Wouldn’t it be nice to buy baseball tickets, attend banquets, or join an organization and have someone else foot the bill? Well, that is precisely what is happening at the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

Taxpayers may be surprised to hear exactly how their hard-earned money is being spent. According to the San Jose Mercury News (September 4, 2007), “Over the past three years, the board members have billed the public for such items as $415 in bar associations membership fees, $121 in funeral flowers, $84 in parking tickets, and 15 trips by the current board chairman to conferences in San Diego.” It gets better. “When [the board members] talk to the to the Mercury News, they charge the public more than $200 for the effort. The same goes for YWCA luncheons, NAACP banquets, Woman’s Equity Day and American Diabetes Association dinner[s]… One particularly creative director charged the public $817 for attending four ‘softball meetings’ involving district staffers.” Sadly, these board members do… Read More

I guess it should come as no surprise that Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed a massive NINE BILLION DOLLAR borrowing scheme that includes billions for "above ground water storage" (I guess that polls better than calling them "dams"). The Governor LOVES to ask Californians to indebt themselves and future generations. It has become a hallmark of his administrations. Bonds, bonds bonds. I guess the Governor and his team have done some figuring. They know that Republicans legislators will not support higher taxes. And they know that Democrats will not support any cuts in their state-sponsored social engineering and wealth-redistribution programs. If you can’t get the politicians of today to raise taxes or cut spending on other programs, let’s once again whip out the California credit card. Just when you thought it was maxed out – think again. First and foremost let’s be clear — California has a water infrastructure problem. That is real, and it needs to be dealt… Read More

I guess it should come as no surprise that Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed a massive NINE BILLION DOLLAR borrowing scheme that includes billions for "above ground water storage" (I guess that polls better than calling them "dams"). The Governor LOVES to ask Californians to indebt themselves and future generations. It has become a hallmark of his administrations. Bonds, bonds bonds. I guess the Governor and his team have done some figuring. They know that Republicans legislators will not support higher taxes. And they know that Democrats will not support any cuts in their state-sponsored social engineering and wealth-redistribution programs. If you can’t get the politicians of today to raise taxes or cut spending on other programs, let’s once again whip out the California credit card. Just when you thought it was maxed out – think again. First and foremost let’s be clear — California has a water infrastructure problem. That is real, and it needs to be dealt… Read More

FR friend Mindy Fletcher has spent a couple of months now working hard on an important program — one in which we hope that many FR readers will participate. Here is a note from Mindy…

Do an informal survey of your Republican friends as to which Republican leader has the brightest and most innovative ideas and one name always tops the list—Newt Gingrich. I had the privilege of being on Capitol Hill in 1994 when Newt Gingrich through the power of ideas, helped Republicans win control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. As a young Press Secretary on the Hill, I watched as this history professor transformed government and brought about real change to issues such as welfare reform, a balanced budget, and the list goes on and on. Newt convinced voters to put their trust in a reform-minded group of elected officials who managed to make great strides in… Read More

The media, public and politicians have all lost their minds on the "health care" issue. The media doesn’t understand it, the public is being goaded into socialism and the same politicians that haven’t fixed anything in years think they have answers. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Stupidity reigns in the debate.

I blame the GOP. We had six promising years in charge of the entire federal government and didn’t reform a damn thing, in fact, we actually created the largest new entitlement program in 50 years, Medicare Part D, and then underestimated its cost by half. In doing so we abandoned the argument that government and health care are a terrible mixture, and so now we can’t even oppose HillaryCare on the grounds of limited government.

In Sacramento, the Governor’s "idea" is a new tax on providers. Can we channel his mentor, the late Milton Friedman, into the discussion? This is about as anti-free market and anti-capitalist as it gets. Worse, the California Restaurant Association and Hospital Association actually voted to support the tax. I can hear it now: "its the best we… Read More

"Everything is on the table," said Governor Schwarzenegger yesterday, when asked whether he would support a statewide sales tax, in this case, as part of a massive government intervention into health care in California. The Governor said that he could support placing a tax hike on the ballot on which Californians can vote. Presumably the Republican Governor, after negotiating such a "deal" for California taxpayers, would then advocate its passage as well. Shame on Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don’t know how to sugar coat this, so I will just say it like it is — he lied. He lied to me, he lied to his supporters and he lied to all Californians. When he campaigned for re-election last year, he said he was "moderate on social issues, progressive on environmental issues, and conservative on fiscal issues." I cannot remember a stump speech that the Governor delivered to Republican activists, and I heard quite a few as a grassroots supporter of his campaign, wherehe did not flat out state his opposition to raising taxes, period. There was no audible "asterisk" qualifying his opposition… Read More

Presidential candidate U.S. Senator Sam Brownback has confirmed he will be a speaker at the upcoming Western Conservative Political Action Conference in Newport Beach on October 12-13.

A copy of the current conference agenda is attached. Other confirmed speakers include Mike Reagan, who is the General Chairman of the Conference and will be leading a panel on the Conference’s theme, "Preserving the Reagan Legacy." Other top speakers who are confirmed include State Senator Tom McClintock, Dave Keene (Chairman of the American Conservative Union);Joel Fox, President of the Small Business Action Committee; Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.; Lew Uhler, President of the National Tax Limitation Committee; San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus; radio-talk show hosts Melanie Morgan (KSFO San Francisco), Gregg Jackson (WRKO Boston), and Mark Larson (1700 AM, San Diego); and Hoover Institute Fellow and author Dinesh D’Souza. A host of other conservative elected officials will be on hand, including a number of other presidential candidates to be confirmed, and the agenda is being updated daily as new… Read More

I’ve been dreading my birthday next month. Despite the anticipation of the outpouring of well- wishes from my fellow bloggers and readers of the Flashreport, I’ve been having a tough time with this one. It’s not the reality that I am aging. It’s notthe struggle to reconcile the middle-aged figure in the mirror with the high school kid who occupies my head. ..No, it’s, it’s…….

It’s because on this birthday my drivers license expires and I have been dreading the trip to the DMV to get the thing renewed.

Then, on August 26, I received a notice that I could renew by mail or on the internet. Sure, I thought. Now, not only is the DMV screwed up -but now they’re mean and they’re teasing us, too!

So I called their bluff.I went online that day at10:27:19 AM and ordered my drivers license. Took me 3 minutes. Even got a printed receipt. I have to admit, I dared to hope this would work.

Well, today my license arrived in the mail. It worked.

Now, Idon’t advocate turning healthcare over to the government, or trusting it to raise my… Read More