SacBee’s Capitol Alert is reporting that the size of a "comprehensive water solution" package is well over nine billion (with a b) bucks. That is a lot of money – and a lot of borrowing.

There are a lot of water-related policy aspects at play, and not being a water policy expert, I will leave that to others to sort through.

But I do have some concerns about the size of the package in terms of raw dollars. It seems vastly expensive. I guess the first question would be how much of that package is made up of lease revenue bonds that SHOULD come to a vote of the people but often don’t. The embarrassing approval of those prison-bonds without voter approval comes to mind. There’s been plenty of time since then to put them to a vote of the people for ratification — but, I digress…

To keep me and those taxpayer advocates that I know from opposing the "comprehensive water solution" on amount-of-spending grounds, there is a very simple test that must be applied: 1. HOW MUCH INFRASTRUCTURE DO WE NEED TO BUILD?

We need… Read More

Gavin Newsom wants to lower the 2/3 vote threshold so bad that he mentions it not once but twice in his first campaign web-commercial…

… Read More

Good work from our College Republicans:

For the second time in the past month our state’s youngest activists traveled to the Bay Area to help Republican businessman David Harmer in his effort to defeat Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi for the Congressional seat vacated by Ellen Tauscher. After energizing speeches by Harmer and CRP Vice-Chairman Tom Del Beccaro, on Saturday morning just over 40 College Republicans from across California joined a dozen Young Republicans to spend their weekend walking door-to-door and making phone calls for Harmer. To show his gratitude for their hard work Tom Del Beccaro invited the groups to his home for dinner after the walk.… Read More

Last week, I launched the AD72 Special Twitter feed to provide California political junkies up-to-date with the latest in this whirlwind special election to fill the Assembly seat of the fallen Mike Duvall.

Joining me as inaugural contributors are FR Publisher Jon Fleischman and RedCounty.com contributor Allan Bartlett.

Allan was at last night’s AD72 special election candidate forum organized by the OC Young Republicans; you can read his Twittering of the event on the feed, and his related post on RedCounty.com. One thing is becoming clear, mystery GOP candidate Richard Faher’s sole purpose in running seems to be to wreck Chris Norby’s candidacy.… Read More

With a h/t to FR Friend Leigh Wolfe and Patriot Axium, we present this great, short video taken at San Jose State University where the College Republicans protested a small rally in support of raising oil severence taxes, with the guest of honor — liberal State Assemblyman Alberto Torrico.

Torrico claims his legislation will generate $1 billion to fund higher education. The bill would increase gas prices and the final fiscal report on the bill shows it will generate less than half the promised $1 billion. A study of the proposal also found that it will result in the loss of 9,000 jobs in the oil and natural gas industry in California, a state that already has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

After he speaks, Torrico is confronted by College Republican activists and pressed on his support of higher taxes in a bad economy. When asked if he was ok with putting 9,000 people out of work he responded with a clear “I’m willing (for this tax) to cost 9,000 jobs."

I should add, as a former Chairman of SJSU College Republicans, that I am particularly proud of their… Read More

According to the latest Field poll, only 13% of Californians approve of the job the State Legislature is doing.

Good luck to those that want to “reward” the polical class in the State Capitol by weakening California's legislative term limits given this “popularity” number.

How about focusing on the real problem in Sacramento, which is not term limits — it is the pervasive and corruptive political influence of public employee unions. We note with some cynicism that the public policy advocacy group California Forward includes no curbing of union influence in their list of needed-fixes for state government. Should we be surprised?… Read More

Some thoughts penned by FR correspondent Bradley Benbrook…

Why do state and local governments have public employee unions? Normal unions in the private sector organize for the purpose of negotiating with management over pay and benefits. There are two very distinct sides to the negotiating table. Not so with public employee unions. Public employee unions use millions of dollars in member dues to elect (and then strong-arm) the very same politicians who will sit across from them at the negotiating table. In other words, there is no labor-versus-management dynamic when it comes to public employee unions. In the public sector, labor has become management, and labor has predictably rewarded itself with generous pay and benefits. Of course, this only works because public… Read More

Some thoughts penned by FR correspondent Bradley Benbrook…

Why do state and local governments have public employee unions? Normal unions in the private sector organize for the purpose of negotiating with management over pay and benefits. There are two very distinct sides to the negotiating table. Not so with public employee unions. Public employee unions use millions of dollars in member dues to elect (and then strong-arm) the very same politicians who will sit across from them at the negotiating table. In other words, there is no labor-versus-management dynamic when it comes to public employee unions. In the public sector, labor has become management, and labor has predictably rewarded itself with generous pay and benefits. Of course, this only works because public… Read More