California’s Tax Hike Showdown

California Democrats in Sacramento are conspiring to evade the state constitution and pass a tax hike of up to $11 billion in the next few days.

State law requires a two-thirds majority of the California legislature to raise taxes. But the Democrats who run the state house and senate by big margins have gotten frustrated by the anti-tax bloc of Republicans who have held an effective veto over the tax scheme. Democrats have come up with a plan to raise income, sales and gas taxes without the two-thirds vote, thanks to some fancy legal maneuvering. An enraged Mike Villines, the House minority leader, tells me: "This is just a ploy to get around the constitution. We will fight… Read More

In 1988 as a student at UCLA, I was elected for the first time to the Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee. At that time the 60thdistrict included part of West Covina and El Monte. Anyone remember Assemblywoman Sally Tanner?

At that time one of the local Republicans was getting to run for Rio Hondo Community College Board. The candidate was Elizabeth Van Note (still active, but lives is San Luis Obispo). I remember the meeting because the goal was in 1989 to knock off the incumbent.

One of the reasons was the incumbent was a left wing Democrat, but also a savvy politician that would go places if we didn’t end it now. A lot of effort was put into that race. It was the first time I ever hears such reasoning for a non-partisan race. It made sense. Democrats move on to dobad things in higher office. Stop them now!

Unfortunately, our efforts failed. It was a tough district and beating an incumbent is hard. The incumbent did go on as predicted to Assembly, State Senate, and Congress. And by the way congratulations to the new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

And who says non-partisan elections don’t matter?… Read More

This is not the first time the Democrats have tried to raise taxes on a majority vote, and, guess what, on most occasions in the past they have been successful in their efforts.

Let’s start with Sinclair Paint. In that case, the Supreme Court authorized the passage of an assessment on all paint manufacturers for child health programs on a majority vote. The bill received no Republican votes, yet the tax was passed and collected, challenged in court, and the tax was legitimized by Ron George and the California Supremes. The Court’s reasoning was this: Paint manufacturers put lead in the paint 50 years ago, lead paint affected the health of some children, therefore a fee on paint manufacturers (even if those manufacturers did not make lead paint) for all children’s health programs (even if those health issues are not related to lead-based paint health problems) is a fee, not a tax, because it is assessed to remedy a problem created by the people upon whom the fee is assessed. Using this logic, quite frankly, almost any tax could be justified as a fee.

Another example–the so-called revenue neutrality rule adopted by the Legislative… Read More

With this shameful end-run around Proposition 13 being perpetrated by Capitol Democrats, one of our readers, Andy Nevis, asked if those who aspire to be our next Republican Governor had publicly commented on the situation. In response to that, I sent an e-mail to both the Steve Poizner for Governor campaign and to representatives of Meg Whitman, who has not formally announced her candidacy, but is in the final stages of preparing to do so.

Specifically, sent the following:

Below are the responses that I received, one from Insurance Commissioner Poizner, and the other from a representative of Meg Whitman. Poizner provided a thoughtful and specific statement. Whitman basically declined to give us her thoughts on the matter, her… Read More

With the budget standoff that never really ended this year, we now see the call for stopping spending on infrastructure, because the Assembly and Senate did not come to agreement on tax increase scams [yet]or any other budget fixes. [it was fun to see that the 4 new Dem Assembly members that took over seats previously held by Republicans abstained on the tax increase vote]

When the going gets tough, and taxpayers jobs are in peril, their hours are cut back, their take home pay isn’t stretching as far as it used to in a tough economy…the answer by the Sacramento political class is tax them and their employers even more. If they refuse, [as they have been making very clear to their elected officials, "do not tax me more"] then the response by Democrat leaders is, "fine, we’ll cut what you care about most"

The threats to law enforcement funding, keeping criminals locked up and now in today’s news, cutting the $ allocated to infrastructure that voters demand is the latest slap at them in this hostage situation to extract more car tax or sales tax dollars, [or even taxing… Read More

There isn’t much point in my expending a lot of time this morning chastising Senate and Assembly Democrats for their plans, this morning, to try to stick Californians with billions of dollars in new taxes, using some scheme where they brazenly attempt to navigate around the State Constitution’s requirement for a 2/3 vote to raise taxes. Through sleight of hand and bizarre terminology, Democrats are planning to hike the state’s income, gas, and car taxes (and that’s not all) — and do it with a majority vote (Republican legislators have appropriately and boldly said NO to any tax increases to solve a chronic overspending problem).

It seems to me that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the one in the spotlight here. The Governor has already called for the legislature to increase taxes by billions of dollars as part of a package that he put forward designed to close the overspending gap not only with spending cuts but also with new taxes. Yeah, we get that. It’s disappointing, but we get it.

But this Proposition 13 end-run that is being quarterbacked by Senate President Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass… Read More

There isn’t much point in my expending a lot of time this morning chastising Senate and Assembly Democrats for their plans, this morning, to try to stick Californians with billions of dollars in new taxes, using some scheme where they brazenly attempt to navigate around the State Constitution’s requirement for a 2/3 vote to raise taxes. Through sleight of hand and bizarre terminology, Democrats are planning to hike the state’s income, gas, and car taxes (and that’s not all) — and do it with a majority vote (Republican legislators have appropriately and boldly said NO to any tax increases to solve a chronic overspending problem).

It seems to me that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the one in the spotlight here. The Governor has already called for the legislature to increase taxes by billions of dollars as part of a package that he put forward designed to close the overspending gap not only with spending cuts but also with new taxes. Yeah, we get that. It’s disappointing, but we get it.

But this Proposition 13 end-run that is being quarterbacked by Senate President Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass… Read More

Amidst the chaos of overspending crisis in Sacramento, I wanted to highlight an announcement from the Poizner for Governor campaign. They have released an impressive list of eighteen current County Republican Party Chairmen from all around the Golden State who are early endorsers of his bid.

"Who are they?"

Glad you asked, they are: Karna Boyer, Sutter County; Joan Clendenin, Stanislaus County; Joseph Day, Tuolumne County; Margaret Dominici, Shasta County; Prudence Eiland, Kings County; Howard Epstein, San Francisco County; Dale Fritchen, San Joaquin County; Tom Hudson, Placer County; Morgan Kelly, Marin County; Karen King, San Mateo County; Janet Kirtlink, Napa County; Brian Leach, Glenn County; Bob Richmond, Riverside County; Jim Rooney, Amador County; Ken Say, Tehama County; John Steizmiller, El Dorado County; Thaddeus Taylor, Inyo County; Steve Thompson, Butte County; and Bob Vile, Calaveras County.

Poizner also announced the endorsement of Linda Boyd, who was the long time Chairman of the Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee.

The list is most impressive as it has Chairmen who I would characterize as strong… Read More