In the midst of this California blue wave debacle, I found some remarkably GOOD news. Mind you, I’m not a “good news” sort of guy.

Let me be clear: California is doomed. I don’t expect that to change for decades, if ever.

I write regularly about which states are best for fiscally sane, limited government, liberty loving Californians to flee to. Almost all are better than California, though some are MUCH better than others.

If I can talk the rest of my family into departing for another state (Tennessee is my favorite), we’ll be out of here. So far, I’m having no luck.

But I digress.

Democrats win the overwhelming majority of the partisan races in the state. And by a wide margin. That’s NOT the good news.

The good news is the voters’ response to the statepropositions. See the chart below.

While the final vote totals will change, the results are generally favorable to REPUBLICAN positions. Even where the GOP position on a prop lost, it was a close contest. This is doubtless a surprise to most of our CA MSM and politicians.

It gets more interesting when… Read More

“If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

~Ronald Reagan

Despite California’s highest-in-the-nation taxes, a couple of Assembly Republicans have allegedly agreed to vote for Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax on health plans in the State of California.

Even if Brown is able to convince health insurers, he needs a two-thirds majority vote from the Legislature. And this is where Republican votes come in. Currently, Democrats do not have a supermajority, and need to peel off a couple of Republican votes for tax increases.

Predictably, Brown has been trying to convince Republicans his health plan tax is really “tax reform.”

“This is not a tax increase, no matter what anyone tells you,” he said during his State of the State address.

“It will be pretty easy to tell if this is a tax increase, or some sort of revenue neutral swapping of one tax for another,” said Jon Fleischman, publisher of the Flash… Read More

SACRAMENTO — Balancing the economic realities of the state budget with political influences surely is a challenging task. Unfortunately, in California it is a task which few administrations have managed in recent state history.

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown announced Tuesday morning that despite a state budget surplus, his May budget revision included projected lower budget figures for fiscal year 2013-14, which begins on July 1, than for the previous fiscal year. The reasons are one-time revenue surges because of federal tax changes that last only one year; and the retroactive part of the Proposition 30 tax increase for 2012.

The result will be less program spending, but with most of the spending increases focused on schools and Medi-Cal.

“We have climbed out of a hole with a Proposition 30 tax,” Brown said, referring to his 2012 initiative which increased taxes on those with incomes exceeding $250,000; and increased sales taxes on everyone. “This is not the time to break out the Champagne,” said Brown, who still called for caution despite an uptick in the state’s revenues.

“I am pleased that for the first time since I was elected to the… Read More