I am pleased to commend a great and funny film by Nicholas Tucker. The movie is called "Do As I Say" and is based on a bestselling book compiling the hypocrisy of politicians, actors and other activists who demand that others pay “their fair share” in taxes while they take full advantage of ways to avoid paying them. The film is an official selection of the Sacramento Film & Music Festival and will be shown at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, July 28 at the Crest theatre in downtown Sacramento. I make a brief appearance in this clip .

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As I write this, it remains uncertain whether or not we will be voting on the socialized medicine bill next week. Regular readers know that I am a numbers, financial, and economic guy, as betrayed by my CPA certification. As important as these issues are, we are now presented with an issue even more vital. The socialized healthcare bill being considered by the House will likely result in tens of millions of Americans dying sooner than they otherwise would have to.

When the free-market, doctors, and patients are taken out of health care decisions, and the care is paid for by somebody else, the establishment of an organization to ration care is inevitable. In fact, the legislation creates the National Institute of Comparative Effectiveness. As benign as it may sound, this is the bureaucracy that will be used to ration care. A similar institution exists in Britain, and has the rather ominous acronym of NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Experience). Rulings on whether people live or die are made frequently in Britain and Canada, and if you have a pre-existing condition, are elderly, or for some reason deemed ‘unfit’ for a life saving procedure, then your… Read More

Businessman and former Republican Gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon, Jr., has endorsed Meg Whitman in her campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor. Simon will serve as a Co-Chairman of Whitman’s campaign, and as a Senior Policy Advisor.

"Meg Whitman’s success in business grew from her conservative fical principles and solutions-based leadership," says Simon about Whitman. "Meg believes lower taxes and smaller, more efficient and effective government will generate jobs and bring prosperity back to California. Her beliefs and experience make her the best candidate to lead California’s economic recovery." Simon’s endorsement is most significant because in his campaign for Governor in 2002, he ran in both the primary and general elections as an unubashed conservative, endearing himself to many of the State GOP’s grassroots activists.

**There is more –… Read More

Businessman and former Republican Gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon, Jr., has endorsed Meg Whitman in her campaign for the Republican nomination for Governor. Simon will serve as a Co-Chairman of Whitman’s campaign, and as a Senior Policy Advisor.

"Meg Whitman’s success in business crew from her conservative fical principles and solutions-based leadership," says Simon about Whitman. "Meg believes lower taxes and smaller, more efficient and effective government will generate jobs and bring prosperity back to California. Her beliefs and experience make her the best candidate to lead California’s economic recovery."

Simon’s endorsement is most significant because in his campaign for Governor in 2002, he ran in both the primary and general elections as an unubashed conservative, endearing himself to many of the State GOP’s grassroots activists.

In the 2008 GOP Presidential primary, Simon was in the top brass of the campaign of former New York Mayor… Read More

You have to chuckle just a bit when you read about the fact that the Obama Administration and California are at odds over the issue of the ability to use student achievement as a measure for rating the effectiveness of teachers. Apparently at stake are some federal dollars for California’s education system because California is one of a few states that actually has a law (no doubt passed with the considerable helf of one of the state’s largest public employee unions – the California Teachers Association) that actually prohibits using student achievement to rate teacher performance. Read about it in the Los Angeles Times here.

First and foremost, how lame for us here in California. It makes NO SENSE to not have as a factor (and perhaps as the largest factor) in assessing a teacher their ability to sucessful get their students to learn. Do we have a law that says you cannot judge an auto-mechanic based on their ability to fix cars? Or how about determining if an attorney is doing a good job based on whether they win their cases? Oh… Read More

You have to chuckle just a bit when you read about the fact that the Obama Administration and California are at odds over the issue of the ability to use student achievement as a measure for rating the effectiveness of teachers. Apparently at stake are some federal dollars for California’s education system because California is one of a few states that actually has a law (no doubt passed with the considerable helf of one of the state’s largest public employee unions – the California Teachers Association) that actually prohibits using student achievement to rate teacher performance. Read about it in the Los Angeles Times here.

First and foremost, how lame for us here in California. It makes NO SENSE to not have as a factor (and perhaps as the largest factor) in assessing a teacher their ability to sucessful get their students to learn. Do we have a law that says you cannot judge an auto-mechanic based on their ability to fix cars? Or how about determining if an attorney is doing a good job based on whether they win their cases? Oh… Read More

In baseball, they call this time of year "The Dog Days of Summer", the period between early July and early September when the weather is hot, players get tired and many of the hopes and dreams of the season are dashed. In Sacramento, we have our own version, only we just call it the state budget process.

So with the latest semester of the State Legislature’s clown college on summer break, let’s take a look at some other issues that fall by the wayside when we’re concerned with, you know, possibly going bankrupt.

No one ever mentions all the radical fringes that have significant sway in Sacramento. I don’t just mean the jackbooted thug state employee unions or even the teacher’s association that claims to represent underpaid educators, but somehow found $1… Read More

There has been a lot of conversation taking place, especially on the GOP side, about the billions of borrowing from local governments that takes place in this current budget deal.

Let me start out by saying that if I were to articulate the biggest problem with it — it is the "borrowing" part of it. The last thing that the state should be doing, if we are going to solve our chronic budget woes, is borrow money that has to be repaid (I guess this applies to education as well). Ideally you want to cut state spending to match available revenues — and we already know the state is maxed out on taxes. In the case of the education piece, I would put a repeal of Proposition 98 on the ballot…

Anyways, once we get past the borrowing problem, you get into the question of "from where" you are borrowing the money — for the purposes of this diatribe, local government.

As a taxpayer, I guess being the simple guy that I am, I had a ledger with only two sides — my money, and the money I give to government. I don’t distinguish what… Read More