolutions opposing the ballot initiatives passed overwhelmingly, a bit later duringclosed session. There wassome clamoring for "equal time" for initiative proponents but those in favor of such equal time should be glad they lost their argument, as the proponents would have been thoroughly and completely humiliated.

Other Lincoln Clubs and… Read More

Last Friday March 13th was the deadline day for school districts to issue potential layoff notices to teachers for the next school year.

This early notice date was put into law by the teachers’ union and is now used by the teachers’ union as an excuse to complain about school budgets. In an abundance of caution, districts will issue notices to a number of teachers. The number is not important, but what is important is that these are not pink slips, not actual layoff notices, nor any notice that requires any action. It’s not even close to the private sector where the employer can layoff people with little or no actual notice.

Another teacher union law requires school districts to finalize any actual layoffs by May 15th whether or not they have any idea of what the state budget looks like or what next year’s enrollment might be.

Historically no district with a stable or growing enrollment has laid off any classroom teacher no matter how badly the state budget treated government schools. I would be surprised to hear of any district actually laying off classroom teachers this year either.

But right or wrong I will give… Read More

The proposal for Universal health care in California has returned.

I am not surprised; liberal Legislators never saw a tax they didn’t like – and universal health care for California comes with a whopping price tag: $42 billion in its first full year of implementation and annual shortfalls of $46 billion thereafter. That’s billions, not millions.

It’s one thing for legislators to carry-on a failed ideas year after year when the analysis shows the legislative idea to be difficult. But when the non-partisan Legislative Analyst Office reports legislation like universal health… Read More

There seems to be a change in public sentiment of late. Perhaps it’s the mind-boggling bailouts, the economic turmoil, the rapacious government power grab, or maybe it’s just the “final straw” in a growing disgust with government overstepping.

Fox New Channel’s Glenn Beck has tapped into this public mood with his clarion call for greater government accountability. His new TV show is garnering huge ratings, evidence that his message is resonating with a significant number of politically-aware Americans. And “tea party” taxpayer revolts are popping up all over the country. Just last weekend over 15,000 people descended upon Fullerton for KFI talk show hosts John and Ken’s tax revolt rally.

This shift in public attitude can best be summed up in The Great Communicator’s first Inaugural Address: “We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people.”

Citizens are tired of answering to government, instead of vice versa. Government has become so abusive of the power granted to it by the people… Read More

LAO’s Announced $8 Billion Shortfall Prompts a "Survey"… Some have asked if the survey question posted yesterday was really meant to solicit responses, or if it was just to make a point? You decide.

The point, of course,is that an adopted State budget is never really a budget if it’s based on faulty expectations, mixed with a puff of smoke and a few mirrors. The legislature and the Governor have proved it twice now in the last five months … same budget, two different votes to pass (the first was an unconstitutional, didn’t get to a 2/3 vote, "get out of town for the holidays" iteration), and it still doesn’tresolve the spending binges of the lastseveral years.

But, whether one wants to join me in being a smart aleck about the truth by weighing in on whether to deem the latest news more appropriate for the "Color me surprised" file or some other title of one’s choice … well, that depends on one’s initiative and… Read More

As I watched Bernie Madoff finally head to prison earlier this week after pleading guilty to one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, I couldn’t help but think of the similarities between what Madoff did to his investors and what the Governor and the State Legislature are doing to the taxpayers of this state. We were told just last week that the largest tax increase in state history was, “a comprehensive solution to the state’s $41.6 billion budget shortfall.” The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office just announced yesterday that even if the blackmail measure, Proposition 1A, is approved by the voters in May and the state of California gets every dollar of the federal economic stimulus it hopes to get, that California will face an $8 billion deficit through June 2010. In addition, the Legislative Analyst projects continuing deficits of up to $25 billion. What makes this even worse is that the figures don’t take into account the billions more that the state is going to have to pay in the future to cover… Read More

As I watched Bernie Madoff finally head to prison earlier this week after pleading guilty to one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, I couldn’t help but think of the similarities between what Madoff did to his investors and what the Governor and the State Legislature are doing to the taxpayers of this state.

We were told just last week that the largest tax increase in state history was, “a comprehensive solution to the state’s $41.6 billion budget shortfall.” The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office just announced yesterday that even if the blackmail measure, Proposition 1A, is approved by the voters in May and the state of California gets every dollar of the federal economic stimulus it hopes to get, that California will face an $8 billion deficit through June 2010. In addition, the Legislative Analyst projects continuing deficits of up to $25 billion. What makes this even worse is that the figures don’t take into account the billions more that the state is going to have to pay… Read More

Apparently, union bosses have now resorted to equating union membership to serving in the military. It was recently reported that mailings going out in our state and directed at Senator Dianne Feinstein say, “Americans should be able to join a union the same way we join the military…by signing our name.” This demonstrates such a profound misunderstanding of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act (EFCA) that one has to question whether the message’s advocates had any intention of making intellectually honest arguments or whether outright deception was their goal. Unfortunately, as the debate on EFCA has evolved, advocates of taking away a secret ballot from workers and mandating government arbitrators on small businesses have decided that they are not able to argue about the merits of their case. In turn, they have resorted to making comparisons that stretch both the imagination and truth. First off, the men and women that voluntary decide to join our military do so to protect every American and deserve the highest level of praise and respect. Likewise, many that join unions do so to provide for their families and better… Read More