After battling for more than 2 years, Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan has succeeded in eliminating a multi-million dollar taxpayer-funded healthcare program for citizens of other countries from the Sacramento County budget.

During an earlier budget cycle (yes even before the economic downturn), MacGlashan had gone through the budget (rather than relying on staff reports) where she discovered staff had been listing the healthcare program (which was ONLY for citizens of other countries) as mandatory, when it was a purely discretionary program.

At a cost more than $2.4 million a year, Sacramento County taxpayers were providing citizens from other countries with healthcare coverage beyond that which US, California and Sacramento citizens could access. MacGlashan believed that was wrong.

Supervisor MacGlashan has been hawkish on the budget and taxes since her election to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in 2004, noted that… Read More

Tackling the issue of responding to a plan to "rescue" California with massive tax increases in a reasoned commentary, co written by myself and fellow State GOP Board Members Keith Carlson and Steve Baric has been time consuming. We’ll have that up soon, and the main up page closer to 9am.… Read More

The following commentary is co-authored by Steve Baric, Keith Carlson, Tony Krvaric Paul Bruno, Shawn Steel, Doug Boyd and Jon Fleischman, the Secretary, Treasurer, Budget Committee Chairman, Vice Chairman, Central Coast, Vice Chairman, Los Angeles, National Committeeman and Vice Chairman, South of the California Republican Party respectively.

To say that we were disheartened upon news that the GOP’s primary negotiators in seeking a solution for the massive over-spending induced state budget shortfall, Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, had reached a “deal” as a product of the secret back-room “Big 5” process, and had come back to present plans to their respective legislative caucuses that contain roughly $14 billion in new taxes on Californians would be an understatement. It was almost a surreal experience – because the plan that was laid out was so much worse than any one of us could have imagined – and because the plan, from our understanding of it, is… Read More

The education lobby continues to work parents into a frenzy over the state budget. Today, my kids’ school sent out an email asking us all to call the offices of the "Big 5" to voice our concerns over a proposed "spending cap." The message they are asking parents to send is this:

"Hard Caps on spending will devastate our education system and be a deterrent to our economic recovery. Dollars toward education are an investment in California’s future, not an expense." If the CTA and the rest of the education lobby were truly responsible, they’d educate parents about what the real tradeoffs are in the state budget. They’d tell parents how the staggering cost of health care and retirement for teachers and state workers are contributing to the state’s budget crisis. They’d also tell them that Legislature’s spending spree for the past 10 years has now caught up with us. So instead of a silly message about a spending cap hurting the economic recovery, they’d be… Read More

The following commentary is co-authored by Steve Baric, Keith Carlson, Tony Krvaric Paul Bruno, Shawn Steel, Doug Boyd and Jon Fleischman, the Secretary, Treasurer, Budget Committee Chairman, Vice Chairman, Central Coast, Vice Chairman, Los Angeles, National Committeeman and Vice Chairman, South of the California Republican Party respectively.

To say that we were disheartened upon news that the GOP’s primary negotiators in seeking a solution for the massive over-spending induced state budget shortfall, Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, had reached a “deal” as a product of the secret back-room “Big 5” process, and had come back to present plans to their respective legislative caucuses that contain roughly $14 billion in new taxes on Californians would be an understatement. It was almost a surreal experience – because the plan that was laid out was so much worse than any one of us could have imagined – and because the plan, from our understanding of… Read More

Despite the fact that this is the second day that I have requested a briefing on this budget "deal" from Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill and/or Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, the silence is deafening.

It is unfortunate because I am all ears — and as I wrote with a bunch of fellow leaders of the State Republican Party, we would like to gain some perspective from our two legislative leaders, whom we hold in high regard.

In the absence of any more information — I continue to judge this "deal" based on the information available through main stream media sources.

So let me just say what I am thinking and what I have heard from literally every GOP leader, donor and activist to whom I have spoken or heard from via e-mail — this plan is terrible for California and extremely injurious to the Republican Party’s ability to win elections next year.

Over in the Capitol Weekly, there is a headline about Republicans winning "concessions" on what I will call relative minor policy… Read More

No… It wasn’t us. It was the Los Angeles Times (or as former Congressman Chris Cox like to refer to them, Pravda West).

Breaking her long self-imposed silence on many state policy issues while she was "considering" a run for Governor, Meg Whitman, now officially a candidate, gave an interview to Michael Finnigan with the Los Angeles Times. The interview is worth reading, although I must admit that after reading it with the idea that an interview might actually clear up a lot of the "mystery" surrounding Whitman and her positions on major issues of the day. Instead, I found that the interview left me with a lot of questions.

I have my own request into the Whitman campaign talk with the ersatz Governor, and haven’t heard back yet. I actually had assumed that Whitman was not doing interviews, yet. Clearly she wanted to give an exclusive "first interview as a candidate" to a major California newspaper. Conservative blogger interviews are somewhere down the journalistic… Read More

The Sacramento Bee has sent out an alert saying that there is a budget deal. What does this mean? I guess we’ll find out. But I am troubled because the theory is that any "deal" means Republicans "blessing" massive tax increases. If you think taxes are a bad idea, NOW is the time to call your Republican Senator and Assemblymember.

The dynamic of a "deal" is that the Big 5 members agree to take a product to their respective caucuses. Billions of dollars in tax increases should be a "work product" soundly rejected by the Senate and Assembly Caucuses.

Republicans cannot afford the damage to our brand name that comes with being the facilitators of a massive tax increase. We’ll lose seats next year for sure, don’t you think?… Read More