Two years ago, when 2013-14 legislative session began, things looked very dark for California homeowners. Democrats, many hostile to Proposition 13, achieved a super-majority in both the Assembly and Senate. Many publicly expressed their hostility to the landmark property tax initiative and one even said he would like to “nuke” Prop 13. Others were a bit more subtle, saying only that it was time to “examine” it. Of course, in this context, “examine” is a euphemism for… Read More

California State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara,authored a bill this legislative session to ban offshore oil drilling from an area of state waters in the Santa Barbara Channel known as Tranquillon Ridge. Jackson claimed her bill would do away with a “loophole” in state law.

But there is a hitch — Following Jackson’s time in the California State Assembly 1998-2004, prior to being elected to the State Senate in 2012, she lobbied to get an off shore drilling project approved off the coast of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Jackson teamed up withLinda Krop, the chief counsel of the Environmental Defense… Read More

Critics have suggested that leaders of the labor movement suffer from economic illiteracy that has made them the architects of their own demise. The unwillingness of unions to make concessions in the face of global competition starting in the 1960′s was a major factor in Americans losing millions of union jobs. In the present day, unions push for minimum wage hikes well beyond what inflation might justify (about $9.00 to $10.00 per hour), with “fight for fifteen” campaigns which, if successful, will carry the unintended consequences of higher unemployment and accelerated small-business failures. Today only about 7% of America’s private sector workers belong to unions.

One can also make the case that unions are becoming irrelevant because much of what they fought for is now enshrined in law. Labor laws protect workers from wrongful termination. OSHA standards ensure workplace safety. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a host of other social welfare programs all provide a safety net for the aged, disabled and unemployed. The Affordable Care Act, fraught with flaws that will hopefully either get repealed or replaced, at least guarantees anyone can purchase… Read More

A stark demonstration of the uneven nature of our “recovery” from the longest recession since the Great Depression. Texas is carrying the nation!

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Once again, Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg has thumbed his nose at the working class and other Californians of modest means by blocking legislation that would have slightly delayed implementation of carbon emission fees charged to oil companies. The fees are part of the state’s “cap-and-trade” program, California’s one-of-a-kind effort to reduce word wide carbon emissions. These fees are really taxes that will be passed on to consumers.

California drivers need to brace… Read More

The Friday wrap-up of the 2014 legislative session brought passage of the ban on plastic bags, mandatory paid sick days,new groundwater regulations, more gun control, expanded tax breaks for Hollywood,and bilingual education bills. The Democrat-majority of the California Legislature has made it clear it honors only the interests of labor unions, trial lawyers, environmentalists and liberals politicians. And that’s it.

Gone is any pretext of concern for taxpayers, business owners and employers, or any respect for free enterprise and free markets.

The left has shown an historic distrust in free enterprise and free markets, and instead relied on socialism to artificially make market “corrections” following downturns, largely due to government intervention, heavy-handed regulations and manipulations.

California is a state whose politicians,… Read More

Surprisingly, Canada is the BEST major country when it comes to total corporate tax burden — by a LOT. Hence Burger King’s decision to relocate to the Frozen North. See the short article and tax table below. And keep in mind that total CALIFORNIA tax costs increase this tax differential substantially for our Golden State businesses.

Obama’s response to Burger King’s move (a move because of our punitively high U.S. tax structure) was predictable — further restrictions on American companies leaving. It’s the usual thuggish response of a Chicago community organizer against those who do not bend to his will.

Well, I have a wry suggestion: Obama’s plan to keep companies from moving to low-tax Canada should include installing along our Canadian border a 3,000 miles long string of machine gun towers and mine fields (a laEast Germany) to keep Ahmericans in AMERICA (well, wherever) — Land of the Free!

Think about it –it would… Read More

Instead of addressing the degrading hook-up culture young people have come to accept, the Legislature declared sex “a contractual event,” and redefined consensual sexual relations as “rape” if it occurs on a college campus.

Rather than promoting the education of college students about abstinence and self-respect, Senate Bill 967, by Sen. Kevin de Leon, will allow California colleges and universities to deal internally with campus sexual violence by requiring each school to adopt Legislature-approved “victim-centered sexual assault response policies and protocols that… Read More