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Congressman Doug LaMalfa

Budget Debate Under Way

UPDATE: The vote was just taken and the bill, needing 54 votes,was defeated 45-30, with no Reep aye votes.

The Assembly is now on the floor with the budget debate happening now. The document being looked at is not one that has been put together in a bipartisan way.. It is largely a dolled up version of the joint budget conference committee report, with only Democrats voting for it, known as AB 1781.… Read More

Ray Haynes

Inside Dope

No-I’m not talking about any member of the Legislature. I’m talking about inside information about what is happening on the budget. I had a conversation with one capitol insider who told me the budget will be adopted with a tax increase. So I called around to see what others thought. The general consensus was that wouldn’t happen.

The basic reason–the Governor needs 9 Assembly Republicans to vote for the budget. Three Assembly Democrats, Parra, Calderon, and Soto,aren’t voting for the budget (Parra and Calderon won’t and Soto is ill and can’t). That means 9 Assembly Republicans have to put up yes votes. However, 31 of the 32 Republican members of the Assembly have signed no new taxes pledges and won their primaries because they signed those pledges, that means at least 8 Republicans would have tobreak their promises to theirvoters in order for this budget to pass with tax increases. I’m betting that doesn’t happen, for several reasons.

(1)Most Assembly members believe they have apolitical career after the Assembly. As my earlier post showed, any Republican who votes for a tax… Read More

Jim Battin

Waste Watch – Water Meters Still Siphoning Big Bucks from Taxpayers

Sacramento’s missing water meter saga continues like a bad soap opera. This major debacle is costing taxpayers millions of dollars—money that could be used to provide essential services without the tax increases liberals are crying for. Unfortunately, for taxpayers, the city of Sacramento hired an out-of-state consultant to find the lost meters at a cost of $99,000 to search about 32,000 addresses. According to the Sacramento Bee (July 16, 2008), the U.S. Metering and Technology representative “spends his days looking for Sacramento’s lost water meters, lifting heavy concrete hatches in yards and on sidewalks, meticulously recoding serial numbers.” “The Sacramento Utilities Department does not know where the meters are. They were labeled ‘unaccounted for’ in a recent city investigation….TheRead More

Jon Fleischman

Public Employee Union Ads Prove GOPers Are On Target

Clearly the public employee union bosses just don’t get it. To Republicans in the legislature, these unions are the single greatest obstacle to enacting sane public policy in Sacramento. Everyone knows that these unions have only three major agenda items — grow their members by pursuing more public dollars being spent to employ whichever type of employee is mandated to pay dues into their union, seek greater and greater pay for their union members (no matter the economy, state of the budget, or conditions in the private sector) and seek more and more retirement benefits for their members (again, no matter what else is taking place).

So when I see public employee unions paying to place advertisements out there bashing Republicans (I just saw a California Teachers Association television spot during Olympics coverage, and the California Faculty Association is advertising at least on the Sacramento Bee and Red County websites), they are just emboldening Republican legislators.

To these public employee unions I say this — spend more and more and more on your ads. Every time a GOP legislator sees one, it reminds them of the importance of… Read More

Jon Fleischman

Public Employee Union Ads Prove GOPers Are On Target

Clearly the public employee union bosses just don’t get it. To Republicans in the legislature, these unions are the single greatest obstacle to enacting sane public policy in Sacramento. Everyone knows that these unions have only three major agenda items — grow their members by pursuing more public dollars being spent to employ whichever type of employee is mandated to pay dues into their union, seek greater and greater pay for their union members (no matter the economy, state of the budget, or conditions in the private sector) and seek more and more retirement benefits for their members (again, no matter what else is taking place).

So when I see public employee unions paying to place advertisements out there bashing Republicans (I just saw a California Teachers Association television spot during Olympics coverage, and the California Faculty Association is advertising at least on the Sacramento Bee and Red County websites), they are just emboldening Republican legislators.

To these public employee unions I say this — spend more and more and more on your ads. Every time a GOP legislator sees one, it reminds them of the importance of… Read More

Meredith Turney

Financial Literacy Lessons for the Legislature

A few moments ago the Assembly approved AB 2123 (Lieu), which establishes the “California Financial Literacy Initiative.” This initiative will create a government program “for the purpose of providing resources and instruction to Californians” about how to be financially literate. The program will be overseen by the state controller, who, according to the bill, “has the experience and duty to lead an initiative to grow the state’s economy by bettering Californians’ financial literacy.”

Does it strike anyone else as hypocritical that our state controller and state lawmakers want to teach Californians “financial literacy”? I can’t speak to the “experience” of all state controllers past and future, but do we really want John Chiang teaching us about financial literacy? He’s currently defying the governor’s attempt to curtail government spending during the budget crunch. And lawmakers are 46 days past their constitutional budget deadline. If average citizens were 46 dayspast due on their bills, creditors wouldn’t be very… Read More

Congressman Doug LaMalfa

Swing Vote

Now I’m not one to review movies, nor will I make it a habit here, lest I invite an E-towel snap from our FR leader, however I would recommend the new release "Swing Vote". It stars Kevin Costner and although the premise may be a stretch, it is a lot of fun and takes a good poke at what elections and politics can become. It does us the favor of not being preachy nor taking a partisan position, it just keeps it fun and a bit serious too. And hey, it has appearances by Richard Petty and Willie Nelson!… Read More

Jon Fleischman

Bill Leonard – Tax Increases Are Doses For The Addict

We are pleased to present this exclusive commentary from State Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard…

Tax Increases are Doses for the Addict By Bill Leonard

My heart goes out to the current Legislative Republican members as the cave-ins, compromises, squishes, and treasons of the past have all come home. California’s on-going structural financial problems have not been solved by postponing decisions and by papering over the excess in spending over revenue. This has been the solution that has been regularly adopted, usually by picking off a few Republicans with political promises. Even if it might work again, it will not solve the problem. The spending levels are notRead More

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