Good lord time flies. It seems like just yesterday I was filming this video, but it was over five years ago! The video below was filmed at the San Diego County Republican Party Headquarters. It stars Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, and Nathan Fletcher, Republican candidate for the State Assembly. Nathan Fletcher signs the ATR “No New Taxes” pledge and Grover signs as the witness. It’s only a couple of minutes long. But given Nathan’s rather high-profile divorce from the Republican Party, it’s worth bringing it back for a reprieve. As I recall, Nathan was extraordinarily aggressive in appealing to the GOP base in the Republican seat which he sought. He was so successful at this that he ended with no Republican opponent in his race for the State Assembly.

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One advantage of being a legislator in the minority party is that with fewer members, you are more likely to be tapped for positions in party leadership. Today Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway announced some changes in her leadership team. By my math her leadership team now actual includes a majority of her entire caucus. There are currently 27 Assembly Republicans (with the departure of Nathan Fletcher), and

Conway’s 14-member leadership team now includes:

Assembly GOP Leader: Connie Conway Assembly GOP Caucus Chairman: Brian Nestande Assistant GOP Leaders: Brian Jones+ and Steve Knight Assistant GOP Floor Leader: Curt Hagman Deputy GOP Floor Manager: Don Wagner* Chief Republican Whips: Dan Logue and Kristin Olsen+ Republican Whips: Paul Cook* and Mike Morrell* Republican Outreach Chairman: Jeff Gorell* Budget Committee Vice Chairman: Jim Nielsen Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Diane… Read More

Republicans in 1992 faced a new threat from the Democrat Party, and one which ultimately proved successful for our competitors on the left to win the White House for two terms and capture a large number of the nation’s governorships.

That threat was the movement known as the “New Democrats,” led by Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Following the pasting Democrats received in three consecutive national elections with tickets led by Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, the Democrats recognized they had run out of ideas and had lost touch with a majority of Americans.

Clinton and others formed the Democratic Leadership Council to provide a new, more realistic governing philosophy for their party. Its centerpieces included a less-than-automatic embrace of higher taxes, support for welfare reform, limited support for the death penalty, free (or at least, freer) trade, and other policies traditionally supported by Republicans.

By rejecting the activist left that had steered the Democrats to three national defeats and defined the party out of… Read More

The following memo is from the California Democratic Legislative Leaders… (Maybe)

Dear Californians,

Just in case all you voters and taxpayers out there missed the news this past week, we Democrats just spent hundreds of thousands of your dollars to fight a ballot measure you passed in 2010, so that we can continue to waste your money, cater to our public employee union bosses so they’ll keep giving us campaign money, and play shell games with the budget and your lives.

You thought Proposition 25 would dock our pay if we didn’t pass a balanced budget on time…ha, ha, ha, got you.

Sorry to laugh, but let’s be absolutely transparent on this – we only put the pay-docking language in to get you to vote for the initiative. The real purpose of the initiative was to give us Democrats the ability to pass a budget without having to include those Republicans in the process (not that they would ever hold out for much). You did, and we Democrats now own the budget process.

Then, it all backfired. On the very first budget we send out after… Read More

It has been fairly well publicized that moderate GOP donor Charles Munger, Jr’s sister, Molly, has decided to make 2012 the year she stakes a major claim in California’s initiative process that her brother has navigated so frequently the past several years. Molly has pledged millions of dollars to fund an initiative that will utilize a tax increase on Californians to provide additional funding to schools. According to the initiative’s website it will raise billions in new tax revenue for school and education programs. The new tax revenues will come from all Californians, but targets the “top 1%” to carry the bulk of the burden, trying to capitalize on the latest “Occupy” movement rhetoric.

Of course Californians have repeatedly rejected new taxes the past several ballot cycles, and thanks to California GOP legislators, Californians were not asked to extend the tax hikes of 2009. Ms. Munger may very well find herself in an unintended fight with Jerry Brown’s own tax plan. So the possibility of Munger’s agenda being an immediate success may be at… Read More

One common labor union objection to defined contribution pension plans (401-k plans) is that the administration costs are “1%-3%” annually. They assert that it’s much less expensive to let CalPERS or other “experts” manage a huge pooled account.

And indeed that high 1-3% individual account annual cost would be a major impediment. IF it were true.

It’s not. Not if one makes even a rudimentary effort to control costs down to 0.2%. And in some cases, the cost can approach 0.1% a year.

No, not 1% a year. That’s ONE-TENTH of ONE PERCENT annually –TOTAL cost. And it can be even less.

Furthermore, the employer — public or private — can make and set such cost limitations for the employees. There are sensible restrictions the employer can suggest to avoid the gambler’s tendency to figuratively bet on the lottery with their pensions.

Let me add that the advice contained below is readily available for ANY investor — IRA’s, 401-k plans or just brokerage account investing of personal investments. Everyone should at least be aware of this option.

The “trick” is… Read More

Health Care is an important topic. Not just because of the obvious fact that we all need it and it directly relates to the continuity and quality of human life. But, also because it represents a major segment of our economy. And, the economic impact doesn’t just extend to medical care providers. It also affects employers, through whom most Americans obtain their health insurance if they are under 65 years of age, and the economy at large.

It will be no surprise to readers of this missive that I think ObamaCare is an unmitigated disaster. But, even if you think it was a good thing, the problems surrounding its implementation have injected even more government-created uncertainty into a major element of the economy. Uncertainty retards growth because it freezes capital, labor and decision makers. The uncertainty here is not just a result of the pending Supreme Court decision. It began long before that as it quickly became apparent that major elements of ObamaCare just don’t work. Even the White House has admitted this. Even more problematic, the provisions that the White House has already agreed not to implement have now put other parts of the law in question… Read More

Today, I voted in favor of the Interest Rate Reduction Act (H.R. 46828), legislation that will roll back wasteful Obama Care spending to pay for a one year extension of the current interest rate on subsidized Stafford Loans made to undergraduate students. The president has visited various battleground states urging Congress to prevent an interest rate spike his party set in motion in 2007. But now that House Republicans are taking action, Washington Democrats have decided to dangerously politicize and distort the facts.

House Democrats have grossly claimed that the Republican plan will “hurt women and children” because H.R. 4682 repeals the so-called Prevention and Public Health Fund, an Obama Care grant program that has become little more than a multi-billion dollar slush fund for the president to spend on his own priorities, and redirects its resources to student loan relief and deficit reduction. Democrats vehemently protest this plan while… Read More