Governor Jerry Brown announced today that the budget was $1.4 billion in deficit. At the end of last year, the state announced that it was giving state employees a raise which would cost taxpayers over $2 billion over the next four years. Do you think there is a connection?

A story ran locally in Southern California saying that over 105 employees in Santa Monica, a medium sized city, earn over $300,000 a year. The Governor of the state of California earns $174,000 per year. If you do the research, you will find that there are over 200 state employees that earn more than that

When I was deciding what I wanted to do in my younger years, my mother told me I should go to work for the government, good benefits she said. I knew I would be bored and would die young if I became a government drone. My little sister listened to her. Today, my little sister is retired on a great government pension, I still fight to pay my taxes. Given the pay that even the lowest government official receives, my mother was right.

Our government pension system is over $500 billion upside down. Retired state employee health benefits add an additional $300 billion or more to… Read More

Even with “the most progressive tax system in the United states,” California Gov. Jerry Brown is facing huge deficits, and cannot balance the state budget. The huge $180billion state budget proposal for 2017-18, may be another record budget but for millions of Californians, it’s still record stagnation and less income.

Brown has presented yet another budget fairytale that will have $5.8 Billion in deficits over the next three years – even with the recently passed ballot tax of $10 Billion in new tax revenue. And the budget does little or nothing to pay down more than $240 billion in state debt.

Why? Because personal income tax, corporate, and sales tax projections are… Read More

Ajust released studycalculates the total state and local government debt in California as of June 30, 2015, at over $1.3 trillion. Authored by Marc Joffe and Bill Fletcher at the California Policy Center, thisupdates a similar exercisefrom three years ago that put the June 30, 2012 total at $1.1 trillion. As a percent of GDP, California’s state and local government debt has held steady at around 54 percent.

For a more detailed analysis of how these debt estimates were calculated, read the studies, but here’sa summary of what California’s governments owe as of 6/30/2015:

(1) Bonds and loans – state, cities, counties, school districts, community colleges, special districts, agencies and other authorities – $426 billion.

(2) Unfunded pension obligations (official estimate) – $258 billion.

(3) Other unfunded post-employment benefits, primarily for retiree health insurance – $148 billion.

This total, $832… Read More

In any comparison of California and Texas, the issue of job creation should be a major factor to consider. Not surprisingly, since the start of the 2008 recession, Texas has been doing a terrific job, while California is only now recovering from its deeper recession — a problem exacerbated by the anti-business taxes and regulations in the Golden State.

Indeed, Texas pulled the entire country out of the recession sooner, in large part because of the Lone Star State’s excellent business climate ant the resulting robust job market.

… Read More

Liberals excitedly point to the so-called “California miracle” — the relatively healthy rise in the Golden State’s prosperity as measured by recent GDP increases. And yes, the state has done well these last four years. But that’s been primarily a rebound from its deep, painful recession — a recessionworse than almost all other states experienced.

Sadly, this boasting by progressives is cherry-picking at its worst (or best, I suppose) — the selection of a narrow time frame. Instead, we should look at the GDP growth of the Golden State over the FULL recession cycle — from the end of 2007 through 2015 — and compare CA with the progressives’ nemesis state — Texas.

GDP (trillions)***** 2007 ********* 2015 *** % Increase

California ********* $1.999 ****** $2.225 ******* 11.3%

Texas ************* $1.179 ****** $1.630 ******* 38.2%

Not even close. Over that time frame, Texas has grown more than THREE TIMES FASTER than California. Actually 3.4 times… Read More

For fiscal conservatives and free market advocates, the national elections in 2008 and 2012 brought no small measure of disappointment. In its eight-year run, the Obama Administration imposed a host of new taxes – including several as part of the failed “Affordable Care Act” – and, just as egregious, nearly doubling the national debt from $10 trillion to over $20 trillion.

Those who advocate for lower taxes, property rights and less burdensome regulation understood and begrudgingly accepted that “elections have consequences.” (As President Obama was known to brag). So it is now with amusement – if not outright schadenfreude – we are watching progressives across the nation, and especially here in California, melt down in shock and disbelief.

Particularly frustrating for Progressives is their growing realization that many of the policies and actions of the last eight years that they jammed down the throats of conservatives and center right citizens from “fly-over” country are now coming back to haunt them. For example, former Democrat Senator Harry Reid from Nevada changed longstanding Senate rules regarding how many votes it would take to stop… Read More

As my regular readers know, I was NOT a Trump fan during the election. I voted for Gary Johnson, and had nothing but unkind words for The Donald.

But since the election, Trump has been making many smart decisions (“smart” is defined here as agreeing with me). I still have BIG reservations about a couple of his policies — notably his desire to start another trade war. Other than trade, most of his domestic policy positions AND most of his nominees for the cabinet have been first rate.

In contrast to my guardedly supportive conversion to Trump’s election, the left has gone bonkers in what can only be described as an orchestrated campaign of hate and disruption. They’ve raised (or perhaps lowered) the bar for the “sore loser” designation.

School kids’ are used as pawns by the education establishment — encouraging their charges to run free to protest Trump’s election, at considerable taxpayer cost (paying for education that is not being provided). Democrat luminaries and “artists” are encouraging street demonstrations against Trump’s election — when he won fair and… Read More

Ok, I admit. I titled this article in a way to encourage people to look at this post, so they would think what the heck is this guy talking about, and how did this end up on this site?

First, I have to say, too many of my conservative friends are way too negative. They always look at the negative side of things. The Reaganesque optimism that made conservative values so preeminent in the last two decades of the last century didn’t stick. Most conservatives who claim the Reagan mantle are not pleasant people to be around, because all they do is complain. They never see the bright side of life, they never look for the positive. Since I am an optimist, I wanted to find the bright side of having Barack Obama as our President, and I found it. So, I am here to praise him.

What is that bright side, you ask? Very easy, no one since Ronald Reagan has done more for the conservative movement than Barack Obama. Let’s be honest, in 2008, when Obama took over as President, the movement was in crisis. The Republican Party had rejected our principles, the Republican establishment had reasserted their control over the party, and conservatives in general were… Read More