By Chris Mann Founder, Inland Empire Taxpayers Association

California’s high desert in San Bernardino County is a great part of the Golden State. The region has consistently elected strong conservative voices to represent citizens, and the people have long stood for lower taxes and smaller government. But a big lie is going around the Town of Apple Valley that should put everyone on alert. If it can happen there, it could happen anywhere in California.

Do you support Prop 13?

Do you oppose higher gas taxes and vehicle license fees?

If you’re like me then the answers to those questions are simple. What do they have to do with Apple Valley and a $150 million water bond?

Plenty…read on to learn why.

Local politicians in the Town of Apple Valley have… Read More

With President Donald Trump reportedly* pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord,heads must be exploding inCalifornia’s Democratic supermajority State Capitol. However,Trump’s decision fulfills a very important campaign promise he made to “cancel” the accord.

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued anExecutive Orderin 2015 for a drastic new target for greenhouse gas emissions cuts, coinciding with the international… Read More

When President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi rammed through ObamaCare in 2010 without a single Republican vote, we as conservatives knew health care in this country would be irrevocably changed. And not for the better.

As Americans came to see that, “You can keep your doctor” wasn’t true, skyrocketing premiums, higher and higher out-of-pocket costs, and fewer choices, they realized the new system was destined to fail. Their answer? Toss out the people who gave us ObamaCare and put in new ones. Except that still meant President Obama could (and did) veto every effort to repeal his boondoggle.

Then came the election of… Read More

The SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE had a good editorial on 5/30/17 (see the bottom of this commentary), excoriating politicians for ignoring practical private market housing alternatives (such as “granny flats”) in favor of uber-expensive taxpayer-subsidized housing which meets only a tiny fraction of the low income housing need. The editorial correctly highlights some building innovations that offer low income folks small but quality homes for relatively low cost. Perhaps most intriguing is the 3D printer homes prefabbed in 24 yours for as little as $10,000 apiece.

But the editorial fails to consider WHY our politicos so quickly dismiss these amazing “shovel ready” alternatives. The reason is that the labor unions (and their union construction firms) profit greatly from “affordable housing” — housing that can cost double what private apartments would cost and is FAR more expensive than these new housing options (built with nonunion labor). These construction unions partner with their powerful public employee labor unions on policy issues, resulting in the election of local politicians bought and paid for by (or afraid of) these… Read More

Apparently feckless, neutered police are also impacting the safety and security in the United Kingdom, and not just on California college campuses. The horrific Manchester bombing at the Arianna Grande concert Monday evening, which killed at least 22 and injured more than 150, might have been prevented if politically correct fecklessness within government wasn’t so rampant.

Adding to the fecklessness and politics,LondonMayor Sadiq Khan said terrorism is “part and parcel” of urban life.

…Good to know given that I live in California, where our officials… Read More

It’s no surprise that the AFL-CIO would put out an annual CEO compensation survey using ridiculously absurd, cherrypicked figures and dishonest assumptions. What is sad is that the lapdog MSM will report this “survey” annually as factual — not seeking dissenting viewpoints.

The result is more a reflection of the MSM liberal bias (and laziness) than a condemnation of the AFL-CIO. After all, the unions are EXPECTED to rig the figures to make their point.

If you are not subscribing to Economics Professor Mark Perry’s blog (his free daily email) you SHOULD be. He does terrific work. Below in this post he totally debunks the AFL-CIO survey. The union’s dishonesty is breathtaking.

Here’s the link to subscribe to his daily email: http://feeds.feedburner.com/aei-ideas/posts

***… Read More

California’s already overburdened taxpayers are, once again, being blamed for being the problem, now that Gov. Jerry Brown has labeled those who object to his new $5.2 billion gas and car tax as “freeloaders.”

Taxpayers have become accustomed to being insulted by those who want more of their money. A few years back, Barbara Kerr, then-president of the California Teachers Association, said taxpayers who opposed new taxes were “cheap.” This was the same view echoed by high-tech billionaires who financed the successful effort to make it easier to impose new property taxes to pay for school bonds. (It should be noted that billionaires are often insensitive to new taxes that mean little to them, but which can require a significant sacrifice to average California families.)

Californians are already struggling with a heavy tax burden. We rank first in state sales tax and marginal income tax rates and, when adding in the carbon tax, our gas tax is already the highest — and it is about to go much higher. Even with Proposition 13, the per capita property tax burden in the state ranks in the top 20.

It should come as no surprise that average folks find… Read More

Gun control advocates cite the total number of U.S. deaths from gunshots in their literature. Fair enough. But they cultivate the image that these are deaths resulting from one person shooting another, intentionally or by accident. That’s not right.

It turns out that 63% of U.S. gun deaths are suicides. According to Wikipedia, in 2013 there were“33,636 deaths due to “injury by firearms” (10.6 deaths per 100,000 U.S. citizens).[4]These deaths consisted of 11,208 homicides,[5]21,175 suicides,[4]505 deaths due to accidental or negligent discharge of a firearm, and 281 deaths due to firearms… Read More