What’s wrong with this picture? California has the sixth largest economy in the world, but our highway system ranks 42th out of 50th states per the Reason Foundation’s most recent Annual Highway Report. That does not make any sense.

Along the lines of things that do not make any sense, the California Democrats have rolled out their new transportation package. The plan seeks to raise fuel taxes and user fees for motorists. But it doesn’t stop there. It also calls for a new tax based on a vehicle’s value and a new tax on zero-emission vehicles.

This is wrong and I will not support such a plan.

Furthermore, the hard-working taxpayers of our state should not shoulder the cost of this plan’s reckless and irresponsible spending increase. They have suffered enough.

The Golden State already has the nation’s highest sales and personal income tax, and the nation’s fifth highest gas tax. This plan would just be another burden to our working families and make living and doing business in California increasingly more difficult.

The California Department of Transportation spends roughly $10 billion on transportation-related expenditures. So… Read More

SB 2 (Atkins) hurts families struggling to maintain homeownership, places a significant financial burden on middle-class Californians and weakens the integrity of the land records system – one of the mainstays of our free enterprise economy.

Since 1850, California’s County Recorders have managed and protected the integrity of land records while preserving and defending public access to the information in their care. County Recorders collect a nominal fee on every document recorded to cover the direct cost of providing this valuable service.

SB 2… Read More

What is it with progressive politicians who believe that taxpayers won’t change their behavior because of tax policy? One would think that repeatedly seeing pie-in-the-sky revenue projections from big tax hikes that fall way short of reality would be a wake-up call.

In trying to project the impact of tax hikes on government revenues, the failure to account for predictable changes in behavior is called “static scoring.” And since many progressives mindlessly hew to this method of analysis, let’s call it “static cling.”

Static scoring is different from “dynamic scoring.” Dynamic scoring simply means taking into account predictable changes in behavior that result from tax increases (or tax cuts) to accurately project the amount of money that will be raised.

To read the entire column, please click here.… Read More

California’s infrastructure problems have taken front and center over the last month, but there is another example of the legislative schizophrenia hovering over the Golden State.

One legislator wants to lower the voting age in California from 18 years old to the age of 17, while another wants to raise the age of issuing a full driver’s license from 18 to 21. In short, one liberal believes minor childrenof our state are “mature” enough to vote in an election, while the other believes they are too immature to operate cars until they reach the ripe old age of 21.

Enter a note of sanity. California Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) has introduced the Voter Integrity Act of 2017. The measure allows voters to present eight different forms of identification to officials to receive a ballot during an election. It also allows a voter without proper ID to get a provisional ballot and even authorizes a free registered… Read More

A teachers union video released this week by Project Veritas shows a California teachers union covering up for abusive teachers.

In the video, a San Francisco teachers union official admits he has hit students before, but “made it look like an accident.”

The video, a continuation on a multiple-year-long investigation of various teachers unions across the country, shows Antonio Mankini, the… Read More

As Proposition 13 approaches its 39th birthday, it is still subject to the same dishonest attacks in the media that were used against it when it was on the ballot in 1978. Proposition 13 was one of the first victims of “fake news.”

“The bigwigs in labor and business went all out to defeat 13,” said its principle author, Howard Jarvis. “They tried to outdo one another in issuing doomsday prophecies about what passage of 13 would mean.” The media slavishly supported the exaggerated and dishonest claims, often endorsing them through editorials and by giving prominent placement to negative stories on the tax revolt.

The politicians, including Gov. Jerry Brown, and government agencies from top to bottom weighed in. Here is a typical example: Before the election, Alameda County Transit told the public that passage of Prop. 13 would result in the termination of 80 percent of its 2,000 employees. Two months later, the Fremont-Newark Argus reported on the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 13, “To date, no one in the district has been laid off and officials now believe there will be no massive layoffs.” The paper added that three local fire districts… Read More

The California Legislature never ceases to amaze with some of their most creative, imaginative schemes to tax, regulate, and mandate small businesses and taxpayers in new ways. It’s a dangerous game—one minute, we might joke in passing about how California would love to figure out a way to assess property taxes on a satellite orbiting the planet—and the next minute, the County of Los Angeles tries to do just that. The legislature reminds us to be careful what we joke about.

In just the first three months of the new 2017-18 legislative session,… Read More

California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin De Leónis facing another scandalous issue.

A letter from Sen. Andy Vidak (R-Hanford) spelled out an appalling episode, in which several fruit growers whom Hall allegedly threatened, on the eve of his confirmation hearing to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

Vidak said he personally heard from several witnesses that on the eve of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules committee, that ALRB Commissioner Isadore Hall, “in an obscenity-laced tirade, threatened to use his position to ‘get’ several farmers who oppose his confirmation. The incident occurred at the Hyatt on February 28,” Vidak wrote.

Feb. 28 was the date of the California Fresh Fruit Association Annual Government Relations Trip in Sacramento. In the evening, many of the members met in the bar at the Hyatt, where they were confronted by former Senator Hall.

I also heard about Hall’s “obscenity-laced tirade.” I was told Hall said, “Are you… Read More