This morning I read the Governor’s Weekly Address and decided that it needed a conservative response. The whole address was a “celebration” of the one-year anniversary of the federal stimulus plan. It’s hardly an anniversary worth celebrating, but considering California’s recent proclivity to beg the feds for more aid, I guess the influx of cash would excite government bureaucrats.

Throughout the speech the Governor praises the virtues of massive government spending, taking credit for putting “40,000 young people into summer jobs,” and delivering “650,000 warm meals to seniors.” Since when is the government responsible for employing young people and doing the work performed much better by private charities? Sounds a little too much like “cradle to grave” government.

The Governor also touts the $12.8 billion “being put to work in programs to both train and fund jobs,” and $13.8 billion in “programs like MediCal and unemployment.” Again, when government “creates” jobs, it is not really a productive job because it doesn’t produce prosperity, it requires private sector jobs to fund it. And with the growing government bureaucracy,… Read More

On Thursday the California Senate passed a bill, ABX8 8 that will make internet retailers with affiliates in California collect sales tax on behalf of the state. The bill is now in the Assembly for a vote on concurrence. Many good points were raised in the debate. I completely agree with the Democrats that there is a great inequity between internet retailers who sell without collecting sales tax and California retailers who have to collect the tax. However, this is a fight that cannot be won because of the nature of the internet.

When Jeff Bezos was thinking about establishing Amazon back in the ’90s, his first thought was to set up on an Indian reservation. Bezos is a wonderful, mad genius, and his sophistication has only increased. When New York passed this same mandate on Amazon last year, Amazon immediately fired all of its affiliates in New York and signed up new ones in a neighboring state. You can call it radical, but it is a great business decision that is in the best interest of Amazon shareholders. Some say the answer is a national sales tax program, but that misses the mark as well. Consider that Google is rumored to be designing… Read More

It has been well over thirty years since the landmark Proposition 13 was passed by voters on June 6, 1978, creating a “shot heard around the world” as the California measure not only implemented significant taxpayer protections here in California, but it spread like wildfire around the entire country, ushering in a wave of new policies favorable to taxpayers from sea to shining sea. Of course this measure was the brainchild of Howard Jarvis, whose passion for limiting government and preserving liberty for the people lives on today through the efforts of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA).

You would have to go back an awfully long way to find a time when HJTA was more powerful and important than it is today. There are a lot of reasons for this – including the immense fiscal challenges facing our nation, state and local… Read More

We can debate exactly what caused the near economic collapse in the fall of 2008, but clearly over leveraging and excessive risk taking by consumers, banks, and “non-banks” was a major contributor. The economy continues to have a drag caused by deleveraging and fallout from the losses incurred during that period. The U.S. Federal government prevented that collapse by putting the imprimatur of the United States Treasury on a lot of private debt in order to stop the run. It worked because the world markets had a tremendous level of trust in the full faith and credit of the United States government.

But the shoe may soon be on the other foot. Federal spending as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is now over 25%. The last time the government represented that much of the economy, we were building B-29 bombers to drop their payloads on Japan and Germany. As a result of the economic downturn, taxes collected are only about 15% of GDP (whereas 19% has roughly been the average for the last 40 years) hence the huge deficits.

And that’s only the federal government. State and local governments now comprise (roughly) an additional 10% of GDP. So combined,… Read More

I read in Capitol Morning Report that Roy Allmond, filed a candidate intention statement to run for the office of California Secretary of State as a Republican.

What I found intriguing was that according to the Sacramento Bee, State Pay Results, Allmond, works for the current Secretary of State’s Office, Debra Bowen.

So why is Allmond running to replace his boss? Is she incompetent? Where has she failed?

Is Allmond planning to resign from his current job as a protest or tp remove any hint of conflicting interests?

His opponent Damon Dunn is racking up endorsements and barnstorming the state. There is a rumor that a former Secretary of State (the kind that visits foreign countries) is going to endorse soon.… Read More

It has been well over thirty years since the landmark Proposition 13 was passed by voters on June 6, 1978, creating a “shot heard around the world” as the California measure not only implemented significant taxpayer protections here in California, but it spread like wildfire around the entire country, ushering in a wave of new policies favorable to taxpayers from sea to shining sea. Of course this measure was the brainchild of Howard Jarvis, whose passion for limiting government and preserving liberty for the people lives on today through the efforts of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA).

You would have to go back an awfully long way to find a time when HJTA was more powerful and important than it is today. There are a lot of reasons for this – including the immense fiscal challenges facing our nation, state and local… Read More

As the Fresno Bee reported, last Friday’s sold out Lincon Club breakfast forum, featuring former Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson, Current Fresno Council President Larry Westerlund, current State Senator Jeff Denham, and former member of Congress Richard Pombo was a great start to the public part of the campaign.

In promoting the forum, the Club promised hard hitting questioning, and our audience told us that we certainly met that test. Here issample of what we asked these four men:

California’s State Budget is a disaster of historical proportions, and yet you, in 2005-06 and in 2006-07, voted for State Budgets that raised the General Fund spending in California to unsustainable levels, from $81 billion to over $101 billion. The State Legislative Analyst correctly warned against the assumptions made in these budgets, and the LAO’s warnings turned out to be factually correct. We are still reeling from the fiscal disaster these budgets created. Later, in 2009, you voted to place… Read More

The Orange County Register has an excruciatingly well-researched front page story today about how members of the California Legislature use (or abuse depending upon your outlook) so called away from home "per diem" tax-free payments that are intended to defray expenses of being away from their main homes, (presumably in their legislative districts) while tending to state business in Sacramento. One of the starkest examples provided was that of millionaire Orange County Congressman John Campbell. Campbell has a mansion in Irvine. But according to the report by reporters Brian Joseph and Molly Zisk, while in the state legislature Campbell charged the taxpayers $167,070 in addition to his salary, for away from home "per diem" expenses. In this five-year period, he purchased a home in the Sacramento suburbs for $300,000. He paid cash for the home. When he was elected to Congress, he sold the home for $665,000. The Register article claims Campbell tripled his personal investment by leveraging tax-free taxpayer supported per diem… Read More