$200 billion for State bailouts – supported by GOP Governors. $42 billion in California State deficits – undera "GOP" Governor. State GOP Assembly members signaling willingness to increase taxes. Is it any wonder the GOP is at post Watergate lows? Contrary to some our critics, both inside and outside the Party, we have not been "too conservative". In fact, we have not been conservative at all – which is why we are in the shape we are in.

I have been heartened by the US House GOP and their unanimous opposition to the bailout. News analysis of this development has been incorrect. This has not been a partisan drill – but a vote for survival. The truth of the matter is that any GOP elected official voting for a bailout will be subject to a primary challenge in 2010 – and any GOP Assembly or Senate member will be subject to the same. Its time for the base to enforce the last issue we have left – taxes and spending.

Its also time for the State Republican Party to get off of the sidelines and quit dreaming about any progress unless we are active participants in a public campaign to praise our… Read More

(If this post seems familiar, we’ve used the "Disneyland" analogy below before, as this isn’t the first time that the liberals in the media have "lept" onto a briefly worded survey to assert informed public opinion.) As FR contributor and public opinion pollster Adam Probolsky likes to say, a poll is only as good as what you ask, and to whom you ask it. So I was quite amused to see so much enthusiasm erupt from the liberal media and left-wing Democrats when the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released their latest survey response — where PPIC declares that the public supports (hold onto your chair) HIGHER TAXES.

If you go to Page 27 of the full report of the PPIC… Read More

(If this post seems familiar, we’ve used the "Disneyland" analogy below before, as this isn’t the first time that the liberals in the media have "lept" onto a briefly worded survey to assert informed public opinion.)

As FR contributor and public opinion pollster Adam Probolsky likes to say, a poll is only as good as what you ask, and to whom you ask it. So I was quite amused to see so much enthusiasm erupt from the liberal media and left-wing Democrats when the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released their latest survey response — where PPIC declares that the public supports (hold onto your chair) HIGHER TAXES.

If you go to Page 27 of the full report of the PPIC survey, you can see the actual questions asked to those surveyed. What is most instructive if you read it is… Read More

Per the San Diego Reader, 14 of San Diego County’s 18 cities are attempting to manage upside down budgets, with nine having shortfalls in the millions.

Since that Jan. 21 story, the Chula Vista City Council has voted 4-1 to conduct a May mail ballot for a one percent sales tax increase. John McCann was the lone nay vote. The special election will cost the region’s second largest city $250,000.

Chula Vista joinsthreeother citieswith recent local sales taxes measures, El Cajon, La Mesa and National City, all of them passing.

Don’t expect any of this to change soon. Underlying the fiscal problems is a dysfunctional system in which cities must rely mostly on sales tax revenue while the bulk of the locally-generated property taxes flow into state coffers. Anytime the economy turns sour and sales taxes are down as a result, municipalities suffer, while Californiagovernment continues to have its own blind-to-reality problems, often resulting in further State actions to transfer local monies to cover its fiscal ineptitude.

Theother… Read More

Politicians will look for any port in a storm. A recent Riverside Press Enterprise column talked about a conversation between the Governor and Assembly Anthony Adams where the Governor reportedly laughed and said that Adams now knows how Schwarzenegger feels when he is on John and Ken, relating to Adams conversation with the talk show hosts about his "openness" to voting for a tax increase.

Adams, of course, is looking for allies wherever he can find them, and, of course, the Governor is a good ally. The problem Adams faces is the same one the Governor faces. The Governor has already publicly indicated his desire to break the promises he made to get elected Governor. Adams needs support because he also wants to break his promises, and he knows that, if he does, he is in trouble, the same trouble as a Paul Horcher or a Doris Allen or a Brian Setencich. These notorious oathbreakers sought power under false pretenses by cutting unholy deals with the Democrats, and lost that power at the hands of Republican voters. Adams, who is a nice guy, could have the same thing happen to him. So he seeks any port in the storm, this time, the port he is seeking is… Read More

Dick Morris had a piece in the New York Post saying Obama’s stimulus proposal will hurt the GOP politically. Only three percent of all federal income tax payments come from the poorest half of the country, and the Obama plan will funnel more than $50 billion to the lowest half of the country, thereby wiping out any remaining federal tax liability. In most cases, it would trigger a “refund” welfare check. Morris thinks blue collar Americans will no longer be receptive to the message of tax cuts after the Obama stimulus gets delivered. I disagree.

Morris is missing the point that the working people pay far more in other government fees and taxes than they do in income taxes. The Bush tax cuts already took millions of lower income people completely off the tax roll. Those cuts now make it easier to focus on how much a typical lower or middle income American gets withheld out of every paycheck through payroll and other taxes. The proposed Obama tax credit giveaway probably just covers social security taxes for working people.

I agree with Morris that GOP-inspired tax revolts of the… Read More

I was looking through some of the clippings for the week this morning and read several Republicans talking about Democrats moving us towards socialism. What is happening might indeed might be considered some degree of movement towards socialism, but the language itself is old hat and has no real meaning to anyone who can’t remember the communist threat – just about everyone under the age of 35, a group that the GOP is having real problems with generally. To some degree I don’t think it really has much emotional value to most people older than that. I thought the same thing when I heard our Presidential ticket saying the same thing or something similar. Communism is in the ash heap of history, and with no threat to the western world from that source it just falls flat, whatever the reality.… Read More

Ordinarily, I’m not one to get much excited about news involving the party-out-power this soon after a presidential election. Finding out who’s keynoting the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner, for example, is about as earth-shattering as new of, oh,the Dodgers’ new Assistant G.M. Newsworthy? Yes. Will we be talking about it a year from now? Not likely.

That said, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect onthe news out of Washington: the selection of Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The choice was not just historic — Steele being the GOP’s first Africa-American chair, chosen less than weeks after the swearing-in of the nation’s first African-American president. It could turn out to be an important early step in digging the GOP out of its current bind as the nation’s minority party.

Off the top of my head, here are four reasons why Steele seems the right choice:

1) He’s battle-tested Steele twice sought statewide office in Maryland — winning a race for Lieutenant Governor (making him, at the time, the nation’s highest-ranked… Read More