There’s a common presumption that the more money government spends on a program the better the outcome. This simply is not so. And nowhere has the failure of massive spending been more evident than California’s education system.

California spends more money on education than any other program in the state — roughly half of the entire budget. Last year, in fact, taxpayers spent close to $69 billion on education.

What has this bought us?

California’s academic performance ranks among the bottom ten in the nation. Drop out rates are appalling. In Los Angeles, home of the largest school district in the state, for every student who graduates, another one drops out.

If additional money were the answer, why do we have so many cases of education’s abysmal performance? To illustrate the point, Elk Grove and Sacramento City Unified, the two largest districts in Sacramento County, enroll similar numbers of English learners, but Elk Grove outperforms Sacramento City by nearly 10 percentage points in English and eight percentage points in math. At the same time, Elk Grove receives nearly $2,200 per student less than Sacramento… Read More

The California Tax Commission is coming close to finalizing a package of so-called reforms to the way Californians pay for their government, and to my amazement, a center-piece of the current likely proposal is what is called a Business Net Receipts Tax (BNRT), which is similar to a value added tax. As proposed, it would apply to all businesses in California, expanding the scope of what is currently taxed in the state from just goods now to services.

This particular element of the Commission’s proposal is clearly something that should be excised. It is criticized from the left this morning in a thoughtful piece from Jean Ross of the big-government supporting California Budget Project over at CalBuzz, and right here on the FlashReport conservative Michelle Steel, one of the two Republicans on the State Board of Equalization, takes the BNRT proposal to task in a piece broadly concerned with the pending report of the commission. Joel Fox also pointed out the concerns of the BNRT to… Read More

The California Tax Commission is coming close to finalizing a package of so-called reforms to the way Californians pay for their government, and to my amazement, a center-piece of the current likely proposal is what is called a Business Net Receipts Tax (BNRT), which is similar to a value added tax. As proposed, it would apply to all businesses in California, expanding the scope of what is currently taxed in the state from just goods now to services.

This particular element of the Commission’s proposal is clearly something that should be excised. It is criticized from the left this morning in a thoughtful piece from Jean Ross of the big-government supporting California Budget Project over at CalBuzz, and right here on the FlashReport conservative Michelle Steel, one of the two Republicans on the State Board of Equalization, takes the BNRT proposal to task in a piece broadly concerned with the pending report of the commission. Joel Fox also pointed out the concerns of the BNRT to… Read More

John Diaz the Chronicle’s editorial page editor has written an interesting and thoughtful column about the dysfunction in the Legislature. He accurately points out that repealing term limits, and going to majority votes for taxes will not solve anything unless other changes take place. If Legislators want to gain more public approval for their actions it will not come by giving them more power. Diaz suggests a number of common sense improvements: no ghost voting, no vote changing, no vote add-ons, let the record of votes stand; no expunging records so that actions disappear; no fundraisers during deadline weeks if for no other reason it is distracting; and not tolerating absent legislators from votes. His suggestions are good ones. But I have more. Bills should be in print for 72 hours before they are voted on. The worst part of legislative mindset is that the end justifies the means. If a legislator has a bill that will save the world or end the common cold, or mandate kindness it still does not justify waiving all the … Read More

Some tidbits, moments of brilliance and just plain funfrom the past seven days…

Politics 101 of the Week… He will forever be known as Hot Mic Duvall, but whether the resigned California assemblyman was telling tall tales of exploit out of turn, or being the male Anaïs Nin of the legislature, the incident did result in more than a few snickers from several corners. "Overheard" on Facebook from an unknown original source is this profound political lesson:

"Always know when the microphone is on. Oh … and don’t have affairs and stuff like that." Sports 101 of the Week (or, a lesson on the ones you don’t take home to mom)… My message to a San Diego Chargers defender regarding his recent alleged domestic flap with a reality TV "star":

"Hey Shawne! First clue this would mean… Read More

Around 6am this morning, the California legislature adjourned from its regular session. Needless to say, the Democrats who control the majority in both legislative chambers, near as I can tell, produced nothing helpful in their final legislative push. With the state’s economy in the doldrums, so many opportunities to pass legislation to stimulate the economic through tax or regulatory relief were rejected (Republicans authored these ideas, to have them dismissed by the liberal ideologues who see taxing and regulating the people they represent as some sort of dogmatic quest). On the contrary — we saw notable bills such as ones to ease incarceration for prisoners, and more regulations on the energy sector that will result in higher consumer costs. Oh yes, and the water crisis remains a crisis as the Sierra Club completely trumped common sense, with the Democrats amazingly producing a water bill that includes no new water storage… (Kind of like saying you fixed the leak on a boat by replacing the canopy.)

We’ll have more coverage on the end of the session, and our team is already working on our annual… Read More

Around 6am this morning, the California legislature adjourned from its regular session. Needless to say, the Democrats who control the majority in both legislative chambers, near as I can tell, produced nothing helpful in their final legislative push. With the state’s economy in the doldrums, so many opportunities to pass legislation to stimulate the economic through tax or regulatory relief were rejected (Republicans authored these ideas, to have them dismissed by the liberal ideologues who see taxing and regulating the people they represent as some sort of dogmatic quest). On the contrary — we saw notable bills such as ones to ease incarceration for prisoners, and more regulations on the energy sector that will result in higher consumer costs. Oh yes, and the water crisis remains a crisis as the Sierra Club completely trumped common sense, with the Democrats amazingly producing a water bill that includes no new water storage… (Kind of like saying you fixed the leak on a boat by replacing the canopy.)

We’ll have more coverage on the end of the session, and our team is already working on our annual… Read More

After consultation with many fellow supporters of my proposed change in the California Republican Party Bylaws, I made the very difficult decision just a few minutes ago to withdraw the change.

To make a long story short, while I am confident that the votes were there to pass the change at the convention, the matter was becoming extremely divisive due to a lot of misinformation being spread about the proposal, and its effects.

The reality is that as long as someone can register Decline To State and elect to vote in either major party’s primary, we will continue to see the percentage of DTS voters steadily increase at the expense of party registration. Both political parties are going to eventually have to confront this issue head on.

My sincere appreciate to the hundreds of CRP Members who had indicated their support, and just because we will not be pursuing this important change this month does not believe we will now ignore the deteriorating effect of the status quo on our party registration.

I will close by saying that a political party cannot long endure if it focuses only on winning elections without thought to being prepared to do so… Read More