In what strange world do janitors get paid $45 per hour? In California, the land of the prevailing wage.

The dirty secret is that janitors often are not really getting paid $45 per hour, but the taxpayers are being charged this amount on public works projects.

Designed to help the worker, the prevailing wage was created to set a minimum hourly rate paid on all public works projects, primarily for construction workers. But the classification has been expanded and greatly abused.

One contractor’s saga

I recently met with a Southern California contractor who has owned a final construction cleanup business for more than 25 years. Final cleanup on government construction projects is always the last task in the project, and usually takes place within days of the occupants moving in, depending on the size and scope of the cleanup. The contractor said that the work he and his crews do includes cleaning the construction dust off of walls, washing and polishing floors, cleaning windows and mirrors, power-washing all surfaces, wiping down fixtures and hosing down the roof and parking lots.

He is hired as a subcontractor by large… Read More

When President Obama took office, the reform of our nation’s healthcare laws took center stage. While no one can argue that our healthcare system wasn’t in need of serious reform, the intensely partisan and murky way in which Obamacare was drafted and forced on the American people made it wrong for the country from the beginning. While I do support some of the reforms in Obamacare, such as protecting people with pre-existing conditions and young adults, I did not believe this law would lower costs, increase patient choice or make healthcare better and more affordable for all Americans.

Born from partisan back door deals and closed room meetings, Obamacare is a boondoggle of historic proportions. Candidate Obama pledged unprecedented transparency to the American people when running for President back in 2008. Yet the day he took office, President Obama got to work on one of the most opaque and closed door, big-government takeovers we have seen. Weighing in at over 2,700 pages, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), although deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court, is still a dangerous collaboration of bad legislating, smoke and mirrors mathematical calculations… Read More

RIDER COMMENT: The story below has prompted me to add an unpleasant fact to my “California vs. the Other 49 States” fact sheet. As is my policy, I had to drop another telling fact, trying to keep the piece to two printed pages.

The new fact is based on a more sophisticated measure of poverty, now used by the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s called the “Supplemental Poverty Measure,” and better reflects the cost of living in a state or region. The old poverty figure used the same dollarthresholdregardless of where one resided. This one adjusts for costs — first and foremost housing costs.

The result doesn’t work well for California. We’ve vaulted to the top spot — the WORST poverty rate in the nation.

And not by a small margin. We are at 23.5%, compared with the national average of 16.1%. The second worst state is Florida is at 19.5%.

Stated differently, California’s real poverty rate is 55.7% higher than the average for the other 49 states (not including CA). And CA is 20.5% worse than its nearest challenger Florida.

The dropped fact? — The one about CA community… Read More

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In honor of the new year, I thought I would start a new tradition here at the FlashReport. I thought that we might pick the California politician who makes the biggest idiot out of themselves, and actually award them the “Idiot Of The Week” Award — a high honor, indeed. Of course this being California, we will not have a problem picking such an individual. In fact, we will have the opposite problem, there may actually be too many people from whom to choose. It might be that this award ultimately is a Friday thing, at the end of the week. But since I anticipate our Friday edition this week to be packed with some sane, rational critiques of Governor Brown’s proposed… Read More

As the new legislative session began Monday, there was a quite buzz in the Assembly. But it wasn’t just about the many new lawmakers. A rumor was going around that Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez had ordered the Capitol Sergeants to prevent reporters from accessing Assembly members in chambers.

Then I saw one longtime reporter standing near the entrance to the Assembly floor, where reporters position themselves if they are waiting to speak to a lawmaker. But the Sergeant told the reporter that he could not speak to lawmakers.

“News reporters will be barred from interviewing legislators in the Assembly chambers under new rules ordered by Speaker John A. Pérez before Monday’s first session of 2013,” Jim Sanders of the Sacramento Bee reported. The prohibition is among several rule changes imposed by Pérez that restrict… Read More

Allow me to summarize the article below. It exemplifies all too well the three stages of CA government thrift:

1. In the 2009 recession, CA state workers lost two holidays that no one honors in the private sector. 2. The next year, the state gave them back the two paid holidays, with the added benefit that they could use them anytime they wished. 3. Now the state legislature will consider restoring one of the two fixed-date holidays “eliminated” (Native American Day), but will continue to give workers their two floating holidays off. BRILLIANT! So now we see how the Democrat Sacramento supermajority is going to prudently spend our Prop 30 tax dollars. I can just see the proposed legislation coming later this year — we need another TAX INCREASE! ============== http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2013/01/legislation-would-add-a-holiday-to-california-state-government-calendar.html … Read More

Democrat Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, West Covina, has just proposed a bill for State government workers to get yet another paid state holiday. The new “Native American Day” replaces Columbus Day, formerly a holiday for state workers lost during recent budget cuts.

Said Hernandez “This legislation is inspired by the recognition that the so-called discovery of the America’s by Columbus eventually led to the genocide of Native Americans. This bill hence provides the proper respect and recognition to our Native American nations.”

The leftist majority in California just cannot stop solving the pressing problems this state has, can they? Fresh off of celebrating the Passage of Proposition 30, giving us the highest sales and income tax rates in the nation, they are now addressing the CRITICAL issue of paid holidays for State workers. I am so thankful for their vision and courage. It is inspiring to know that the hard working men and women, busily delivering efficient and effective government,… Read More

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While he has not made a formal announcement of his candidacy, it has certainly been much talked about that Jim Brulte, the former leader of both Senate and Assembly Republicans, is seeking the Chairmanship of the California Republican Party. This is great news for the party, and for conservatives in California. I am very excited to endorse his candidacy, and will work hard not only to see that he is elected, but look forward to doing what I can to help make sure that under his leadership the CRP is successful.

Let me start out from the outset by making it very clear — Jim Brulte is a solid conservative. Whether you look at issues of taxation and regulation, freedom and liberty, the sanctity of human life, or the importance of the traditional family, Jim is a stalwart Republican. He firmly opposed Prop. 14 and believes in a strong, vibrant political party system. But you don’t have to take my word for it — he’s got a voting record well over a decade long to attest to his conservative credentials. When you talk with Jim, you will find that he does not believe that Republicans are losing market-share in California because of these policy… Read More