The California State Lottery Commission approved a $185 million design contract for a new building. $185 million. The Legislature has already approved going asking voters to chnage management of the Lottery.

Why do we need this huge new building now. The cost per office is aorund a half a million pieces. I just put in Legislation to stop the contract and divert the money to education.

The money saved will be diverted to help our public schools.

During this budget crisis, the last thing we should be doing is wasting money and time on a building we don’t need.

How can we justify this spending, while schools are sending layoff notices to our teachers? Children in classrooms need the money more than the lottery bureaucrats need a new building.

Taxpayers should feel insulted when they pick up the newspaper in the morning and read stories about stuff like this.

It’s unconscionable and this bill will stop it.… Read More

For 2008, former eBay CEO and ersatz Governor Meg Whitman made $634,400 in political contributions reportable to the Fair Political Practices Commission, according to the form she will file today (h/t to her team for sending us a copy).

Who were the recipients of her generosity?

Last week Americans United for Life (AUL) released its sixth annual ranking of the most pro-life states in America. Unsurprisingly, California ranked dead last. This ranking is well deserved considering liberal California legislators are notorious for their blind allegiance to the abortion lobby.

A perfect example of this devotion was last session’s SB 850, Senator Abel Maldonado’s bill to give still birth certificates to mothers with still-born children. I recall during a committee hearing on the bill the gut-wrenching testimony of several mothers who described the excitement about their pregnancies, the anticipation of their sons or daughters’ birth and then the devastation at what should have been a joyful moment. No sooner had the mothers finished their testimony than Planned Parenthood, NOW and ACLU lobbyists marched forward to protest the bill’s attack on Roe v. Wade. (It would be unconstitutional to acknowledge the child was alive before it left… Read More

Over on the Capitol Alert blog of the Sacramento Bee, Shane Goldmacher has penned a piece on a "place holder" resolution that I have submitted to the State GOP Convention for its potential consideration in a few weeks. Goldmacher’s piece doesn’t mention that there is another companion resolution that praises our GOP legislators for holding the line on taxes, to go along with mine that is a framework for censuring GOPers in the Capitol that vote to impose higher taxes in Californians in response to our state’s overspending crisis.

The resolution was submitted yesterday because the State GOP rules require that resolutions be submitted three weeks prior to the convention to be considered timely.

I really have no reason to believe that legislative Republicans plan on being enablers for higher taxes here in California. If, as some have said, there are Republicans who think there is a better "deal" for taxpayers in the form of some sort of spending cap and other concessions from the left, I guess if that ever develops and is voting for by… Read More

Just got done on the floor. The Assembly approved on a party line vote (AJR 4) supporting the almost trillion dollar "stimulus" federal package. The package has money for ACORN, smoking cessation, digitial TV coupons,honey bee insuranceand over $4 billion for "neighborhood stabilization activities"and who knows what else.

I was proudthat no Republican voted for theresolution.… Read More

Sometimes you really can’t make this stuff up.

As has been reported online in the Sacramento Bee, and blogged about briefly by me, last night I quickly penned a resolution for the upcoming GOP convention that is kind of a "fill in the bank" censure of GOP legislators that potentially will have voted for a tax increase before our February 20th gathering. There’s another resolution, by the way, praising our legislators for opposing taxes. It’s my hope and expectation that my resolution will get tabled, and that it will be the other that is unanimously adopted.

Now on the Bee’s Capitol Alert blog, Democrat Assembly Speaker Karen Bass responds to my introduction of this resolution, saying:… Read More

This past Thursday I had the opportunity to welcome High Desert business owners to a “Business Survival” workshop.

I didn’t say, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” – despite the fact that San Bernardino County and the Town of Apple Valley had assembled an impressive array of experts, services and information. It was because these folks know that, next to the national economy and their competitors, government is their biggest problem.

So in part because I have private-sector experience and an education in business and economic development, I explained, I’m one elected official who believes that government should simply get out of the way of business owner/employers as much as possible.

But as my audience was already painfully aware, in California, this has not been the prevailing view of state government for quite some time. And although San Bernardino County, especially the High Desert, has a lot to offer in the way of incentives – from affordable land and labor to business-friendly local governments – the limits of our local discretion are illustrated by the struggles of the City of Needles, which I represent.

A… Read More

I usually don’t respond to what others have said here on the Flash Report, because usually no response is required, but as I was doing my morning reading (for me it is morning, since I am on the other side of the world right now, and yes, the Flash Report is the first thing I read when I wake up here). I saw Jennifer Nelson’s comments, and I thought, I really understand the frustration.

In 1991, Pete Wilson raised taxes, and pushed legislators to do the same, basically saying what Ms. Nelson said–Democrats exploded spending in the 1980’s, and when George Deukmejian resisted, the Dems went out and passed Prop 98, which has literally destroyed any semblance of spending control since then. Republicans were blamed for the tax increase.

Between 1998, in the midst of a then record increase in spending (from $43 billion general fund in the 1996-97 budget to $57 billion gf in the 1998-99 budget), Republicans pushed for and received a $4 billion car tax cut. Spending in the next two budget cycles (1999-2000 and 2000-01) increased $22 billion, from $57 billion gf to $79 billion gf. Guess who and what got blamed for the deficits of $11 billion… Read More