So, you haven’t heard from me in a while. Maybe you thought my computer crashed or I don’t love you anymore. But, neither is true.

The whole debt limit debate and compromise was very tense, very sensitive and very important. Going “over the cliff” was simply unacceptable. As I have explained before, we were never in danger of default. The government was going to pay interest on the debt and could issue new debt to pay off maturing notes. But, it would have required a 50% reduction overnight in non-interest government spending, which would have been very difficult to do. But, more importantly, fear heading towards panic was showing up in markets. That panic would have led to another financial meltdown, maybe not as bad as 2008, but certainly bad enough to plunge the nation and the globe back into deep recession. But, this time it would be completely government-made.

We could not let this happen. But, neither could we just extend the debt limit without showing the markets that we were making progress towards getting these deficits under control. If we did that, the markets would set their own debt limit by not lending us any… Read More

Big Labor and their liberal allies don’t like the initiative process in California because it challenges their choke-hold on power in this state in their perpetual control of the State Legislature. Of course, their policies have been failures. But they conveniently avoid taking responsibility, with the help of the MSM, by throwing out blue-smoke and mirrors and for example, blaming an utterly failed educational system, despite trillions of tax dollars dumped into it, on “California’s dysfunction”. Those are liberal code words for blaming the initiative system, which is the only check on their power other than the Governor’s office.

Now the liberals and unions are feeling even more threatened, as initiatives are being promoted statewide and locally to equalize their power and do good things like reducing taxes and stopping forced contributions of workers to liberal union’s political committees. So to counter those efforts at an early stage, they are buying advertisements that are intended to dissuade the public from engaging in their constitutionally protected right to petition government, which is a “hyper”… Read More

Next year’s showdown between Todd Spitzer and Chuck Devore was supposed to be a big battle.

Two former Legislators. Each having represented a solid portion of whatever will eventually become their Supe District.

It was supposed to be a big fight.

But looking at the fundraising numbers, the only thing that’s big is the disparity between the reports.

Todd raked in almost 100-grand, giving him just over 1.1 million Cash-On-Hand. Devore, by contrast, raised just shy of 70k, spending half of that, leaving him not even 40k COH.… Read More

I am pleased to report that the FlashReport has been named in the Washington Post’s influential “The Fix” section as one of the top-state level blogs in America. Chris Cillizza of the WPost called out for nominations across the country for influential political blogs in each state. FR scored top honors along with lefty CalBuzz blog. Also featured from California were the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert Blog, the San Francisco Chronicle’s California Politics Blog,… Read More

Seems the young guns got it going on.

In just 25 days of the first reporting period for the 2012 San Diego mayor’s race, two young Republican candidates blew doors on the established competition with more than $300,000 cash on hand. Early predictors felt sure the mayoral primary would be a $1 million race. At this rate, we might be looking at $1.5 million.

Late yesterday, it was reported that Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher raised $320,000 between June 5 and June 30, with a $1,000 personal contribution. San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio tipped the scales at $274,000, which he matched dollar-for-dollar for a grand total of $545,000. By contract, current Mayor Jerry Sander’s candidate, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, raised $157,000, which included a $10,000 personal loan.

Accounting for… Read More

“Huh?”

That was my response when I saw that the California State Assembly, as an institution (read: Speaker John Perez), has refused to make available to the public the individual office budgets of members of the lower chamber.

Such hubris. Perhaps someone needs to remind the Speaker that the funds being spent by the legislature have been provided by California taxpayers, who should be able to understand exactly how their tax dollars are being spent.

I could understand withholding information if its release would, say, put someone in harms way (as might be the case with some funding to the Central Intelligence Agency). But this is the state legislature!

Apparently there is no legal requirement to provide the information (which was requested by the Sacramento Bee). The legislature managed to exempt its own records from the Public Records Act which is the law that requires that state and local agencies have to be transparent.

Nevertheless, even if there is no legal requirement to be forthcoming with the precise details about how the State Assembly spends every dime of its budget, there certainly is a moral one — it is the… Read More

I like to point out to people that elections have consequences. The bigger the office, the more consequences there are – and the election of Jerry Brown as Governor has already meant bad news for Californians, as he governs this state from the left. One of the Governor’s most significant powers is the authority to sign or veto legislation. Brown signing bad bills into law is not really surprising – for example, his signing of the so-dubbed “Dream Act” was something that he had promised to do on the campaign trail.

That having been said, in just the last few days, Governor Brown has used his veto powers to nuke several bills that I had assumed he would sign –terrible bills that (apparently) were so bad that Brown vetoed them – undoubtedly angering some liberal constituencies.

One such bill vetoed by the Governor was Senate Bill 168 by Senator Ellen Corbett. This bill, sent to his desk on a party line vote, would have made it illegal for petition circulators to be paid by the signature. The legislation was clearly intended to make it harder to qualify statewide ballot measures. In vetoing the bill, brown cited that the bill would favor… Read More

Editorial boards and newspaper columnists are quick to assign “greed” as the motive driving Amazon, eBay and others to oppose a new law aimed at making more out-of-state online retailers collect sales tax on behalf of the State of California. But the greediest actor in this drama isn’t Amazon —- it’s the government.

You see, online retailers didn’t pick this fight. State lawmakers did —- out of misguided lust for revenue they’ll never see.

Put aside the rhetoric and consider the facts. Under the U.S. Constitution, state lawmakers can’t compel out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax unless those retailers have a physical retail presence —- known as “nexus” —- in our state. Californians are supposed to pay use tax —- the equivalent of sales tax —- on out-of-state purchases, but few do.

It works the same way in reverse. California businesses making out-of-state sales in states where they have no brick-and-mortar retail presence don’t have to register with the tax bureaucracies in those states, collect and remit sales tax or be subject to audits. In five states where Amazon collects and remits sales tax, many California… Read More