If taxpayers focus on the results of the recent election, there may not seem to be much to celebrate. While the rest of America took a big step toward fiscal sanity, the same cannot be said of California. At the state level, all 3 taxes, one on marijuana users, one on smokers and another on higher income taxpayers, passed. Fueled by massive special interest campaign spending, tax hike proponents convinced voters that they were simply raising taxes on “other people” which made them more palatable.

The bright spot among the 17 statewide measures was the approval of Proposition 54, which will provide much needed transparency over the California Legislature. For years taxpayers have wanted legislative bills to be available for public review prior to being voted on. Prop 54 makes that happen.

At the local level, it looks like 80 percent of the local taxes and bonds were approved. The good news is that, largely due to the requirements of Jarvis initiatives Proposition 13 and Proposition 218, the Right to Vote on Taxes Act, these measures were decided by voters rather than being imposed by out of touch public officials.

To read the entire column click here… Read More

“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” – Peter Thiel, in his 2011 manifesto “What Happened to the Future.”

Anyone living in California who’s paying attention knows what venture capitalist Thiel meant. While a handful of Silicon Valley social media entrepreneurs have amassed almost indescribable wealth, andfundamentally transformed how humanity communicates, investment in boring things like roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, aqueducts, reservoirs and railroads – the list is endless – has stagnated. Especially in California. Flying cars? Forget about it. Go tweet.

Why? Why the neglect?

(1) For starters, why invest in moving atoms around, which is messy and might incur the wrath of powerful climate change activists, when you can move electrons… Read More

Lefties are “enraged” that Hillary Clinton has won the popular vote, but not the Presidency. Actually she’s won a PLURALITY but NOT a majority of the votes. It looks like she’ll win the “most votes” award by somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 votes — probably closer to a million or more, when the final count is in. According to the latest tally, she leads by 0.9% in the popular vote.

Naturally the Progressives are now complaining about the Electoral College system. And that IS an issue that merits review and discussion. It’s the fifth time this outcome has happened in Presidential elections. Perhaps more interesting, it’s the FOURTEENTH time a President has been elected with less than 50% of the popular vote. http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-won-because-hillary-clinton-flopped-1479342340

Isn’t it odd that Mrs. Clinton and the Left didn’t raise the issue BEFORE the election? Actually not — they thought they had it in the… Read More

If you just got used to an intense political environment, don’t worry — the 2018 campaign is now under way. In California, that means all state constitutional offices will be up, and with them, the opportunity to chart a new course for the Golden State. And the state can use it, with taxes continuing to rise, a looming pension debt, and a Democrat-controlled state legislature completely out of touch with California’s middle class.

As Republican registration continues its decade-long decline, Democrats and their allies will be out in force trying to convince the donor community that no Republican has a shot, so they may as well pony up for the least objectionable leftist now.

Not so fast.… Read More

In his historic run for the United States Presidency, Donald J. Trump faced YUGE opposition from the establishment of both parties, and unprecedented vitriol from the media. Despite the barrage of negative, unflattering media, Trump voters resoundingly elected him the 45th President of the United States.

Trump’s victory was a needed repudiation of the political establishment, which has failed millions of working-class Americans who are suffering economically and continuing to fall behind.

The Loser Media

Anyone sincerely curious about the Trump win need only read Pollster Pat Caddell’s article where he said for more than two years the American people, in a great majority, from left to right, have been in revolt against the political class and the financial elites in America. Based on an exhaustive study of public opinion, an overwhelming majority of Americans believe (1) “America is in actual decline,” (2) their “children will be worse off than they themselves are today,” and (3) there are “different… Read More

After recovering from the shock of the presidential race, California pundits began absorbing what all this actually means. There is broad agreement that the rightward movement by the rest of America has only increased the political divide between the nation as a whole and California.

This divide has widened so significantly that Governor Brown joked about building a wall around the state to protect it from nasty conservatives. And a handful of ultra-progressives, distressed at the thought of a Trump presidency, are planning an initiative they hope will lead to California seceding from the United States. (Newsflash for backers of this “Calexit” effort: That a state can’t secede from the Union was resolved in 1865 when General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox).

Putting the jokes and unrealistic fantasies aside, there are real world implications for the increasing chasm. First, if it were evident prior to the election that California has “go it alone” policies on climate change, it is even clearer now. Sure, Washington will continue to pay lip service to greenhouse gas reductions, but broad, draconian laws and regulations perceived to be… Read More

As an occupant of the basket that contains the deplorables, I breathe easier today. We got really lucky. Donald Trump won by less than 100,000 votes in three states that do not traditionally vote Republican, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. We had an unusual candidate on our side, and the Democrats chose the worst possible candidate they could have chosen, and we barely squeaked by.

Yes, California delivered 2.6 million votes to Clinton, and Trump never came here and asked people like me for my vote. We are in trouble here in California. As a state, we are retrograde. We are out of step with the country. Californians are leaving this state, and leaving it to the folks who screwed up the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (based on their philosophy). As a country, however, we were barely saved from a Clinton presidency. We will be rid of the Clinton crime syndicate…finally, but we were saved by a few votes in a few states, states Republicans have lost every single time since 1992. It was a wonder of wonder, a miracle of miracles.

If you are a person of faith, this win can only be attributed to divine intervention. As political activists, however,… Read More

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Grover Norquist

On Election Day, we all vote for politicians and then wonder what they will do. When we vote on initiative questions, we know the good or bad news with certainty.

Three of the initiatives on Tuesday’s statewide ballot would impose new and higher taxes on Californians. They are all bad news for taxpayers, consumers, and employers.

Prop. 55 Means Damage to Small Business & Less Predictable Budgeting

Remember the “temporary” income tax hikes voters approved in 2012? Proposition 55 would extend those higher income tax rates for 12 years. Such an effort to extend the higher rates was widely predicted at the time of… Read More