Tomorrow is the big day. Instead of spending Valentine’s Day with my wife, I will have the privilege of voting on a state budget.

As of this posting, my offices have received 246 phone, faxes or emails from actual constituents opposing the proposed tax increases and 20 phone calls supporting them.

The media talks about the pressure on legislators. It is always easy when you are on the same side as the constituents.

See everybody tomorrow.… Read More

From John Fund of the Wall Street Journal:

I feel like I am watching a split screen – and both are depicting horror movies in public policy. As I write, one screen shows our lawmakers in Congress rushing a gigantic spending bill through so quickly that Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg admitted that none of his colleagues would be able to read a final version before they vote on it. Lobbyists with goodies in the bill had copies of the bill yesterday, even before lawmakers did. The second screen I am watching is one focused on my home state of California. There “Five Men In A Room,” the state’s… Read More

Apologists for the massive $14 billion tax increase being advanced as a solution to the chronic state deficit like to point to 1991 as validation of this strategy.

Then, as now, California was in the depths of recession. Then, as now, the confronted a historically huge budget deficit — which at the time was $14 billion.

At the end of the day, Gov. Pete Wilson struck a deal with the Democratic majority to erase the deficit with $7 billion in tax hikes and $7 billion spending cuts, and succeeding in toppling Assembly GOP Leader Ross Johnson and pealing off the necessary 7 Republicans to vote for the deal.

Conventional wisdom, viewing that deal through the gauzy mists of time, hails it as a grand compromise of statesmanlike proportion that restored health to the budget, and as a model that we should emulate today.

Too bad it’s a myth, because inflicting a massive tax increase on a weak economy had the opposite effect, and the next year the state was faced with a $3 billion deficit.

Former Sen. Ray Haynes laid out the truth of what transpired in this 2005… Read More

As more details of the budget "raw deal" are made public, there’s going to be a long list of opponents coming forward to express their disapproval. Now, the Lincoln Club of Fresno County, led by FR’s Michael Der Manouel, Jr.,announces their opposition: Lincoln Club of Fresno County Opposes State Budget Deal

Fresno, California – The Central Valley’s premier Republican Political Action Committee has announced its opposition to the recently struck “deal” between Democrats and Republicans on the State budget.

“The increases in the sales tax, vehicle license fee, income tax and gasoline tax are an unconscionable compromise by the Republicans, who have now compromised with the Democrats eight straight years in a row. The mess we are in now is a reflection of this compromise. This bill must be defeated”, said Lincoln Club Chairman Michael Der Manouel, Jr.

Der Manouel continued that the “reforms and spending caps in this compromise can easily be undone by the Democrat majority in future years, while citizens will be stuck with the tax increases. In this economy, any tax increase will… Read More

As you have probably read,a panel of federal judges tentatively ruled to release tens of thousands of California prisoners before their time is served. The liberal judgesclaim that the prisoners are non-serious and non-violent offenders,and thus won’t present a problem to public safety.

Here’s a look at the offenses that count as non-serious and non-violent:

• Human trafficking • Child abuse likely to produce great bodily injury • Stalking • Solicitation to commit murder or a designated sexual assault • Taking a hostage to prevent arrest or as a shield • Selling, offering for sale, or transporting a destructive device • Possessing components with intent to make destructive device • Possession, development, manufacture, production, transfer, acquisition, or retention of a weapon of mass destruction • Threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction • Possessing restricted biological agents • Exploding a destructive device to terrorize • Elder abuse • Manufacture or sale of drugs even while armed with a firearm • Burglary in which the defendant is armed with… Read More

Maybe it was the octuplet mother inciting public backlash, or Nancy Pelosi’s warpedthinking that preventing future productive members of society will help us out of our current economic meltdown. Whatever the reason, stateleaders have decided that parents should no longer receive tax benefits for growing their families. Included in their budget “deal” is a decrease in the dependent exemption credit. Kevin Dayton over at the Associated Builders and Contractors of California first brought this to my attention in an email. He explained that part of the budget deal was the plan to “raise $1.44 billion by increasing taxes at least $210 per dependent by reducing the dependent exemption credit to equal the personal exemption credit.”

Kevin made a great point about the exemption so I’m just going to quote him directly: “The proposed budget makes it sound so nice – ‘equalizing the credit’ – as if justice was… Read More

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