California can do better than we are doing today. Whether it’s our high unemployment, all too common poverty, decaying roads or lagging schools, it’s clear that our state, with all of its resources, can do better.

In order to do better, we need to recognize our strengths and our weaknesses. Improving the quality of life for Californians means leveraging our strengths and mitigating the weaknesses that are holding us back.

Education and economic opportunity are two key contributors to prosperity. We know that better educated people have higher earning potential, and we have a broad consensus in California that better education for our young people will help them for their entire… Read More

San Diego’s economy is rolling along — as county unemployment percentage improves dramatically!

Well, actually — not.

Here’s the story by the numbers:

The county unemployment percentage PLUMMETED in December. It dropped from (the revised) 6.9% unemployed in November to December’s 6.4% — a full half percent drop in only one month!!! Yea. Only 600 net new jobs were created. That’s a pathetic number in an area bigger than the state of Rhode Island — a county of over 3.1 million people. The unemployment percentage drop was almost completely the result of people dropping out of the workforce — 7,800 of the unemployed are no longer seeking employment in December — so they are no longer considered “unemployed.” That number is NOT good. Stated differently — only 7.1% of the improved unemployment percentage was the result of more jobs — 92.9% was the result of people giving up seeking San Diego area employment.

BTW, to be defined as “employed,” one has to be working — but not much. Apparently even one hour of… Read More

In another twist in Sacramento’s arena derangement syndrome, a petition drive to put a public subsidy for the proposed Sacramento basketball arena project to a public vote, has been rejected by the Sacramento City Clerk.

Friday, the city clerk announced that she rejected the petitions, along with 34,000 signatures, on the grounds some of the petition versions did not comply with election code.

“Due to technical issues identified in the submitted petitions, I find the petition noncompliant with significant provisions of the California Elections Code and the Sacramento City Charter, and therefore insufficient to move forward,”Shirley Concolino, Sacramento City Clerk, said in a press release.

Yet, just last week,theSacramento County Registrarcertified there… Read More

After the housing bubble burst in 2007, which precipitated the “Great Recession”, for too many Californians, the opportunity for economic success was lost. The release of Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed 2014-15 budget, which includes the first surplus in over a decade, has led some legislative leaders to believe that our economic challenges are over and that it is time to start spending again. Recent temporary tax increases and a resurgent, yet volatile, stock market have brought in more revenues than expected, causing Democratic legislators to irresponsibly call for increased long-term spending with short-term revenues.

However, most economists agree that while the United States’ economy is recovering, it is still not what it once was prior to the recession. They stress that for our economy to experience a “true recovery,” we must see a substantive drop in the unemployment rate and real employment growth.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal unemployment rate is currently 6.7% (8.5% in California). In December of 2007, the… Read More

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For more than 35 years, Proposition 13 has protected California homeowners and taxpayers. While our sales and income taxes have risen to be the highest in the nation, property taxes remain constrained and more importantly, predicable to each property owner.

Residents can anticipate their base property taxes will be 1% of their assessed valuation and will rise at no more than 2% per year. Prior to Proposition 13 the average tax rate was 2.67%. In addition, homes were revalued… Read More

Anyone paying attention has heard about the controversial Sacramento arena subsidy and observed the often bizarre machinations some politicians and subsidy advocates have resorted to in their effort to block a public vote.

Voters have been subjected to everything from an offensive event at a cemetery and a parade of overblown claims, to an embarrassingly ineffective “withdrawal” campaign that cost taxpayers tens-of-thousands of dollars to process almost 14,000 bogus withdrawal signatures (nearly 91% invalid).

Groups and individuals fighting to let the public vote on the subsidy have been met not only with baseless attacks, but have suffered from politically-motivated economic retaliation for daring to get involved.

The City is even attempting to bull-rush approval of the arena project and the $304 million public bond though the City Council, just days before the election – with the sole intent of subverting the vote and disregarding the public’s voice.

But the political flimflammery isn’t as troubling as the possibility someone crossed the line from unsavory political tactics to… Read More

As I write this blog post, I am in our nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C., participating in a meeting of the Republican National Committee. It is an honor to been elected to serve as one of California’s three RNC Members (along with National Committeewoman Linda Ackerman and CRP Chairman Jim Brulte).

It’s no secret that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has three goals to help win the presidency in 2016:

Reducing the amount of time Republican candidates can slice and dice each other is priority one. In the last several presidential elections, Republicans engaged in over nine months of brutal divisive expensive primaries. Eventually all candidates are worn out, their negative ratings skyrocket, and the “winner”is deeply in debt and badly bruised. New rules will reduce the mutual combat to 5 months – January to May.

The RNC Rules Committee, on which I serve representing California, voted nearly unanimously for the compression of the present primary system to five months today. We will continue to enjoy the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary followed by South Carolina and Nevada in the months of January and… Read More