Sacramento is about to launch a new attack in its ongoing war on drivers.

California’s 48.6 cent gas tax already ranks second out of 50 states – the feds take another 18.4 cents — and when the hidden carbon tax, part of the cap-and-trade program, is factored in, our state leads the pack by a wide margin. But this is not nearly enough, according to the political class.

Sen. Jim Beall is building a coalition of both Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature to hike gas taxes along with vehicle license fees and registration.

The San Jose lawmaker’s Senate Bill 16 slams taxpayers in three ways. First, it would raise at least $3 billion annually by increasing the gas tax by another 10 cents a gallon. Second, it would hike the vehicle license fee, which is based on value, by more than 50 percent over 5 years. Third, it would increase the cost to register a vehicle by over 80 percent.

To read the entire column click here: http://www.hjta.org/california-commentary/more-pain-at-the-pump/… Read More

Flexing Republican muscle, the Irvine City Council is making headway on repealing years of heavy-handed Democrat policies, which are bad for business, and worse for taxpayers.

On the heels of passage of the new Los Angeles minimum wage of $15.00 per hour by 2020, the new GOP supermajority in Irvine just repealed its “living wage” ordinance. While the rest of the state seems to be pushing for mandatory minimum wage laws, or higher minimum wage laws under Democrat majorities, killing free market principles, as well as driving up the cost of city contracts, and preventing many employable students from getting important work experience, Irvine is doing things differently.

The Irvine City Council voted last week to repeal its Living Wage Ordinance, the only of its kind in all of Orange County.Where Republicans are governing, ridiculous and burdensome top-down mandates get cut.

The City of Irvine website explains the living wage:

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Being female, I am reasonably qualified to speak on the subject of feminism and how feminists have been bullying other women for more than 40 years. I was born in the early 1960’s and lived during a time when women were burning their bras, demanding equal pay, and aborting their babies on demand. Young women were told that we had been oppressed by men for too long and women’s rights were our legacy: Men had been manipulating us for years in order to get what they wanted – they always got what they wanted, and we women got nothing. We deserved equality; it was our entitlement.

Sen. Hanna Beth Jackson To The… Read More

Just as a cook’s creation is only as good as the ingredients she uses, so too is public policy only as good as the premises that undergird it.

That’s why, when it comes to judging food or policy, it’s best to have someone other than the creator evaluate the end product. Aristotle encapsulated this sentiment in 350 B.C.E. in his work Politics, and the old Greek was on to something.

It’s through that prism that one should judge the latest attempt to quash California’s ridesharing industry, this time by state Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, D–Sherman Oaks. His rotten premise is that transportation network companies engage in “high-tech hitchhiking.” This betrays a… Read More

Like the Creature of the Walking Dead, a diabolical scientist with an unquenchable thirst for blood, California redevelopment agencies are also back from the dead. Redevelopment was developed in the 1970’s to fight urban blight, but quickly transformed into a corrupt scheme to divert county and state taxes to cities. What could possibly be wrong with “urban-renewal agencies” which float massive debt and routinely misuse eminent domain to seize private property? Ahem. But I digress.

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A scorchingreport from California State Auditor Elaine Howle found that the Administrative Office of the Courts, now called the Judicial Council, spent $386 million over four years on statewide services that nearly half of California’s 58 trial courts don’t use – including $186 million on contractors and consultants.

Remember that the Administrative Office of the Courts was responsible for the debacle of the failed $2 BILLION Californiacourts computer system, paid with money allotted for state trial court operations. Thisunbelievably high costwas spent on the faulty computer system while courtrooms closed, courthouse employees furloughed, and criminal and civil cases take record time to come to trial.

The AOC’s primary function is to provide services to the courts. However, rather than making immediate corrections as the State Auditor recommended, following the damning report, the Administrative… Read More

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Almost two weeks ago, Governor Brown released his revised state budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year. It clocks in at a record-setting $267 billion – nearly $13 billion more than last-year’s record-breaking budget, expanding the size and reach of our ever-growing government.

At the current rate of spending, the Department of Finance projects that California will go right back to operating deficits in excess of $2.5 billion by 2018-19. Yet that figure is still somewhat misleading since it does not account for hundreds of billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities.

Recent census numbers also show that California’s state spending is well above the national average for state governments. We are approximately 12 percent of the population but represented 13.8 percent of state-level spending for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

Despite these facts, the majority party continues to call for more spending of our money, or what they are referring to as “investing.” The problem is the increases they want to make in social services and programs are ongoing expenses and will likely put pressure on the budget in years ahead when times are leaner, making… Read More

Those who follow the political machinations in Sacramento might well conclude that not much good emerges from the California Legislature. Gas taxes, attacks on homeownership, a tax increase on commercial property, ever expanding pension deficits, high speed rail, there seems an endless list of proposals for which the average taxpayer is supposed to foot the bill, while others receive the benefit.

With all this bad news, it is easy to overlook some relatively obscure bills that could have an oversized beneficial impact on taxpayers.

Assembly Bill 809 by Assembly Member Jay Obernolte (Hesperia) is a proposal that will aid local voters deciding on tax measures by providing some much needed transparency. Under current law, there is no word limit requirement on the ballot… Read More