Recently re-elected Dana Point Councilwoman Lisa Bartlett promised four years ago she wouldn’t raise taxes. Then after she won her first election, she pushed thru a new annual one million dollar a year bureaucracy of new city staff and added pension liability for a “tourism district” in the six square mile city. This new City bureaucracy is funded by a $3 a night tax that is added to the 18.75% in taxes tourists already pay to visit Dana Point. When combined, all the taxes and fees tourists pay in Dana Point exceed those imposed even in New York City hotels. CRA volunteer Craig Alexander helped sweep Bartlett’s tax raising past under the rug and she ended up endorsed by the county GOP for re-election. But county GOP chair Scott Baugh caught wind of that ruse, and asked Bartlett about her record, a few months ago, and the understanding is that she promised to never raise taxes again. Well, Bartlett promptly tarnished her GOP credibility again week before last, when she walked out on a City Council vote to extend the same hotel tax and city staff bureaucracy to serve the “tourism district”. She did not address the agenda item and did not… Read More

Given the results of this last election, this may be just me spitting into the wind, but it needs to be said. Given their votes in this last election, it appears that a majority of Californians like endless, unaccountable bureaucracies, and are willing to give bureaucrats more power. History shows that the dynasties of Chinese empires collapsed under the weight of unaccountable bureaucracy. California appears to be headed for the same fate, and the only way to stop it is to educate Californians with anecdotes about bureaucracies out of control.

I started this story a few months ago, when I told of my personal story about the FPPC (who, as I said, should be called the Kommittee to Grow Bureaucracy, or the KGB for short). Yes, they have filed charges against me, and yes, they are asking for $15,000.00 in fines for three supposed violations of campaign finance law. My violations? I missed filing some campaign finance reports in 2008 (long after I left office) for a committee that collected no money, and I failed to terminate the committee. I happened to be out of the country that year, trying to earn money so I could pay more… Read More

In California, voters just ensured the continuation of 4 years of public policy work on creating a low carbon economy by voting “No” on Prop 23. Apparently, Californians want to lower our carbon footprint, and yet, on any given day I can sit at the Starbucks near my house in Pleasanton, and watch enumerable garbage trucks carrying waste from San Francisco down the 580 east, emitting carbon and all kinds of air pollution throughout the Bay. For a city that touts its recycling rate as one of the highest in the nation, they are still sending a lot of garbage and greenhouse gas emissions to their neighbors. It makes me wonder how San Francisco, and other urban areas in the state will comply with AB32. Will the carbon they emit by outsourcing their trash be transferred to rural areas of the state? I certainly hope not. … Read More

No matter who you talk to everyone agrees — California’s finances are totally screwed up. Whether you are on the ideological left, fretting over what the sour economy means for social spending, or on the right, concerned about how the private sector will recover without regulatory relief from onerous state regulations and taxes –there is consensus around the idea that state government is in turmoil.

In the private sector, unemployment in California is in double-digits. A lot of people are out of work, and many others are taking big pay cuts. In the public sector, we are seeing workers furloughed and increasing pressure to reduce the size of the state workforce.

So you have to wonder, with this as the backdrop, what decision-making process goes through the mind of dozens of legislators who have gone off to Kauai and Maui for a pair of "conferences" at resort hotels, with their expenses being paid for by either "non-profits" funded by big… Read More

The California Fair Political Practices commission will be holding a public hearing tomorrow on twelve new areas of political campaigning that it is considering regulatory changes. Most of the proposals are actually good ones. But a couple are real stinkers (see below). The meeting will start at 1:00 pm Wednesday, November 17 at the FPPC headquarters in Sacramento, and will be held simultaneously by teleconference in Los Angeles at the Center for Government Studies, 10951 Pico Blvd., Ste. 120.

The new areas of regulation and the proposed additional regulations include: streamlining and improving access to electronic filings (a good idea); simplifying forms and reports (a good idea); streamlining deadlines for filing and making more sense of them (a good idea); increasing campaign finance thresholds (a good idea); create on electronic filing system that includes state and local election jurisdictions in one system (a good idea if it does not drive up the cost of compliance at the local level); improve ability to terminate old committees (a good idea); harmonize filing deadlines for different types of committees (probably a good idea);… Read More

John Fund in today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail… … Read More

This editorial appears in today’s Wall Street Journal… (Take note of section we bolded at bottom…) The Fannie Mae Republicans Some born again reformers were once the company’s defenders. A major task for the next Congress will be rewriting the laws governing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and House Republicans have now won a seat at that table. Which makes it all the more important that their seat not be occupied by Members who were once powerful defenders of the toxic mortgage twins. … Read More

What happened to the Central Valley?

We’ve heard for years about the man-made water shortages, high unemployment, localLatinopoliticians switching to the Republican party and how unpopular are the democrats. The only problem is that 5 key counties failed to vote.

Where was the gusto ?

The statewide average of registered voters is about 55%. Yet Fresno [44.7%], Kern [53.1%] , Merced [50.9%], Stanislaus [50.7%] and Tulare [42.5%] didn’t pull their respective weights. Some Republican power bases performed well, such as Ventura [59.5%] and San Diego [ 60.3% ! ].

Had the 5 central valley counties voted at 55% , we might have a new congressman Andy Vidak. Steve Cooley would have netted an additional 30,000 votes. Today, Cooley is behind some 14,000 votes.

… Read More