It’s too early to know for sure, but so far sales tax revenue this year appears to be largely on track to meet the state’s budget needs.

The latest general fund sales and use tax revenue numbers show that from July through September the State Board of Equalization received $4.64 billion in revenue. That’s just two and a half percent shy of the Department of Finance’s budget projection of $4.76 billion.

Of course, I can’t help but think that if more Californians had jobs, these revenue numbers would be even stronger.

The latest numbers do not reflect the recent spike in gas prices. And those high fuel prices have the potential to create a tax windfall for state and local government.

Earlier this year I proposed legislation capping rising fuel taxes. Unfortunately, it failed to gain traction in the Legislature.

We don’t know yet how much revenue will come in this month. But we do know one thing for sure: Californians will pay plenty in tax.… Read More

*BREAKING*

This statement was just received by the FlashReport from Assemblyman Dan Logue:

FROM THE DESK OF DAN LOGUE

Dear Friends,

I visited my physician late last week and he informed me that some antibiotics that I had been taking had damaged my kidneys.

The doctor informed that unless I stopped taking the antibiotics and rested for six weeks, I could do severe damage to my kidneys. He also indicated that my health would completely return in 6 weeks and took a different medication.

As you may be aware, the Fourth District Senate represents all or part of 12 counties running from Placer to Del Norte. It is a vast district with many rural communities. The demands of traveling and campaigning in such a vast region are rigorous and the requirements of running a competitive race conflict with my doctor’s orders.

For this reason, it is… Read More

Here’s an excellent letter to the editor by my good friend Paul King — concerning CA’s soaring gasoline prices (I updated and expanded the figures, and added verifying URL’s):

The Los Angeles Times correctly reported that refinery problems were the major cause of the supply problem on the West Coast. CA once had 14 refineries producing the state’s unique blend of gasoline mandated by its legislature, but that number has declined to 12. Among those 12, four are shut temporarily due to maintenance issues. With CA strict bureaucratic refinery regulations, we have not built any new refineries in 40 years.

Because of California’s unique fuel blend requirements, motorists can rely only on California’s refineries to correct their supply problem. They can’t solve the shortage by buying from their next door neighbors in Arizona or Nevada the way other states might. So now that the state legislature has effectively imposed an embargo on the citizens of California, we are all paying the price of our politicians’ stupidity.

But that’s not… Read More

In order to stimulate the inert economy, we now have the government investing in government. The public sector is trading public dollars for public dollars.

“How will you spend your future?” the California State Teachers Retirement System logo asks. I wouldn’t spend it on a solar plant. Nor would I voluntarily spend my future with CalSTRS.

‘Infrastructure investments’

Nearly every time I pick up the newspaper, the headline screams that another solar plant has closed and the business gone under. Yet I see that the California State Teachers’ Retirement System is investing $42.8 million in a large solar plant in Sacramento.

… Read More

Today, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed a class action lawsuit against Jerry Brown and the Legislature to overturn the unconstitutional Fire Tax.

As one of California’s elected tax officials, it’s my responsibility to use my elected office to ensure that taxpayers are treated fairly.

Accordingly, I commend the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association for bringing together Californians from every walk of life and region of our state to right the wrong that is the fire tax.

The Governor and Legislature’s willingness to impose such an unfair and regressive tax in direct violation of the Constitution should serve as a wake-up call for all freedom-loving Californians.

I am pleased to lend my full support to this lawsuit, and I look forward to seeing it prevail.… Read More

Voter fatigue is no longer an factor this election cycle because thoughtful voters appear instead to be tuning out entirely to media and polls, and instead tuning into reality television. There’s an irony.

“It’s getting much harder for pollsters to get people to respond to interviews,” wrote Michael Barone, in a National Review Online story today. “The Pew Research Center reports that only 9 percent of the people it contacts respond to its questions. That’s compared with 36 percent in 1997.”

Barone said that of that 9 percent of respondents, is is likely that the sample is not representative of the much larger voting public.

Duh… ya think?

He explained that everything from the decreasing number of landline phones, to implausible party identification, impacts poll numbers today.

“I don’t believe… Read More

With the latest session of the California legislature over, now is the time of year when various groups and organizations release their “scorecards” — assessing how legislators performed based on how they voted on key pieces of legislation that were of interest to that group or organization. Yesterday one such group to release its ratings of the legislature was the California Taxpayer Association — or “CalTax” as they are known in political circles. You can see their ratings here. If you peruse the lengthy list of bills that CalTax uses to rate legislators, they picked out a bevy of bills — many of them atrocious and worthy of being scored for a “no” vote — and many of them good, certainly appropriately scored as a “yes” vote. There is a lot of good information there, representing a lot of work to put together.

… Read More

**THIS IS AN EXCLUSIVE, BREAKING STORY**

This morning Landslide Communications filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court against Republican Party U.S. Senate nominee Elizabeth Emken, and her campaign committee, for breach of contract, fraud and other charges. Landslide Communications, whose proprietor is well-known longtime conservative activist and leader Jim Lacy, featured Emken on 5.5 million pieces of direct mail to voters, but hasn’t paid the bulk of the money owed for those mailings – $65,000. (A review of Emken’s campaign filings shows significant outstanding debt to other slate… Read More