Treasurer Bill Lockyer caused waves last month when he suggested that given Republican lawmakers’ opposition to higher taxes, their districts should bear the brunt of spending cuts. He said, “The people who want less government ought to be at the front of that line to get less government.”

Senate Democrat Leader Darrell Steinberg expressed openness to the idea, saying, “You don’t want to pay for government, well then, you get less of it.” He added that any district-targeted cuts should not hurt “kids or the vulnerable” but instead be limited to “convenience services that affect adults.”

Outrage to the proposal—appropriately so—came fast and furious.

Senate Vice-Chair Bob Huff said the proposal was “just nuts.”

Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation compared the idea to the strong arm tactics of an organized crime protection racket. He also suggested it might violate the equal protection guarantees found in both our state and federal constitutions.

Even the Los Angeles Times called the plan “ham-fisted and wrong.”

Mr.… Read More

Overtaxed Californians will find little to cheer in the Governor’s revised budget proposal.

Despite the Governor’s concession to postpone higher income taxes for a year, he continues to push for legislative approval of higher sales taxes and car taxes this year.

And although the Governor dropped his effort to abolish enterprise zones—and the jobs they create—he continues to miss the big picture: Californians need jobs, not higher taxes.

Our best hope for new revenues isn’t higher taxes, but new jobs fueled by a recovering economy. Unfortunately, the Governor has yet to truly lift a finger in the fight for California jobs.… Read More

GOP Leadership responds to Governor Jerry Brown’s May Revision of his Proposed Budget…

Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton and Senate Budget Committee Vice Chairman Bob Huff (jointly) “Senate Republicans believe Governor Brown is moving in the right direction by making education and law enforcement funding a top priority. We also applaud the governor for embracing Republican proposals of paying down state debt and providing some job-creation incentives.

But the May Revise goes too far on taxes and not far enough on reforms.

Rather than curbing government spending, the governor’s revised budget still sets the state on a course of excessive spending growth in the future – spending that relies on tax increases.

With $6.6 billion in new revenues, Republicans are right – we don’t need, and it’s ridiculous to… Read More

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that Governor Brown today renewed his call to smack working Californians and their families with increases in the state’s income, sales and car taxes (with a delay of implementation of the higher income taxes until next year). Fortunately I believe that the Governor’s request in this regard, both to place these taxes on a special election ballot, and his further request to actually vote to implement new taxes on sales and car taxes starting July 1st, are DOA with legislative Republicans.

Look, every Republican legislator to whom I have spoken is painfully aware of the difficulties that present themselves when there is a significant scarcity of resources to fund state government services and operations. But they also will point out that the recession is not just taking place inside of state government, but that the people of this state are going through extremely difficult economic times. Right now, the top priority of legislative Republicans is doing everything possible to spur on private sector job creation — which is largely about trying to get state government out of the way. Clearly increasing… Read More

Housing Finance Reform: Housing is an enormous sector of our economy. We never go into recession without housing leading us in. And, we never come out without housing recovering. Arguably, part of the reason that our current economic recovery is so tepid is because the housing recovery is very weak. When you consider the construction of new houses, the sales of existing houses, the construction and remodel and renting of apartments, the home improvement industry and so forth, it represents a tremendous amount of employment, economic activity and is fundamental to a standard of living. And, none of it moves without adequate financing. Hardly anyone buys, builds or improves a house or apartment paying cash. Pretty much everyone needs to borrow some money.

The method under which most people borrowed that money during the last 70 years was through the assistance of the “government sponsored enterprises”, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, it worked pretty well for most of those 70 years. But, as we all well know, both enterprises failed rather spectacularly in 2008 and were a major component of the economic crash that year. The… Read More

This week, the California State Assembly will be voting on legislation to enter California into an interstate compact that would allow the state to participate in a change in how it would award its electoral votes. Rather than the current winner-take-all system which does not exist in the Constitution, California would agree to award its 55 votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Four times in our nation’s history, the winner of the national popular vote has not become President, and in fact, a switch of just 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would’ve elected John Kerry as president – even as George W. Bush had 3 million more votes.

As a lifelong conservative activist and professional political consultant, I strongly support National Popular Vote. It is good for Republicans, it is good for conservatives, it is good for California, and it is good for America. Many conservative leaders including former California Senator Ray Haynes and former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Fred Thompson – an accomplished constitutional attorney, have also endorsed the compact. Republican leaders such as former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and former Utah… Read More

Late last week Republican legislators laid out a blueprint for a way to adopt a balanced budget for California that does not require increasing taxes. It is unclear whether Governor Brown, when he gives his remarks as he proposes his May Revision to his proposed budget, will ignore the road map presented to him by Republicans, or simply scoff at it. Either way, it’s pretty well accepted that Jerry Brown will continue on his quixotic quest to jack up broad based taxes on Californians just when they can least afford it – right in the middle of a recession. In fact, Brown is not just looking to find four sell-out Republicans willing to place massive tax increases on the ballot — he actually wants four GOP legislators to actually increase the taxes that expire on June 30th (except for the income tax, supposedly). Yeah, good luck with that. Republican resolve is strong to see a solution to this situation that does not punish Californians for the negative impacts of liberal policies on this state for decades.

That said, apparently one very minor part of Brown’s revised budget will be a proposal to abolish the California Unemployment Insurance… Read More

For many reasons, I believe in a part-time legislature and a part-time Congress. One of the reasons is that I don’t think there is enough to do for policy-makers so they find ways to occupy their time and justify their existence. If all they did was go to the capitol to work out an annual spending plan, their year would end far too early to create mischief in the lives of every day Californians and we might forget that they are there.

Evans v. Calderon

Liberal Senator Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) attacked one of her Democrat colleagues earlier this month for saying that the attractive Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, is “attractive.” How dare he!

Evans, who likely resents the fact that the term isn’t frequently applied to her, took time that I guess I would expect is better applied to solving our enormous budget deficit to pen a nastygram to Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) demanding an apology and that Justice Cantil-Sakauye “be taken seriously and not spoken about in such a dismissive and frivolous manner.”

Sen. Evans is being frivolous with her time and dismissive of… Read More