If you are checking in with us during the holidays, I would like to draw your attention today to three worthy columns… The first, right here on the FlashReport, is a commentary from Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the second a piece by California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro that appears on his Political Vanguard website, and finally Thomas Sowell’s latest “Random Thoughts” column that appears over at Townhall… All of the links are below!
RECAPPING THE YEAR FOR TAXPAYERS
Jon Coupal, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
As our planet completes another trip around the sun, we at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association join in the tradition of taking stock of what has been accomplished during the year just ending and assess what challenges we face in the coming year.
For a statewide taxpayer organization it is important to remember that what successes we achieved are made possible by our members as well as other individuals and allied organizations. So while I am about to highlight a number of successful activities by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, we thank and appreciate all who helped.
A major accomplishment by taxpayers during 2011 was driving a stake through an extension of the temporary tax increases – increases that were costing the typical California family nearly $1,200 annually – that were approved by the Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger in 2009. The higher taxes were accompanied by promises that, in return for even more taxpayer money in our already high-tax state, our political leaders would balance the budget and reform spending.
Read the full column here on the FlashReport.
BROWN’S FIRST YEAR – A YEAR OF NO REFORM AND LOST CREDIBILITY
By Tom Del Beccaro, Chairman, California Republican Party
For Jerry Brown, it was a year of no reform and lost credibility.
The first year of a new executive’s term, often with political winds and a honeymoon at his back, is the time when he has the greatest opportunity to make significant changes. Brown wasted that opportunity by not pushing for any meaningful reforms. Instead, he sent voters the bill for bailing out Sacramento in the form of tax increases.
In doing so, Brown threatened Californians with a fiscal nightmare of heavy-handed cuts to education and services unless we adopted his poorly conceived – and economically bad – tax increase. Californians didn’t fall for his tax increase and the fiscal nightmare never came to pass – as most fair-minded analysts understood it wouldn’t. Brown’s unfounded threats cost him his credibility. His bad policies left him without any significant first year achievements.
Read the full column at the Political Vanguard website here.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
By Thomas Sowell
Random thoughts on the passing scene:
Talk show host Dennis Miller said, “I don’t dig polo. It’s like miniature golf meets the Kentucky Derby.”
Nothing illustrates the superficiality of our times better than the enthusiasm for electric cars, because they are supposed to greatly reduce air pollution. But the electricity that ultimately powers these cars has to be generated somewhere — and nearly half the electricity generated in this country is generated by burning coal.
The 2012 Republican primaries may be a rerun of the 2008 primaries, where the various conservative candidates split the conservative vote so many ways that the candidate of the mushy middle got the nomination — and then lost the election.
Read the full column at Townhall.com here.