California’s Democrat legislators must be salivating. To be so close to redistributing another roughly $1400 per family straight out of their budgets and into the state budget must be tantalizing to them – because, as everyone knows, politicians in Sacramento know how best to spend the money earned by working Californians, right? Never mind that we are in the middle of very difficult economic times, when raising taxes by this massive amount with be the deciding factor on why some California businesses close, why jobs are lost, why houses go into foreclosure, and more.

Fortunately for California taxpayers, Republican lawmakers get it. They understand that there is never a good time to raise taxes, and that there are certainly worse times to do so – and this is one of those times. The drive that Democrat lawmakers, and Governor Schwarzenegger, and a handful of GOPers have to pass this Big 5/Big Taxes budget plan that notoriously contains over $14 billion in new taxes on cars and car registrations, as well as sales and income taxes is amazing.

Last night, as he adjourned the State Senate until 10am this morning, State Senate President Darrell Steinberg… Read More

The Senate has adjourned without a vote with session called for tomorrow at 10am. Democrats gave a lot of floor speeches blaming Republicans for the consequences of inaction. But we should note for the record that the votes have and continue to be there to 'right size' state government. Funny how the union-tool dominated left won't put up all of the billions in spending reductions that everyone agrees to without gauging taxpayers with more taxes. How much you want to bet most MSM papers blame Republicans, instead of the Democrats, for lack of progress? I don't think the votes are there tomorrow either for the Big 5/Big Taxes deal…

Taxpayers owe Senate Republicans a debt of gratitude — today their taxes didn't go up.… Read More

The State Senate, after many delays throughout the day, is now in session. The fact that instead of voting on the Big 5/Big Taxes plan, liberal Senators are using their microphones to whine, is a good sign. Perhaps we can soon start some real discussions about how California government can live on the approximately $90 billion that will come in this year…… Read More

[Cross-posted from OC Blog]

Capitol Alert just posted an article about Sen. Abel Maldonado naming the price of buying his vote for the largest tax increase in state history:

A blanket primary in which the top two vote-getters make the general election. Denial of per diem to legislators if they don’t pass a budget on time. A ban on legislative per diem and pay increases in budget deficit years. Removing unspecified pork from the budget package.

Gosh, can Maldonado’s litany be any more transparently self-serving?

Abel wants to run statewide in 2010, and knows that voting for a $14 billion tax hike makes him a dead-candidate-on-a-stick in a closed GOP primary. Apparently, he believes he’d fare better as a tax-hiker in a blanket primary — although I think he’d be just slightly-less dead meat even in that set-up.

Demands… Read More

"I’ll oppose higher taxes…" proclaimed then Assemblyman Lou Correa in a letter (see it here) he mailed to Central Orange County voters as he made his case for why he, and not his opponent, should be elected to the State Senate. If his promise, emphased in boldfaced text, in a personally signed letter to voters wasn’t emphatic enough, in terms of where Correa promised he would be on tax increases, then there was the glossy full-color mailing, with the words emblazed on the front: "Where I stand on… Taxes." Open up the mailing (see it here… Read More

Benjamin Franklin spoke these words 222 years go at the Constitutional Convention, but he may as well have been commenting on the rhetoric coming from those trying to foist a $14 billion tax hike on Californians to pay the the recklessness of our rulers:

Hence, as all history informs us, there has been in every state and kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing and the governed; the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the princes or enslaving of the people. Generally, indeed, the ruling power carries its point, and we see the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes, the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partizans, and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who … Read More

It’s no secret that business and residents are leaving California in record numbers. But don’t listen to me. Read this column by Bill Steigerwald, a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

And to get a better idea of just how bad the film industry is suffering in California, read this Daily News article where writer Troy Andersonreports " the percentage of studio feature films shot in California has dropped from 66 percent in 2003 to 31 percent last year, said Amy Lemisch, executive director of the California Film Commission."

The story goes on to say: Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said California needs to become more competitive.

"People in California are just sort of sitting back, not understanding the implications of this, and if we’re not careful, this is another industry that could slip away from us, just like aerospace did," Kyser said.… Read More

Associated Press reporter Steve Lawrence’s latest article on the budget mess is here.

In it is a quote from Senate President Darrell Steinberg, where he throws the proverbial gauntlet down against Republican legislators. "We’re going to come back at 11 o’clock tomorrow morning, and we’re going to stay and we’re going to work again and we are going to come back every day until we get this done," he said. "This will get done, and it will get done with the framework that has been presented to you as a result of 90 days of work by your elected leaders."

It’s time for our elected leaders, Senator Cogdill and Assemblyman Villines, to hold a press conference and say that because Republicans, as a team, are not supportive of this plan, it is time to end the "lock down" and return back to the… Read More