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

Rumors abound that there is progress on a budget deal. Unfortunately, if the rumors are true, such progress involves major tax increases: A once cent hike in the Sales and Use tax, an across the board income tax hike, a gas tax increase, and a higher vehicle license fee.These are all bad ideas.

The sales tax is a destructive, unfair tax. America is becoming a service oriented economy to such a degree that the sales tax no longer works. Raising this tax makes an unfair situation for retailers worse. Look around at just about any strip mall in California and you will see storefront after storefront that is the former home of a failed retail business. This is the devastation wrought by the combination of a recession mixed with a high tax. The rumored budget deal proposes to hike the state’s portion of the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent. This is a 20 percent increase in the state rate. This will suppress consumer demand, and/or divert it to online vendors. In many jurisdictions it would take the overall rate to 10 percent. This would be a catastrophe for our retailers.… 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

Plastered all over the news today are stories about 10,000 layoffs in the State workforce. That might be signficant, but can it be understood on it own? No.

We need to ask: how many employees, new, were hired by the State since 2004. I have heard the number 50,000 thrown around as the answer, but I don’t know. But if it is, then we are still 40,000 higher than we were, and it unlikely that anyone can put up a rationale defense that we needed the extra (insert number) of employees.… Read More

The system is beyond broken up Sacramento. The “Big 5” negotiate behind closed doors. Then they go present deals to their respective caucuses behind closed doors. It is certainly my hope that the next step in the process is that the legislators then leave their caucuses to their constituents, and to those public policy and political experts in whom place trust, before deciding to support or oppose a deal. I am sure I speak for a great many from the right, left and center when I say that a proposal of this magnitude should be a very considered one, and one where we can talk to our representatives when it matters, not after a deal (good or bad) is done.… Read More

Capitol staffers experienced some unique lobbying today: Valentine’s condoms courtesy of Planned Parenthood. In recent years I had heard Planned Parenthood takes the opportunity of Valentine’s Day to distribute condoms to capitol offices. But this year’s valentine didn’t just wish its recipients affection and love on February 14th, it also lobbied for continued funding. The packet pictured below contained several information sheets touting Planned Parenthood’s accomplishments, including just how much money it saves the state every year by preventing unintended pregnancies ($1.35 billions).

Using the tag line “a health budget = a healthy California,” the valentine implores lawmakers, “don’t break our hearts,” which one assumes means by cutting their piece of the budget pie.

And just in case legislators were concerned about having to answer to their spouses about listing condoms… Read More

This just in from longtime FR friend Jamie Fisfis over at Chariot Research, a respected public opinion research company from the Bay Area that actually does quite a bit of world all over the globe. They are just out of the field with some survey data on California issues, and I think that the results are definitely worth looking over in the context of the current debate in Sacramento over how to deal with the financial shortfalls due to chronic overspending.

From Fisfis:

Chariot LLC just completed another statewide omnibus survey and the budget debate was one of our main focuses. We have fresh budget debate numbers and they are pretty decisive on the issue of how Californians want the crisis solved. By a 63%-25% margin, Californians believe in spending cuts rather than tax increases to solve the budget crisis – even when education is mentioned specifically. … Read More

This just in from longtime FR friend Jamie Fisfis over at Chariot Research, a respected public opinion research company from the Bay Area that actually does quite a bit of world all over the globe. They are just out of the field with some survey data on California issues, and I think that the results are definitely worth looking over in the context of the current debate in Sacramento over how to deal with the financial shortfalls due to chronic overspending.

From Fisfis:

Chariot LLC just completed another statewide omnibus survey and the budget debate was one of our main focuses. We have fresh budget debate numbers and they are pretty decisive on the issue of how Californians want the crisis solved. By a 63%-25% margin, Californians believe in spending cuts rather than tax increases to solve the budget crisis – even when education is mentioned specifically. … Read More