Heads up! This November there will be scores of new local school bonds on the ballot in California, each raising property taxes. We have seven such bonds in just San Diego County alone. But this year most of the school bonds will be different – and not in a good way.

Anyone remember how Prop 30 was going to provide the needed funding for education? Apparently it’s not enough. It’s NEVER enough.

Sadly, I predict that most such California bonds will not even have an opposition argument in the ballot books. I’m doing what I can to get some arguments submitted in my county – fortunately our county GOP stands firmly with the taxpayers in this matter.

NOTE: Submitting an opposition argument will force proponents (mostly the unions) to spend considerably more money to get their bonds passed – itself a good thing. And you can win – it’s NOT a hopeless quest to stand tall against such tax increases. Witness our June effort against the Coronado school bonds for operating budget money – the prop was crushed with a resounding 58% “NO!” vote.… Read More

In 1960 the State Legislature and Governor Pat Brown took a visionary step forward by approving plans for a vast water infrastructure investment called the State Water Project. It would provide California with a series of reservoirs and conveyance systems that Californians rely upon today.

While this project successfully served the needs of California’s 16 million residents for many decades, it can no longer handle the demands of the 38 million people who call California home today. That’s why I’m pleased the Legislature took action this week to place a $7.5 billion bond on the November ballot. This is an important… Read More

Destroy the middle class in America, and Socialism takes over – economic growth is killed, people turn on each other, free speech is attacked, the government grows and becomes more tyrannical, and individuals are not treated equally under the law.And, subsidies grow as it becomes more “profitable” not to work, and trade effort for leisure.

Are we there?

Corporations and special interest groups fund politicians in return for favorable treatment by government, which leads to regulations on the rest of small businesses and working society.

The Obama… Read More

It is crunch time again. The time when things turn ugly in Sacramento and the Capitol sausage factory cranks into gear.

With only three weeks left in the 2014 legislative session and hundreds of bills yet to review, we can’t expect state legislators and staff fully vet, evaluate, and get a clear understanding of every bill that comes up for a vote. This is the time of the year, when deceptive and special interest language gets inserted into bills that inevitably come to bite the consumer for years to come.

One such example is Senate Bill 270, by State Senators Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), Ricardo Lara (D-Huntington Park/Long Beach) and… Read More

SACRAMENTO — Saddling consumers into paying extra for plastic bags at the grocery store is becoming an wildly unpopular idea. Facing formidable opposition because of the thousands of jobs which will be lost, Senate Bill 270 by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacioma, isnot just about the extra cost to shoppers anymore.

SB 270 would ban the 100 percent recyclable, multi-use plastic retail bags while allowing grocers to charge and keep fees for paper, and new thicker plastic bags. Padilla and supporters call the current plastic grocery bags “single use.”

Plastic bag representatives,… Read More

Turns out the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension system return rate was 17.3 percent for 2013-2014, and other public pension funds reported similar double-digit returns and five-year returns exceeding their assumed rates. –LAPPL Board of Directors on 08/07/2014, in their post “Misuse of statistics behind erroneous LA police officer salary claims.”

The above quote was made in response to last week’s article “How Much Do Los Angeles Police Officers Make?” that analyzed total compensation for LAPD officers. The substance of their overall response was to challenge two assumptions made in that editorial, (1) that the annual rate-of-return projection of 7.75% used by the LAFPP (Los Angeles Fire & Police Pensions system) is too optimistic, and (2) that the employer’s “unfunded contribution” – that annual sum paid to LAFPP by the City of Los Angeles towards reducing the plan’s unfunded liability – mustbe considered part of an… Read More

The world is an unstable place. If this seemed at doubt even a few years ago, it certainly is no longer. Some instability is a result of violence fueled by radical religious views or by aggression born of extremist ideology. Some of it is caused by long-standing ethnic conflicts or, as we are seeing in Ukraine, by the centuries-old desire of some to conquer neighboring countries simply because they are more powerful and want to expand their territorial footprint for any number of reasons.

In Washington, it seems as though there are only two reactions to all of this. One choice is to intervene everywhere. The other is to intervene nowhere. I think both of these strategic frameworks are equally flawed. To intervene everywhere will overwhelm both our military and financial resources, not to mention potentially lead to unrest at home as a result of the inabilty to accomplish our desired goals. To intervene nowhere assumes that the conflict and violence across the globe will never reach a point where it directly threatens us, which the lessons of history belie.

The great question, of course, is when do we intervene and when don’t we? And, how far should we go… Read More

Late yesterday, the California Supreme Court acted quickly on a legal action filed by Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to remove Proposition 49 from the ballot. As most political insiders are aware, this proposal was a craven, transparent effort to boost voter turnout in a manner that even Governor Brown acknowledged was inappropriate.

Why is the removal of an illicit “advisory measure” from the statewide ballot important? Because the ballot is sacrosanct and is not a political play… Read More