Controller John Chiang released a new actuarial report last week that shows California faces a $51.8 billion bill to pay for health and dental benefits for state retirees.

The unfunded obligation as of June 30, 2009, grew $3.6 billion from $48.2 billion in the prior year. Unlike state pensions, which are covered by pre-funding and investment returns, California pays for retiree health benefits on a pay-as-you-go basis as the costs come due each year.

The State would need to contribute $2.8 billion in 2009-10 to fully fund its obligation. But Controller Chiang did not go far enough. These are contractual obligations that legally are more important than regular legislative budget appropriations. Chiang should announce that he will prioritize what checks to write to make sure that contracts are honored.

The report can be found … Read More

On February 26, conservative Marco Rubio, former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, will be in Southern California for a series of fundraisers in San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles.

Speaker Rubio has become a national cause for conservatives, as well as Tea Party activists, in what has been characterized as a battle for the future of the GOP. His Republican primary opponent is Governor Charlie Crist, who after leading in polls by as much as 37% after his announcement, now trails Rubio by 14%.

Rubio was written off early and his fundraising, as a candidate opposing a popular sitting governor, was shaky. However, Marco remained focused and started winning county GOP straw polls by wide margins and the MSM took notice that all was not well with Gov. Crist’s standing with the base of the party. Fundraising started to… Read More

Many FlashReport readers are no doubt aware of the fine work of longtime columnist and writer Dan Weintraub. Dan’s career has spanned multiple newspapers, most recently he left the Sacramento Bee and is doing some writing for the New York Times. While Dan is not an ideological right winger, per se, he often ends up sounding that way in many of his columns because conservative ideas, put into practice, work — and Dan’s figured that out. He’s thoughtful, thorough, and insightful. OK, he’s also my friend. All of that said, Dan is today launching a new endeavor. But rather than having me explain to you all about it — I reached out to Dan and he has penned this piece below, telling you what he is up to! Read on, and then check out his new website! — Flash

Saturday mid-day I sent an email out to fellow California Republican Party Central Committee Members, inquiring if they would like to see the GOP candidates for Governor, Attorney General, and U.S. Senate invited to debate at next month’s State GOP Convention in Santa Clara.

You can see the e-mail that I sent out here.

I have not sent out any follow up emails (not wanting to be a pest). Still, I’ve been impressed that over a holiday weekend I have heard back from around one out of every five Central Committee members.

In that e-mail, I said that I would keep folks up to speed on the results of my informal survey… Read More

Yesterday mid-day I sent an email out to fellow California Republican Party Central Committee Members, inquiring if they would like to see the GOP candidates for Governor, Attorney General, and U.S. Senate invited to debate at next month’s State GOP Convention in Santa Clara.

You can see the e-mail that I sent out here.

In that e-mail, I said that I would keep folks up to speed on the results of my informal survey periodically. So below is the first update. NUMBER OF CRP MEMBERS RESPONDING SO FAR: 211 (Roughly 15% Of All… Read More

This year the Republican Party is poised to make major gains in congress and those of us in California should be proud that one of our own, Congressman Kevin McCarthy, is right in the thick of it.

I had the great pleasure to work with Kevin when he served in the Assembly and I was in the Senate. I respect his skills and count him as afriend.

The Daily Beast blog just did a feature on Kevin and what he’s been doing on our behalf. You can read it here – or just below. The Right’s New Rock Star

With expectations through the roof, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the GOP’s top talent scout, is recruiting the candidates he hopes will win back the House.

Yesterday we carried a column on the FlashReport from longtime FR friend Villa Park Councilwoman Deb Pauly that was extremely critical of GOP Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman on the issue of paycheck protection.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of attention to detail on the part of the team here, that piece did not indicate that it was submitted to the FlashReport by the Poizner for Governor campaign, or that Deb was a backer of Poizner.

We here at the FlashReport take our business very seriously, and felt that this oversight needed to be corrected (the column if you go back to it is now correctly annotated) and a formal statement placed here on the blog.

Look for plenty of more pieces on this website that are hard hitting, that’s the nature of politics. But look for us to do a better job of letting you know from where the hit is coming.

Our apologies.

Jon Fleischman Publisher, The FlashReport… Read More

[Cross-posted from RedCounty.com]

Readers may recall that a few months ago we had to toss one of our contributors, Aaron Park, who used this blog to continually flack for the Steve Poizner for Governor campaign, but refused to disclose to readers that he was being paid to do so by the Poizner campaign. Even when given the option of continuing to blog for Red County — with the proviso that he disclose that he worked for the Poizner campaign when writing about Poizner — Aaron refused because disclosure would cause the Poizner to cut off their payments.

Recently, Aaron has been trying to rehabilitate himself by waging a dishonest campaign of personal attacks against myself and Chip Hanlon. Lately, he’s trying to equate Whitman buying blogads on Red County with his acting as a paid Poizner advocate on Red County without the knowledge of red County or its readers. It’s an absurd and untrue comparison…which is why I was surprised that Calbuzz but down hard on Park’s bait.

Calbuzz is a blog run by Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine, who consider themselves to be veteran journalist and… Read More